Delivering Impressive Performance and Increased Efficiency
Hilson Moran Redefines Project Efficiency With Revu
With 40 years of experience within the build environment, Hilson Moran has embarked on a digital strategy to completely transform its workflows. A key tool in this initiative is Bluebeam Revu—an award-winning PDF creation, editing, markup and collaboration technology designed for the engineering and construction industry. Bluebeam Revu has provided the engineering consultancy instant time-saving dividends when handling contractor drawing and technical submittal reviews, whilst converting the firm’s paper-based traditional workflows into digital solutions.
Why Go Digital After 40 Years?
“There is no doubt the digital revolution has now arrived in the construction industry and it is starting to make a real impact. User-friendly software like Bluebeam Revu is at the forefront of this change,” observes Hilson Moran’s digital champion, Director Vince Ugarow.
“Our users actually see the benefit of Revu,” explains Finance Director Roger Waters-Duke. “Our engineers say it actually makes their life easier, and that’s part of why the product is the quickest software to ever be adopted at Hilson Moran. We went from 10 licences a year ago to 229 licences now across the whole company.”
Rolling Out Revu
The forward-thinking management team at Hilson Moran first introduced Revu to a small innovation team and implemented the software on PCs, laptops and Wacom tablets. The same design and construction information previously found on sheets of drawing paper could now be seen on screens and tablets, giving this group of employees the degree of familiarity to explore and innovate new workflows, before actually trialing it on a sample project. After finding first-time success in using Revu on a peer review for a very large residential development in South London, Hilson Moran began implementing the software across the company.
Training Time
Hilson Moran organised a tutorial with an external trainer for first-time users to help them become familiar with the features. After a few larger overview sessions, the staff broke out into groups of five. These groups were trained extensively, and eventually colleagues began teaching each other Revu features and shortcuts. “I used it experimenting with the different tools and features just to get an idea of how the different things worked,” says Mechanical Design Engineer Stephen Atemie.
Workflow Innovations
One of the unique features Hilson Moran credits to the quick success of implementing Bluebeam Revu is the ability to make customised tool sets within the program. “Each department has their own tool sets, so mechanical and electrical engineers can each drop their respective drawing symbols into drawings, which makes marking up and sketching much, much quicker,” declares Mechanical Design Engineer Will Major. “We have actually created some custom tool sets which are considered Hilson Moran tool sets for specific tasks. These can range from very simple line types to detailed engineering symbols that we all use, ensuring consistency and quality,” adds Ugarow.
A popular workflow that Revu makes easy for Hilson Moran is the design review process. Atemie explains the early workflow: “Before, you would get sent the drawing—say from an architect or a client—and you would print it out, make your markup in your sketches on the drawing, and then scan that back onto the system which, depending on the quality of the scan, might not necessarily show all the details that you want. Then, if you needed to make changes again, you would print off the scanned version, draw on that, and then scan that back into the system, which, each time you do it, would reduce the quality of the drawing, and use a lot more paper.” Atemie, and the whole firm, now prefers the paperless way.
“Bluebeam Revu has massively helped my project work. It has made me much quicker and more efficient, and I think a step towards a paper–free office is definitely a good thing.”
Hilson Moran Mechanical Design Engineer Will Major
Revu features like Batch Overlay, which allows multiple pairs of file revisions to be easily compared, are popular, while markups and custom tool sets round out Revu feature favorites.
Waters-Duke remains optimistic in how much further digital solutions will take the company. “We are looking to use Bluebeam Studio to allow us to collaborate between our UK, Abu Dhabi and Qatar offices for much more seamless collaboration.”
Measuring Success
Waters-Duke has seen the positive side of implementing digital solutions for the engineering consultancy. “When I first joined Hilson Moran ten years ago, there were drawing boards everywhere,” he says with a laugh. “Everybody still did everything on large printers, and our printers were slow. Therefore, it took a lot of time to print out drawings, mark them up, scan them and then return them to an architect. Today with Revu, we are now able to streamline that process, and it allows us to electronically mark the drawings and return them to the architect without ever having to print them, which also not only improves our efficiency, but also improves the environment.”