Moving to Smart Water Modeling with Autodesk BIM Workflows and Tools

DAVID BUTTS: Hello there. This is David Butts. I'm happy to be joining you this year for Autodesk University. And in today's session, we're going to be talking about moving to smart water modeling with Autodesk BIM workflows and tools.

Again, I'm David Butts. I'm an engineering technology manager with Gannett Fleming. Wanted to let you know that I've been an expert elite for 10 years now. I've been a Revit certified professional for electrical and mechanical for a while. I'm also an Autodesk certified instructor and a speaker mentor for this year's event.

I've won for top speaker awards in 2011, where I won two, 2016, and 2019. So I'm really happy to be a part of the event for you. This is my 20th consecutive event as a speaker and presenter. So I'm really happy to be joining you here at the event today.

So here's what we're going to be talking about today. We're going to learn how Autodesk tools help create better dam water and wastewater treatment facilities for better deliverables. We're also going to learn how owners are impacted by engineering workflow changes and improvements to help them with their asset life cycles. Then, we're going to explore some key strategy-- or key strategic planning topics to help you implement and improve your own processes and workflows for water projects. So that's our agenda for today.

And we're going to make a safe harbor statement. I might say something today that could be considered a forward-looking event or a possibility of a new feature. Just know that, hey, we may not do this stuff, and so we're not obligated to live up to that if I make a promise that they can't keep. But we have to include this in every presentation. So congratulations. You have now read the safe harbor statement.

Let's start things off in talking about Autodesk design tools in the water space. What does that mean? And I've been involved in water design for a few decades. I've done everything from treatment plants, to dams, to transmission projects. And there's really been a lot of changes in technology over the years since I got started in almost 40 years ago.

And so there's key areas inside of the water management market in here, where designers have traditionally been working in silos. You've had geotechnical type tools, where you're basically determining if a site is suitable for construction and ensuring the safety of the structure. You're going to have geotechnical engineers that are going to be doing the site investigation, foundation design, what's going on with the soil underneath the surface.

At the same time, you have water resource engineering. And that's typically going to involve managing and providing clean water, as well as creating and maintaining systems for disposing of sewage and wastewater-- all those different types of systems that we have to work with. From the environmental engineering standpoint, that's really involving the planning, design, and construction of the treatment plants, the disposal systems. So it's really a lot to do with site remediation, emission control.

And so I've been actively involved in this, but I've been getting it getting introduced more recently into resource and geotechnical areas. As we started looking at how the process works right now, and how do we break down those silos between what have been traditional resource and geotechnical projects that didn't use tools like Revit very frequently into incorporating everything in a BIM workflow to make it a more seamless project and maintaining that continuity of data that we're really looking for.

So let's bounce on along here and talk about what BIM is. And BIM is really an applied process. It's not a building, per se. It's actually the act of building something. And so the process, when it's applied to design, it's been traditionally focusing more on buildings, and structures, and things like that. Again, at Fleming, we started about, oh, 13 years ago with our first water treatment plant.

And in that project, that was pretty much a new construction project. But all of these features, whether it's existing conditions, or a rehab of an existing facility, or new construction, they all involve design and site analysis, surveying and reality capture, the accumulation of electronic data, a better equipment selection process, and construction operations and asset management needs that have to be addressed for the client.

And so all of these make up what we call design authoring tools. And so when you're going to start working on a smart modeling network, you have to have clarity about what those design authoring tools should be and how they actually are intended to work together.

So the evolving design tools and workflows are really helping us get closer to an integrated product. And Autodesk has really been investing a lot in different applications, such as the acquisition of [INAUDIBLE] that brought us InfoWater ICM and InfoDrainage into the picture here to give us a better analysis of sites and a better understanding of a site itself from a holistic standpoint. We started off early on doing more work with ArcGIS and then ReCAP as we started getting more and more reality capture and LIDAR content in our projects.

In the middle of this, where we did design work, we really had to learn how to do system-based modeling. And that's still a relatively new concept even though BIM has been around, because that forces you to change how you approach your projects. In other words, a traditional project manager might be doing more document-based design, where they do their estimates based on the number of sheets that they have in a project.

