Last Friday 10 local construction experts gave up their Friday off day to visit our offices. Why? word of mouth across companies spread the message that there would be a chance to find out more about BIM concpets and why ‘lean’construction techiques are having such an impact.
Vico Office is a different way of working with BIM models. Used for much more than visualization, Vico Office extends the basic 3D model with constructability analysis and coordination, 4D scheduling and production control with flowline principles, and 5D estimating. If you missed out contact us to learn more and read the articles on this blog site, or vist You Tube and see the many demos there.
Let me touch on just one part f the Vico Office Suite that will provide a rapid payback for any construction company.
Before you can get any benefit from 3, 4 or 5D BIM you need 2D drawings to start with. Vico Doc Set Manager is an innovative solution for collating and comparing thousands of construction drawing sets. We refer to Doc Set Manager as our 2D BIM solution because a successful 3D BIM model starts with identifying changes in the 2D drawing set.
Each project team uses the Doc Set Manager to store their drawing sets and to ckly identify either any missing pages, o r pages on which there have been changes.
Using the mark-up tools, users can quickly cloud and comment on the changes, and assign additional investigation and follow-up to team members.
Does Doc Set Manager automatically highlight the changes?
Yes, it will highlight the changes; it will highlight any line work that has been manipulated or touched in any way. It is up to you to decide “will this highlighted change impact the project?” – only you and your team can decide that.
Where does Doc Set Manager store the DWGs?
Doc Set Manager is a collaborative tool that supports local area networks. This means you can locate the DWG or PDF file anywhere in the network. You just need to make sure that all project members have access to the network.
How does the drawing compare with sheets vs. xref’s?
Comparing DWG with xref is possible. Doc Set Manager will compare anything you provide. So if you provide DWG with xref it will present the full DWG file and compare it to the other DWG file . If you would like only to compare the xref just load those to the folder and they will be listed in the Document Register and you can compare them separately.
Do clouds need to be entered in separately each time on future versions?
If you draw a cloud and it is still an active issue,then it will always be presented and automatically be copied to future versions.
Do I need to buy Vico Office Client with Doc Set Manager?
Yes, you do. Vico Office Client enables the collaborative workflow, assignments, resolution, and reporting in Doc Set Manager. As noted earlier, you might like to get 2-3 extra licenses to share with your owner, architect, and subcontractors.
Would MEP designs be too complex to check in this environment?
No, definitely not.
Does DWG comparison work in paper space?
Yes, how you might use that is to look for date changes, name changes, revisions triangle markers, etc. If you want to check for keynotes or move keynotes, Doc Set Manager will pick up on those in paper space, as well.
Sometimes highlighting doesn’t work so well. For example an unchanged line sometimes is color coded as changed. How does that work in the system?
That’s where the Document Register is most helpful in that the Register will tell you that the drawing has or has not changed from the last set to the newer set. If the Register has indicated red and that the drawing has changed you can work with the color scheme to find any problem but it should not be that difficult with the flexibility of all the tools in the color palette.
Does this work with Revit?
The answer is yes and what you would do is export the view or drawing that you wanted as a PDF and you would be all set to compare.
Can I batch plot the actual DWG’s including the mark ups?
Yes, if you have a set of files with mark ups on these then you can print all together as one report with all the clouds and the ability to zoom in the clouds to get more detail.
If I’m working in Revit, how can I make a PDF so it will be useful for this software?
You can use the export to PDF function or if you have a PDF virtual printer you can use this to create the PDF files.
Can two or more persons work on one comparison file together?
Yes, absolutely. The product is designed for a collaborative environment meaning multiple users can access the same project: view the same file, compare the same file, create clouds, etc. All this can be done simultaneously.
Q: How long has Vico software been on the market and how widely is it used at this point?
A: About 6 years. So the customers that started have been using this software for that whole period. There are sabout 200 clients globally… More than 100 GC’s in the U.S. There are more than 1000 trained users in the U.S. In addition, the Vico Construction Services Team have guided over 350 BIM projects around the world.
…………and if you really want to save a lot of time and money consider line of balance scheduling (a oncept used for the Empire State Building!)
Vico Control is a unique construction scheduling software because it features flowline theory. This allows the scheduler to work collaboratively with the superintendent to create an optimal schedule based on quantities by location and productivity rates. Equally important is the ability to “control” the schedule on-site to forecast crew pile-ups and interferences based on actual productivity rates. With this real-time data, the scheduler and superintendent can work together to adjust crew sizes by location to keep the project on track.
More about this in a future post
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