What does BIM mean for a project engineer?
What does BIM mean for a project engineer?
(OP)
The company I work at - planning/consulting, I'm in municipal wastewater and do mech. eng. - will introduce BIM over the next years. It was mentioned that sooner or later, not only the drafters but also us engineers will have to work with the tools. The idea is to eventually plan in the BIM-world and connect it to tender tools. It will be the autodesk/revvit family.
I don't mind that, I just want to understand what this will mean for the day-to-da work of project engineers.
Things that are worth the time to learn sooner rather than later? Pitfalls to be aware of? How did the division of labor between drafters and engineers work out at your place?
I don't mind that, I just want to understand what this will mean for the day-to-da work of project engineers.
Things that are worth the time to learn sooner rather than later? Pitfalls to be aware of? How did the division of labor between drafters and engineers work out at your place?





RE: What does BIM mean for a project engineer?
RE: What does BIM mean for a project engineer?
Regarding drafting/modeling. Finding good drafters/designers is seemingly impossible. And even if I wanted a drafter/designer, I would rather do the modeling and detailing myself. I can get things done much faster without them and that seems to be the opinion of most of my colleagues. We relegate very basic work to drafters/designers and do the rest ourselves.
Efficiency has increased doing things this way. My guess is that all the markup work and fixing the drafter/designer mistakes was a huge waste of time (not necessarily "mistakes" but more like "well I would show it differently"). It's a lot faster for me to do something myself (especially when it's complex) than to tell a drafter what to (or markup a drawing), review what they did, realize it wasn't exactly right, try to have them fix it, then end up doing it myself anyway. It just doesn't make sense when I can do it so fast myself.
On top of that, with the engineer actively in the 3D model doing all the work, they can see issues more clearly and address them easily. When drafters/designers are modeling, they just blindly do the work (at least ours do...) but an engineer can see when things don't make sense long before it's too late. We have gained a lot of efficiency buy not replenishing the drafters as they retire/leave the firm.
RE: What does BIM mean for a project engineer?
In our house, the sentiment is that BIM is great for early planning stages and once you go into detailing/execution, 2D might be superior.
I'd be interested to hear from someone who used BIM from a plant design/mech engperspective.
RE: What does BIM mean for a project engineer?
However, I do agree that it has not yet arrived with the fine detailing, which structural and architects might use. It is mainly because all the parts and pieces have to be developed and may not be part of the Revit library. It is coming, though. For the fine detailing we still use ACAD and insert them into our Revit drawings.
RE: What does BIM mean for a project engineer?
I understand you as an engineer work in revit directly? Or use a viewer and have the CAD folks do the work?
I guess how much engineers will be working in CAD will be one of those arbitrary management decisions that's impossible to know beforehand ...
Personally, I'd like to try working in the 3D tools directly, wonder how steep the learning curve is before one can make a useful model of something.
RE: What does BIM mean for a project engineer?
It eliminates almost all the significant coordination headaches come construction. You still get issues with small one-off conduits, data, etc but those are non-issues relative to big ducts and pipes.
RE: What does BIM mean for a project engineer?
The people imputing information have to have a level of understanding of what they are doing, i.e. they are not line jockeys anymore just putting in mark ups and red lines.