And that's not effective anymore in a 3D modeling digital twin type environment. So you have to understand how tools, like Revit, and Civil 3D, and Plant 3D, and Inventor, and Autodesk Construction Cloud work together to help you build out a true system based design.

Now, what's that going to do for us in the long run? It's going to increase the accuracy of connected systems. So you're still going to be engaged with Civil 3D, Infraworks, Forma ArcGIS to be able to look at a whole water system in its entirety and understand what those assets are, how the system works from an overall perspective. And that's what you have to have in order to get into a true smart water modeling type system, or smart water environment.

So where did we come from? How did we start with this? And really, the technology evolution has gone back for decades. And when I first started working as a reseller for an Autodesk vendor in North Carolina, that was about the time that Softdesk was acquired by Autodesk. And so it brought to the game architectural desktop and land development desktop. And those products became AutoCAD Architecture, AutoCAD MEP, Civil 3D. They all evolved out of that Softdesk acquisition.

So I was lucky enough to be in Manchester, New Hampshire for some of those first events, where we started developing those original object-oriented programs. Then, in 2002, I happened to luck out and actually be in the Revit technology corporation office when they announced that they'd been acquired by Autodesk. Great timing on both cases.

And so now, we're into a parametric modeling situation, where it's a little bit different than what we were doing with object oriented. Now, it's fully parametric. So it actually changed how we were approaching the design tools.

So some other key dates were more recent. When ESRI and Autodesk started a partnership, that began to open up a better relationship for how we can take our tools and our models and integrate them into a GIS environment so that the consumers of these products have better access to them. I live in Brunswick County, North Carolina, and they have an awesome ArcGIS site where I can actually go see data in a very organized and layered environment to see what's going on in terms of the conditions of the properties that I'm at around me.

And so now, as we start evolving more with these products, we're able to get more of our Revit models and content into that site, where we can actually see at least a representation of what somebody sees in more of a 3D perspective view. The Assemble Systems acquisition in 2018 actually gave us a better set of tools to do data management and extraction. And then in 2019, the beginnings of Autodesk Construction Cloud came out with BIM 360 Team. And now, we're doing that centralized location where we can actually manage our projects in a cloud environment.

2021 brought on the Innovyze acquisition that helped us with modeling, and simulation, and analysis. So we're starting to gather all these pieces together over the course of the last 30-some-odd years to actually put together a more complete set of tools that we can actually use on water projects. It's really interesting how much this stuff has evolved.

So I started doing my research about what is going to cause a rise in true smart water networks. I've done a lot of work and presentations at New York Build recently about smart cities. And so when you talk about smart cities, it's really the integration of all these resources that communicate to city management what's actually happening in the city, like traffic, water flow, sewer flow, all these different things that can be managed by a municipal organization to actually get a real-time understanding of what's happening so that they can make adjustments on-the-fly to accommodate specific conditions.

And that involves the internet of things. It involves the ability to have sensors in different places to track what's going on, but it also involves the integration of the design models and the analytical models that we create. And so what do you have to have in order to make up a smart water management system? You got to have secure water resources, safe and resilient water supplies. You've got to have a sustainable water supply, and you have to be able to use this to reduce operating costs.

Those are key elements as well as improving the revenue of water ratio here. So as you look at a smart water management system, you're going to look at data collection, information processing from monitoring devices, from asset management tools, from advanced water treatment plants, from water quality monitoring and the supply system, to pressure control all the way out to the house. And I live in the sticks, and I'm having pressure control problems.

But being able to put a sensor or something in place that can actually report that information back up to the agency would be something that would actually help us meet that goal of a smart water network. And all of these come together with the water treatment plant and the water supply network to create the smart water management system. So these are all just the different pieces that make up that particular type of a system.

So what are we really talking about? How does Autodesk integrate into this? So we start off by looking at water retention and supply. And so in the past, we've used Revit to design dams and reservoirs, components of reservoirs, such as the structural components, the flow control equipment, monitoring systems. We've had the opportunity to have some really great users put together really detailed models. They give us a very clear picture of what that design condition is supposed to be.

And there's better interaction than there ever has been between Civil 3D, Revit, InfraWorks, Infraworks, and more. These packages are doing a better job of communicating with each other. We did all of our projects as site-oriented.

