Interview with URS Corporation LTD

I had the great opportunity to interview Allan Brown, Senior Technician in the Buildings Structure Division at URS Corporation for my first posting in the Tom's Corner. Allan is a big fan of Revit Structure and has shared with me some great information and a few cool images as well that I believe you'll find interesting. Take a look at my questions and Allan's responses below.

1. Culotta: Allan, tell us about your business, the markets you serve and the services that you provide.
   1. Brown: Revit Structure is used in our engineering service line. This service line covers design services in Residential, Commercial, Industrial, Transportation, US Department of Defense, Ministry of Defence, Health, Education, Stadia, Custodial and Retail sectors.
2. Culotta: What is your role in the company? How long have you been with the company?
   1. Brown: My primary role within URS is of Senior Technician in the Building Structures department in our Glasgow office. I have been with URS for eight years and I have been in involved with various work sectors, from Health, Leisure, Commercial, and Residential to Industrial.
3. Culotta: When did you and the company begin using Revit Structure?
   1. Brown: URS started to look into Revit Structure in the summer of 2007. We download the 30-day free trial to review the software and it's capabilities and started to work through the metric tutorials provided over the course of the summer. Once we were happy with what Revit could provide we had our formal training in October 2007.
4. Culotta: What were you using before? For how long were you using it?
   1. Brown: Currently we run three software packages for our drafting work, not just within Glasgow, but also throughout the UK, these are AutoCAD 2008, CSC's 3D+ and now Revit Structure.
5. Culotta: What made your company switch to Revit Structure and how did you do it?
   1. Brown: We have always looked into better and more efficient ways of working, we had moved over to 3D modeling around six years ago as we felt that it was inevitable that the industry would move over to 3D modeling as a standard in years to come. As such, we wanted to have as much experience within this style of drawing generation as we could.

      A colleague and I started looking at the 30-day trial and working through the tutorials. We wrote a report based on our experience with the software and to compare it against our other 3D modeling package to draw up the pros and cons of the software. This was provided to our CAD service line leader for review.

      Once we had approval to move forward we arranged formal training with three members of staff from the Glasgow office initially fully trained. With the turn of the new year, we then rolled out Revit Structure to our London office who also took on a further two licenses with a further three members of staff gaining training.

      We hope to roll out Revit Structure to our complete Structures department within Glasgow by the end of the year and in the long-term roll out Revit Structure as our standard CAD platform UK wide.

6. Culotta: What is the biggest advantage or benefit to your company in using Revit Structure?
   1. Brown: With the 3D package we had it was limited primarily to steelwork. When we reviewed Revit Structure we were impressed at how compact and self contained the software was. We were able to do complex foundations, ground slabs, metal decking, steelwork and retaining walls with no real requirement to move externally outside of Revit Structure. Other packages were AutoCAD based and drawing generation in itself could be time consuming. Furthermore, amending the models could be awkward if any changes occurred due to external parties requiring changes and once the model was updated drawings then had to be regenerated and tidied before they could be issued.

      With Revit Structure there is no draw regeneration process. When elements are updated all drawings with the elements relating tags move, it is an almost instant process which has saved a lot of drafting time. The nature of Revit Structure enables you to build up your information on a plan-to-plan basis just as you would with a conventional AutoCAD drawing. We are hoping this approach to 3D modeling will enable our staff with little or no experience in 3D modeling to adapt to the software easier than that of our previous 3D modeling package.

7. Culotta: How does your company transfer the benefits gained in using Revit Structure onto your client?
   1. Brown: for the main part we can create more detailed 3D models, which we can present to a client to look at and move around through the DWF viewer that Autodesk provide. Previously we could not have given over a model with the same sort of detail as we can now. This obviously will apply to the rest of the design team as well, architects and mechanical and electrical Engineers also benefit from Revit Structures detailed models.
8. Culotta: What kind of return on investment have you seen since using Revit Structure?
   1. Brown: Limited at present as live projects are only just beginning. We expect to see a return based around the nature of effectively drafting and modeling at the same time and the quick ability to cut sections and elevate elements anywhere within the model, which is significantly different to how we have worked in the past.

      We also expect to see a return on the process of amending drawings. This process has been made easier through Revit Structures technology and removing the issue of possible errors occurring over multiple drawings. Updates, which would have been handled manually, previously (even to a certain degree on other 3D packages) are now automated thanks to the nature of Revit's technology.

9. Culotta: Please share with us a few projects you've created with Revit Structure? What was the situation and how did you deliver the solution?
   1. When we first started out with Revit Structure after our training we wanted to move into it as soon as we could. Any new work that came through was to be done in Revit Structure no matter how big or small the projects were as we were aware that there can be the opinion you should only model larger structures with 3D technology, and that smaller work would be quicker in AutoCAD. So we knew that we had to show that Revit Structure could produce quality just as quickly if not faster than that of AutoCAD even on the smallest of jobs.

      The jobs we came across first were external retaining walls. We would never have modeled retaining walls with our previous 3D package and we knew this was an excellent opportunity to see what Revit Structure could do outside of a traditional building construction. With the inbuilt wall and foundation tools we felt that Revit Structure could handle it. We were dealing with a tight site with an approx 5-6m drop across the length of the site. There was in the region of 30 different retaining walls with pedestrian ramps with varying wall head and foundation levels. Using the architects CAD plan as a base we used the wall tool to pick the wall locations on plan and then using the foundation tool applied the foundation to the underside of wall locking the two together. With all the walls modeled it was a simple process of elevating all the walls using the section tool, once the sections were cut we detailed up the walls as you would traditionally within AutoCAD using Revit Structure's own drafting tools.

      As a bonus we were able to utilize the topography tool within Revit Structure so we could check the ground profiles against wall heads and foundation levels to ensure there were no clashes, something we would never had been able to do within AutoCAD. The whole process took in the region of five working days, which we estimate is about half the time it would have taken if we had used the AutoCAD route.

1. Culotta: Are there any images you can share with us of these projects?
   1. Brown: Yes take a look…

      

      

      

      

      

2. Culotta: Anything else you'd like to share about your experience with Revit Structure?
   1. Brown: Generally we have had a very positive experience with the software. We found that, as you gain experience and knowledge the process of generating models and drawings grows quicker and you really start to see the huge benefits when elements have to be changed.
3. Culotta: If you could give one piece of advice to someone in the field of structural engineering who is NOT using Revit Structure today, what would it be?
   1. Brown: Download the free trial to see what it does. Revit Structure has handled everything we have done in it so far in projects, small and large. Once you get around how Revit Structure works you do feel your work process is more efficient and you feel confident all elements are linked through your model and drawings.