Bradley features Revit familes for the Enclosed Safety Showers in the Bradley Emergency Fixture Revit Family Library.Bradley ESS units feature emergency eye/face wash and drench showers; that include hot water heating units to meet tepid water standards.

The Bradley Enclosed Safety Shower Revit family components feature a semi-transparent, lightly shaded "clearance box" box. Dashed red lines appear in the plan and elevation views.

1. The 3D clearance box assists with the design-construction BIM clash-interference detection and coordination.
2. It helps the designer to design the space with adequate installation and maintenance clearances for this movable equipment.

A Revit subcategory named "Clearance" is assigned to the clearance box. It is located in the Revit View Visibility (VV or VG) dialogue box under "Plumbing Fixtures".

• The Revit designer can toggle ON/OFF the visibility of the clearance box in the view.

The ESS Revit family has additional Revit subcategory visibility settings with the prefix of "ESS". They are also are located in the Revit View Visibility (VV or VG) dialogue box under "Plumbing Fixtures".

1. The designer can toggle On/Off the visibility of the roof, walls and floor.
2. This enables the designer to easily place ESS product options; Bradley Tankless Water Heaters and EFX Emergency Eyewash/Shower Revit components into the ESS cabinet.

How much Revit Project Content, Methods, Procedures, Standards and Communication Processes are you harvesting at the completion of every Revit project?

Harvesting Revit content and documenting the 'Lessons Learned' from Pilot Projects is common; when firms first implement Revit. However, as firms grow confident producing projects in Revit; they tend to reduce or discontinue the post-project 'harvesting  process'. 

At the end of a project, the team may lack time to find and use content to finalize the project.

This results in standards and/or procedures; that may not be followed. A final team debriefing and Project Process Review is a recommended method to harvest reusable content, successful team processes and communications. 

The project review identifies content and processes; that may need to be added, revised or removed from the firm's project delivery method.

Show Me the Money.

Project Teams disband quickly as the project is completed. This protects the project profitability by removing all unbillable staff as-soon-as-possible. So where's the money? ... when we suggest a labor-dependent process to review and harvest content & standards from a finaized project?

The money is derived on future, more efficiently run projects; that are more profitable. These successful projects and teams are referenced to market and obtain additional new projects. 

The BIM project harvesting process mimics portions of the Manufacturers' Playbook.

There are three (3) processes; that manufacturing and facility construction projects utilize to document 'lessons learned' to become more efficient, marketable and profitable:

1) Manufacturing teams have a Product Delivery Process; that mimic many design-construciton teams' Project Delivery Processs.

2) Manufacturers' Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) share numerous processes; that are similar to a construction Project Lifecycle Managerment. For example, consider the similarities between Lean & Green Manufacturing and Lean & Green Construction.

3) Manufacturers' continuous improvement programs are ongoing review processes; improving both product & process for the life of the product. The harvesting of construction project Content, Standards and Processes is very similar goals & outcomes.

Manufacturers assign small project teams  for various aspects of designing and producing the product. This includes engineering improvements, product testing, material selections, manufacturing techniques & processes; that also include customer quality surveys and product case studies.

Likewise, design-construction projects are not 'one and done' events. Reviewing BIM projects for content, procedures, methods & standards will yield better future project outcomes. 

Here are a few processes I've taught and commonly implemented with corporate BIM Managers to maximize their BIM investment. 

 BIM Project Content Harvesting

Projects' pre-built content ("the money") can be extracted, reviewed, edited, stored and reused in the standard Revit library for future use. This will minimizes future design teams looking for content that have already been discovered, tested and used.

This includes;

1. Revit Component Families (RFA files)

2. Revit System Families (walls, ceilings, stairs)

3. Construction Details (Revit Drafting Views) 

4. Revit Schedules - those used for Construction Docs and those used for tracking project status

5. Transfer Project Standards to Project Template

6. Building Product Manufacturers' Revit Content

7. Material types, family types, graphic standards: line patterns, line types, dimension & text styles, View Templates, etc

The Bradley BIM Team maintained time and cost records for building the Bradley Revit Family Library from the summer of 2009 to December 2011.When I survey the Revit family modeling costs, relative to the processes we used to build Bradley's 1000 Revit Families; it reveals the "real value" in cost savings for each pre-built Bradley Revit Family Model.

Each pre-built, Bradley Revit model, can typically save a trained and knowledgeable BIM Manager between $150-$250 of labor costs.

Whoa! How did you arrive at that dollar value?

I arrive at this value, by combining these 2 assumptions with our 7 standard steps (below) for properly constructing a Revit family model. In fact, these are the initial steps I teach every professional; that needs to properly create Revit family models.