So when we create a project, we are working at exact Northing, and Easting, and elevation coordinates so that we can reflect those site conditions accurately and be able to drop our models in place in such a way that it's a good reflection of what we're actually trying to accomplish. And so those models are easily carried forward now into GIS and asset management systems so that the end users have a more accurate representation that they can use for their asset management and operations.

Then, we get into water distribution. And I don't care how big the project is. You don't have to do huge water treatment plants. This is just a pump station that's sitting in somebody's neighborhood. And boy, let me tell you something. People get really wound up about this. They want to make sure that they have in their backyard something that looks presentable and it's nice.

And so being able to integrate a service facility like this in such a way that it blends into the surrounding infrastructure and the surrounding community is really important. And so the advantage of using something like Revit helps improve that documentation by first reducing the steps to complete that design, but it also helps you use those utility connections that are built into the model so that we can connect between the distribution system and the transmission system that's going between the resources and the treatment plants.

And again, with the visualization tools that are built into Revit, you don't have to go through a whole lot of outside work. So a lot of these renderings that we produce were pretty much straight out of Revit or applications like Enscape that work directly in our model. So it was a great way to utilize some of the BIM tools to help us get a better experience for people that are engaged in the community.

And finally, we talk about water treatment. And so this was a treatment plant that we actually did about 10 years ago that one user, who had actually designed the original documents and CAD, was able to turn around and use this as a learning experience to go in and model up the plant from the drawings that he had originally. And so this is where we really learned about system-based design models.

Now, typically, we'll break up architectural and structural and MEP into separate projects. But in this particular case, we kept all of the MEP and process in one model as a campus-type model because the structures themselves weren't really that complicated. But as we use this on future projects, we're able to build out and use these conditions to say, hey, let's convert this to existing and what's going to be new in this so we're not reinventing the wheel.

So in this particular case, you can actually exchange that data by pulling specific systems out of a model as separate Revit models, or now with new Data Exchange features that Sean [? Fruin ?] is going to be talking about in some of his classes this year. There's fewer documents to track and manage when you're in the Revit environment, so you don't have 1,000 drawings that you're dealing with. You really have three or four models that contain the drawings and deliverable objects themselves. But it basically keeps everything in a simplified form.

And so these interactions, by doing something in a single model like this, they're easily coordinated and tracked. So I can very quickly determine whether or not I have a pipe, or a conduit, or something like that that's interfering with something. And if you can catch it, there actually is an interference condition in this model. There's a conduit actually running through a big pipe.

But hey, you can visualize this stuff by working within this and do that coordination directly inside of Revit, or now with tools like Model Coordination or Navisworks. And it's just a lot easier to keep up with that stuff now. We also have gotten more diligent about talking to the client and getting asset management data incorporated into these models so that when we do the deliverable, they're already at a starting point so that they can integrate into their asset management systems.

So how do we maximize those owner and operator benefits now? This is, what's in it for me as the owner? And so we want to be proactive for better deliverables. And so before you ever start designing anything, if you want to be successful in this market, and you want to be successful with these projects, you have to do your homework, and you have to be diligent about the types of information that you need to get before you get started. You need to make sure that you can get good representations of as-built and existing conditions.

And so if you're working with a client who's got a survey that's on a sheet of paper from 1932, probably not a good representation of what's actually going on in the field. In my case, really, if it's more than a couple of years old, it's worth it to pay the surveyor to go out and generate a survey of the site and the existing conditions as much as possible.

And in today's market, you really want to be leveraging LIDAR to get that full 3D point-in-time record between the photography, and the geometric shapes, and meshes. You want all that together so that it helps you create a better 3D model source that you can work from to actually build out the existing conditions as you need to.

You want to make sure that you're also field verifying key features, like common project shared locations, an iron stake, a manhole, corner of a building that's going to stay-- any of that conditions that you want to set as a marker that can be used for this project and for future projects.

Now, to run all this, you really need to have what we call a PIM execution plan. People called them BIM execution plans for years. But with the spread of this into other applications beyond Revit, we changed it to start talking about project information models. So we're looking at the entire project and what kind of data is going to be shared and transported back and forth between these applications.

