CADFORCE Leverages Bluebeam Revu to Streamline the Delivery of Project Information Directly From BIM

Background

In 2011, construction began on the $208,500,000 Inpatient Tower renovation project at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Medical Center Campus in Los Angeles, California. The Inpatient Tower is slated to be completed in early 2013. Years earlier during the master planning stage the project owner, the Los Angeles Department of Public Works (LADPW), had kept the project documentation in traditional CAD format. By the middle of the scoping phase, LADPW made the decision to transition the project into Building Information Modeling (BIM). In order to make this transition seamless, CADFORCE, an architectural services provider that specializes in deploying innovative technologies, was brought on to oversee the BIM development. As LADPW’s representative, CADFORCE oversaw the coordination and delivery of all documents generated from design through construction and project turn-over, ensuring that owner’s requirements were met. To further facilitate this process, Bluebeam^® Revu^® was utilized as a management tool for the project’s massive repository of PDF files.

Managing a Seamless Transition to BIM

Since BIM was deployed during the middle of the design phase of this project, CADFORCE was tasked with managing the transition from using traditional 2D CAD files to an entirely new scope of 3D data generated from Revit^® design and Navisworks^® coordination models. To ensure a seamless transition for the MLK Inpatient Tower project team, CADFORCE created a BIM execution and management plan which defined:

• How the design team would develop models.
• How the construction team would use these electronic models.
• How project information would be turned over to LADPW.

The BIM execution and management plan also established that the following deliverables will be turned over to LADPW (after CADFORCE’s thorough review):

• Contractor As-Built Documents, consisting of traditional, paper-based documents such as drawings, submittals, specs, etc. used by the contractor during the construction process. Augmented electronically through the use of PDFs, these files are a mixture of hard and soft copy files.
• Contractor As-Built Models, consisting of 2D and 3D models generated from a variety of sources, including NavisWorks and 3D CAD files provided by the contractor.
• Designer Record Revit Models, consisting of the architect’s and structural engineer’s model updated from in-field changes.
• To organize the distribution of this myriad of BIM and non-BIM data with project team members and the owner, CADFORCE is leveraging Bluebeam Revu, a PDF-based collaboration solution that enables users to review, markup, edit and collaborate on 2D and 3D PDFs.

For example, the Contractor As-Built document deliverables will be cataloged through Bluebeam’s hyperlinking technology. The Contractor As-Built Models will be developed into selective 3D PDFs for operations, and Bluebeam Revu will be used to cut and link the sheet views from the designer record Revit model, facilitating the permit drawing package from the Revit model.

Enhancing Information Management With Bluebeam Revu

To date, Bluebeam Revu continues to play a key role in the management and delivery of all 2D and 3D PDF-based documents coming from the As-Built model and Record Revit deliverables. CADFORCE is utilizing Revu’s Links feature-which enables users to hyperlink areas of a PDF such as a detail to a specific page within a PDF, a snapshot view within a PDF, a file attachment or a manufacturer’s website-to hyperlink relevant information coming out of the models to create coherent sets of “smart” documents. For example, if the team wants to highlight the location and details for all air-handling units, they simply plot out the PDF sheet views of the As-Built drawings and hyperlink each unit in the drawings to all PDFs containing the information associated with those specific air-handling units. As the project moves into the future operations phase, these documents will include the product and manufacturing details, cut sheets, and field logs where all required and completed maintenance will be tracked and updated.

Revu’s Links feature is used to link the master drawing set to:

• 3D PDFs generated using Bluebeam’s plugin to Navisworks which illustrate changes and the placement of components within a specific area, such as a mechanical room.
• Equipment plans, where pieces of equipment in a drawing are linked to a delivery and installation schedule.
• Finish plans that specify wall and floor finishes, as well as where and when they are to be placed.
• Door schedules that link to the exact location of where a door needs to be installed and indicates the size, type, and special requirements of each door.

In addition, Revu’s PDF markup tools have been used to annotate the drawings with industry-standard comments and symbols comprised of text, highlights, shapes, clouds, callouts and measurements. All markups are automatically tracked in the integrated Markups list, so the commenter’s name, date and time the markup was placed can easily be identified. As the project begins the punchlist phase, the team is using Revu’s redlining tools-in particular, its PunchKey™ symbols-to help capture and digitize the punch process of the project. Finally, the team plans to use these dynamic PDF documents to create electronic Operation and Maintenance Manuals (O&Ms) to hand over to the builder owner at project completion.

Results

By utilizing Revu, CADFORCE has kept the BIM files from becoming an inaccessible artifact to a client who doesn’t have access or expertise in BIM software. Using Revu, CADFORCE has enabled continuous updates to be generated out of the model for leveraged sharing and downstream access, allowing project team members and the owner to stay informed and engaged throughout the lifecycle of the project. Furthermore, the use of Revu will continue through to final turnover and operations, enabling a new set of stakeholders, the facilities and operations staff, to utilize the robust data which makes up a BIM file, enabling the successful development of a sustainable “Lifecycle BIM” program.