 Assumption #1: I set my BIM Manager costs at $75 / hour; realizing the manager has real costs for hourly wage, software, equipment and benefits. The manager should have a billable rate (cost) for creating project Revit families (project billing cost) AND company standard Revit family library (billed back as overhead to reduce future project costs). I identify these costs as an organization's BIM Assets.

#1 - Building Product Manufacturer (BPM) Website Hosts BIM Files

Typically, a Building Product Manufacturers' (BPM) Marketing Department creates BIM files to promote the specification of their products; within their clients’ BIM design projects.

While BIM files promote the manufacturer’s brand; successful pre-built BIM files provide real cost-savings to the BPM's design + contracting customers. BPM BIM files provide the manufacturers' distribution network with digital planning tools to assist designers + contractors' with their project product selection process.

Logically, a Marketing Department should choose the building product manufacturer's website as the first and best location for file-hosting of their BIM files.

1. Links to the BPM's digital design files (BIM, CAD, Specifications, Product Tech Data Sheets) should be prominently displayed on the front page of the corporate website

2. Indicate the BIM file-types of your products for your clients to download. (Revit, ArchiCAD, Vectorworks or Bentley BIM files)

3. Within the BIM Library, populate product images, contact links, product warranties, construction specifications and tech data sheets around your individual BIM files.

Fact: Designers expect to find and search for a BPM's BIM files on the BPM website, first. They assume the most current files are located on the BPM website with all supporting documentation.

Tip: Do not syndicate the BIM Files with BPM BIM File Library Websites or BIM File modeling service websites; until the BIM library is completely hosted on the BPM website.

For example, our corporate BIM Library website annually delivers more than 6 million Revit model downloads to our visitors. Collectively, four different BIM Libraries that host \ syndicate Bradley Revit models, achieve only 10% of our total annual website downloads. 

The Bradley BIM library was hosted on our corporate website for 18 months; prior to adding other BIM Library services. BPMs want the majority of ALL visitor traffic to come to the BPM website. Links to the BPM BIM library files, should NOT take their visitors to their BIM Library; that is NOT on the BPM website.

#2 - Know Your Client Market & Design Tools

Where are you selling the majority of your products? USA? Europe? UK? Middle East? China? Australia?

What BIM software are your design and construction clients using in your major sales market(s)?

Greetings & Welcome to the Bradley BIM Revit Resource Portal

 Daniel Hughes | Bradley Corporate BIM Strategist 

The Bradley Revit-BIM Family Library has more than 1,000 Revit Family Models; representing 10′s of thousands of Bradley Corporation's Commercial Plumbing Fixtures and Washroom Accessories Products.

I encourage BIM and VDC Managers to visit the Bradley BIM FAQs Page.

It provides a technical overview of Bradley's Revit modeling standards and quality assurance procedures.

• For technical assistance with the Bradley Revit Library, please visit our Contact Us Page.

• Speaker or Article requests may be submitted through the Speaker-Author Page.

• Bradley BIM Academy Onsite \ Online Class requests via Education-Consulting Page.

A Blank Revit Screen Can Be Challenging for New Revit Users Once They Leave Class

Below, are common training experiences, that owners and BIM managers have shared with me; after they sent their staff to Revit 101 Basics Training.

We sent our staff to 3-days of basic, Revit 101 training and when our staff returned; they

• couldn't start a Revit project from a Revit template.

• didn't know how to load a Revit family from a folder.

• weren't sure how to print Revit Views & Sheets

• created TEXT for a room name; without realizing how to insert a Revit Room Tag.

• understood only a few options for creating & editing dimensions.

• lacked basic competency for using placing views & sheet layout process.

• weren't sure how to create Drafting Views or loading of Drafting Family Components.

• couldn't edit Revit wall placement or components by editing Revit dimension values.

• were unable to start or setup a basic Revit schedule.

• could place lights, but couldn't start or edit a custom reflected ceiling boundary

• had little experience with basic editing commands (copy, mirror, offset, align, rotate)

• felt the instructor was very Revit knowledgeable; however the training process did not deliver the results of self reliance.

Stop and consider these points when you interview the Revit consultant, trainer or training company that will deliver your Revit 101 training processes.

My Sourcceable.net BIM article features a creative, business development strategy for any firm to transition from AutoCAD to Revit. More than 15% of my clients initiated and completed this lower-cost Revit implementation strategy; that spans one year.

This process minimizes the initial staff training costs and non-billable time. It positively engages the owner- executive team as we utilize existing software inventory --while limiting the new equipment investment.

--- Key to Lowering BIM Software and Implementation Costs ---

The process features a "Plan B" -- for if or when the initial Revit team is feeling overwhelmed by a tight schedule and can't complete the project in Revit.