So in this document, you need to clearly define those deliverables and who owns what elements of the design as well as what the client needs are. Does the client have a specific set of data fields, content, and have that stuff documented in the PIM execution plan. And then you also have to document all the different program types that you're going to use. If you start from InfoDrainage, you want that documented.

If you're going to end up in a Navisworks file for coordination, you want that documented. And so you want to make sure that the client is aware of what you are using and what you're doing. Making the client aware of the tools themselves is critical in helping us move to a smart water system in here.

So if you're going to manage critical data, what's important for the client? So let's look at what should be in the file. First of all, you need to make sure that you've documented shared parameters in Revit that can be used in schedule, data exports, and tags-- that your most flexible option. That's critical information, like electrical data that's associated with motors.

You can create a shared parameter in Revit, and that data can be exported when you use a shared parameter. If you're doing just a basic family, or even in some cases, a project parameter, you're limited on some of the options. So get familiar with using a shared parameter file in this case. When you're in AutoCAD MEP, or Architecture, or Civil 3D, and one of those tools, you need to take advantage of the property sets.

And it's really funny. I was talking to one of my Civil 3D experts the other day, and he's like, what in the world is a property set? Oh, it's nothing more than an intelligent field, but it can be associated with an AC object, whether it's a pressure pipe, or a section, or an entity. It doesn't matter.

I can add to that data in Civil 3D and actually coordinate that data more closely with what's going on in the Revit model so that we can actually see, are we looking at the same information, are we looking at the data. And all this data can be exported and compared in different databases, in Excel, you name it. You got a bunch of different resources for it.

Now, I will tell you one thing about data. You need to be sharing your shared parameters file. Don't make this stuff specific to you and your company. You want to make sure that it's something that everybody can get to and everybody can use. We're going to come back and talk about this guy in a few minutes later.

So what are the project-based options that you want to have that are specific to the project itself? So Revit projects can incorporate common data parameters to assign to one or more categories related to asset information. So if I'm actually looking at that type of data, I can go into a project template, and for single character, single category type items-- like doors, and walls, and windows, as well as something in the MEP world-- I can have it associated with a pipe system, I can have it associated with a light fixture.

There is data that I can prebake into a template so that, from an overall project perspective instead of a unique content perspective, I can have that data predefined. And I can actually work with a client to build out a template that already has that information in there. So when they start the project, if they have a specific need, they can give us a template that has that data predefined.

Now, I've become a big Autodesk Docs advocate. I recorded some videos a few years ago about what's going on with CAD, and I wasn't really on the bus about using Docs. And let me tell you something. I am on the bus. This is my platform. This is what I like to use because this hosted content now can conclude that file specific data to actually support different documentation and validation process and attestation process to say, what I have in the diagram is what's in the model.

And I can actually say that I can validate this information and make sure that we've accounted for everything. So there's a lot of features that you can do with a program like Docs to actually pull this out and carry it forward into cost management, schedule management, you name it. There's just a lot of places that you can take this stuff when you work in a Docs environment.

So now that you're starting to get into the system a little bit more, the content itself really needs to be addressed. And to be honest with you, we're behind this as an industry in actually addressing this. We've got content consistency issues and how things get created on a project. And so we need to use an overall industry-based approach. And so we need to have better standard rules for things like formatting, units, naming, and how those parent-child relationships are set up correctly.

Programs like Plant 3D do a really good job with this kind of data, but Revit does not, Civil 3D does not. So you have to understand how to build that data out with nested components or other types of components so that you have a better relationship to understand that this particular motor associated with this blower or whatever this component is in here, it's correctly identifying and pulling that information from where it needs to be. You also have to have a better understanding of the level of development that you're going to do in your models.

When do I actually go on to a full-- to a basic design level, LOD 300 as opposed to an LOD 400 fabrication level content? What type of a project am I doing that merits me going to a higher level of development, like what you see in this particular model? And so that means that we have to engage the industry, and determine when do we use a shell versus complete component? When is it critical for the owner to have that level of component when the deliverable is made?

There's a couple of things that are helping this out from an analytical standpoint. The relationship between InfoDrainage and Civil 3D is actually helping do a better job of pulling the analytical data into a production document mode. But we also have improved features for Inventor and Revit with the informed design to actually help do a better job of updating equipment and keeping changes that are made to the equipment made current so that we're not getting behind the data or missing something. So it's really important to explain to the client how this stuff works.

And so it also gets us into sensible documentation standards. And here's one of the common mistakes that people make. They try to say CAD when they should be saying BIM. If you're worried about things like colors, and line weights, and having a layer with your name in front of it, you're already in the wrong place. So what your standards should include are basic standards for annotations.

I want you to take a look at mine. You're not going to see "GF" in front of any of this stuff because I want to keep this agnostic. The standard that you need to put out is not the name of a style. The standard you need to put out is a standard text, normal text. It should be 3/32 of an inch for all dimensions [INAUDIBLE] text on a drawing. And then one eighth of an inch is the standard for scheduled column headers, and then 3/16 is the standard for titles. And then you can put descriptions down for what you want to use other size in a project file for.

So you write the standard into your own BIM and CAD standards, but you also include this as an appendix when you're actually putting together your PIM execution plan. So it's critical to do this. So you want to include information like font type and height, not the name of a style. You want to have dimension layout and configuration, not a prebaked GF dash dimension type.

You also want to make sure that you have schedule table templates set up, and have pre-existing tables defined so that when somebody actually modeling content in Revit, you already have this information filled out. And if you've done a good job coordinating your parameters with the equipment, then it's going to make these templates work even better.

As far as the workflow and system-based design that the client's going to be able to take advantage of, you want to make sure that your system is based on a BIM workflow that we've talked about in other classes in that four-step process so that there's a right process for putting that stuff together and then changing what the expected deliverable is at different points in the project.

So that's a whole different topic for discussion, but think of it this way, I want to have an equipment selection and layout, and then I want to have a review. Then, I want to have a system relationship and connecting geometry layout, then I want to have a review. Then, I want to have an annotation and documentation step in the project and then have a review. So that's system-based design. That's a system-based workflow.

Data standards that you use should always be based on what the client O&M and asset management requirements are. So you have to work with the client to get that integrated into your templates and into your content so that it's ready to go for that specific client. What you want to avoid is anything that's company or client reference.

Even a client-- this goes for you too. If you're working for like [INAUDIBLE], or Miami-Dade WASD, or HRSD, or any of these clients that have a lot of CAD standards, they don't even need to be having annotation types that say HRSD. It should just be some basic description saying, use the Ariel font.

We also want to make sure that the documentation standards that do not take automation into account. You want to look at how we're actually producing the set of documents, and how can we automate that production in an efficient method as possible. So your document standards shouldn't break up documents in such a way that actually make it more prohibitive to get a series of documents out.

I saw one standard from a client that wanted to see individual drawings of about 100 different systems that were going on with all their clients. And so you never showed a document that might have had like raw water combined with sanitary water on the same plan. They were always broken up in separate plans, and so you couldn't coordinate them.

And so you want to make sure your standards allow you to take advantage of the fact that you can automate these layouts and go back through and do coordination in real time. So you want to stay away from some things like that that actually cause you to do more work. And the last thing you want to look at is making sure that your standards avoid or basically based on fixed sheets. You have to start working around system-based design.

I did a class last year on eliminating the sheet. And as the industry is going to evolve more toward digital twins, I think what you're going to start to see is a more integrated approach with the design models, and more features like reactive views, and automatic annotations that are generated by AI. That's going to be some of the future development that is going to be really cool to see that stuff get put out in the market and see how it's going to help us get our projects done.

So last thing we're going to talk about is improving our digital process and workflows. And this is an older slide, but I wanted to bring it back up again because the infrastructure itself and the role in a smart water network, there's so many environments that we can play in here. And here's the thing that's actually happening in the industry. The clients are taking a more interactive role in leveraging these sites.

This is not new in the industry. There's been other products that have been out there that clients would own that we, as a design firm and an engineering service provider, would have to go into. And in this particular case, if you look at what's been going on with the Autodesk Construction Cloud Infrastructure, where you're looking at all phases, from design to pre-construction, to construction, to turnover and operations, features like Autodesk Docs, Design Collaboration, Model Coordination, all of these tools are accessible now, and they have their role in the process.

And so as Autodesk continues to expand features and add behaviors-- and I can tell you right now that I just got a notification of 45 new updates to Autodesk Construction Cloud. Think about that. This stuff is rolling out on a constant basis, but you're not having to reinstall a software all the time. I love it because it's just being added to the site.

And so the way this tool is progressing is actually making it easier for us to do a better job of managing the environment. And so we talk about this from a digital twin perspective. And what's the need of a digital twin in a smart water network? It's everything because having that model representation as the basis for everything else that we do is the safest and fastest way to get to a true digital twin. And as we incorporate the data that we need, then we can actually pull this stuff together in a common environment like this and carry it through all different phases of construction.

So how does the project information modeling environment work? It's not one environment. There are a lot of different CDEs that are available out there, and they have different purposes and uses. And so when we talk about a project information model, you have to understand the role that these play. And I've been in the middle of an exercise with a couple of our groups to talk about what you can and can't use.

Like SharePoint is not a 3D modeling platform, but it is a great data documentation modeling platform for ancillary data that's associated with a project. Well, there's SharePoint integration with Autodesk Construction Cloud now. So there's the ability to share this information back and forth between what's going on with the models. But you also have integrations for Bluebeam. You have integrations for Procore, for HoloBuilder, for Cintoo, for ArcGIS Pro.

All of these can talk in the Autodesk Construction Cloud to each other and share data in such a way to make it a lot easier to have data continuity. And that's a critical component of a digital twin. And since the digital twin is the basis of a smart water network, you want to make sure that you build that system out correctly. But you can take advantage of all of these tools.

And so these are designed by collaborative teams. And so when you're starting to put the people part of this, or the people, process and technology together, the key is to make sure you start off by setting ground rules early in the hiring process about what those roles and tasks are. What is it that somebody actually has to do? What do they have to for their job? And so you have to provide those tools for self-assessment as well as skill and career goals. You have to clearly define that when you hire somebody.

You also have to make sure that you encourage and support your design teams to own these changes in how we address skills in the market. And be willing, when onboarding someone, to spend the time and invest in that person so that we're able to help them get where they need to be in the company.

The biggest mistake that companies can make is to hire somebody, hand them a software tool, and say, have at it. That's a huge mistake to me, because if you're not integrating them into the culture, you're not integrating them into the workflow, and you're not giving them clear instructions and communications about any changes and workflows that you make, then it can cause a lot of problems for you.

So what else do we need to do? You have to make sure that you're training that collaborative team. Now, we looked outside the box a few years ago. And I've actually changed the way I trained over the years. I used to do big classes all the time with a bunch of people. And I haven't done one of those in years because we're finding that's not as effective.

We would train somebody, and two weeks later, they forgot everything that they know. So we started looking outside the box. We started using programs and sites, like Pinnacle, to help us create workflows and other tools that actually document the process that somebody needs to follow, along with some great graphics and imagery, especially for the millennials and Generation X peoples that are very computer-oriented-- much more compared to me as a baby Boomer.

But having that interactive piece that they can go back and visualize, and see what those steps are, and what's involved in the process, those are all critical. And so that's why we use these contemporary tools.

But you also have to collaborate with your partners and clients to understand what it is that we need to train them on. What's different about what we're doing in a digital twin environment as opposed to what we did in the traditional document-based environment? I will tell you, the best thing you can do is train, train and train some more. Don't underestimate the value of training in this system.

So after you've addressed the tools and the environment, the technology adoption is going to have different workflows. And these are a couple of them that you need to make sure that you're addressing. You start by identifying those tasks that frequently get missed. When you're trying to apply a 2D workflow to a digital twin environment, don't do things that you used to do, like I'm going to have this sheet that's going to have these number of details on it. That should be a byproduct. It shouldn't be the focus.

So going back to one of the things we talked about earlier, get your surveys and as-built conditions addressed first. Don't wait to 60%, which I've seen recently on some projects, before somebody actually invests in actually finding out what those existing conditions are. You have to do this at the start of the project.

The second thing that you need to do in your workflow is do a better job of defining and validating schematics for your design intent and confirm them before you start to model. Now, there are tools like Plant 3D, that do a great job with process and instrumentation diagrams.

And you can leverage tools, like the P&ID model, to do that coordination and that validation between what's in that P&ID and what's actually in the model. So to leverage that type of technology-- and that's going to require you to have a workflow that says, I'm going to start over here, I'm going to end over here, and then I'm going to check and validate.

You want to identify tasks in your current WBS that are strictly relying on, well, I did this in another project. That doesn't mean it's going to be applicable or correct in this project. You have to make sure that it aligns with what you're trying to create in a 3D modeling environment.

Another thing that you have to do is, if you do have a content library-- and pretty much every engineering service provider I'm working with now, they do a pretty good job of getting content libraries together.

But you want to make sure you're not over-modeling. You want to have the correct content as it relates to the type of contract you're doing, whether it's a design build, a design bid build, an EPC-style contract, or you don't need the early work, you don't need to detail things to the n-th degree, but you're really dependent on the contractor to actually build those things out and show actual conditions.

And when you need to, get vendor content when it's applicable and available as the client requires. Because if the client tells you, hey, I worked with this specific vendor all the time-- they're my first choice-- even if you're on a design project, you can start with their first choice and then offer two alternates.

It doesn't matter. That's just the basis of design that you're providing. And so you have to be prepared to change that deliverable. And this is just some examples of mechanical rooms, where that's part of the documentation now to give a better representation of what's actually going on in those areas.

So here's what it's going to require for you to build a true smart network. Top of the list is engage your client early and often. Don't limit yourself to specific deliverable meetings. Interact with them on a more frequent basis.

Allow them into your Autodesk Doc site. Give them HoloLens headsets, and let them walk through your design models. They're not going to have access to edit anything, but if you engage them sooner in the process, and invite the client and the contractor in when it's appropriate, then you can actually help resolve problems and issues that traditionally would have been ignored in a traditional 2D document process.

You want to leverage these cloud-based tools that you can associate issues, comments, reviews, and reports, and do this in Autodesk Docs instead of having a silo over here for a markups and silo over here for as-builts. Get this stuff all into one environment, and that should make it a whole lot easier for you to get a holistic view-- an entire view of everything that's going on with the design to make a better smart network when you finish it.

And then be prepared. The clients are adopting technology like Autodesk Construction Cloud. They're wanting you to start hosting their models and data in their location. So don't be surprised that our traditional way of working on your server is going to be the best way to do this, because you need to keep this whole package together as one integrated, federated project delivery.

And by keeping things in a client cloud as opposed to yours, actually streamlines the whole process, and it eliminates those silos that keeps the data separate here. You can still back things up and protect your intellectual property. It's not hard to do that. But having the end result also be the location is critical.

And then simply focus on model-centric delivery, not 2D, and the single source of truth to say that this 3D model of this piece of equipment is the original host, and it's associated with data and other data environments. But this is the part that, if I open up my phone and I need to see it, I can pick on it, and I can see all that data that I need to see about that part.

So in our conclusions, smart water networks are coming. They're more prevalent than ever before just like digital twins. And so you have to be willing to make the investment in your staff, in your process, in your technologies to make sure that you can help us create these better integrated networks to be more efficient with our resources, to be smarter about what we do with our resources, and to make sure that we can meet consumers' needs in such a way that we're not overbearing and creating additional unnecessary cost that have to get passed on to those consumers. Let's get a lot smarter about how we do our water networks.

Last thing in here is I want to talk about a few classes that are being related that I think you need to go to. CI1052 about unlocking digital transformation in water infrastructure. I believe that's Trevor English. A great session going there-- CES4051-- on how to improve Civil 3D workflows with InfoDrainage.

And then automating the design of water and wastewater treatment works. This is a great case study on Brazil's second largest water utility. And then streamlining delivery of a $2.5 billion water infrastructure project portfolio using ACC. These are great reference classes to get more detail that feeds off of what we've been talking today.

So again, after 20 years, I want to thank you very much for attending. And thank you very much for participating in these classes. I hope you find this really helpful, and I hope you have a great rest of your AU. And thank you again for coming to 2024, the design and make conference.