Revit for the 4D World: How to Create a 4D-Ready Model Within Revit

DAREN MERCEDES: Well, welcome, guys. Thank you all for coming. Thank you for attending this class. Hopefully you did it because you wanted to and not because it was the last class available and you just signed on to it.

My name is Daren Mercedes. And this is Revit for the 4D World. So if this is not the class, this is your time to go to your class that you actually signed up for.

I've got a quick question before we continue. Anyone was in my class last year? Anybody that went to my class last year? OK, good. So I can say whatever I said last time and you guys won't know. Perfect.

[LAUGHTER]

So you're going to be listening to me for 55 minutes, now. So might as well give you something about me so you know who's talking to you.

So I've been working with Suffolk Construction since 2015. I've been part of the proposal phase, been part of the design phase. I've been part of the construction, the TCO process-- basically the whole construction cycle from a GC side. So I also have done-- this is kind of like-- I've done the logistics, the BIM, the VDC support-- all of that. So that's encompassing all the southeast region of the United States of America.

So Suffolk, last year-- 2016-- was the number one GC in the southeast region of US. So that's where I've been spending my time. This is where we developed this process that we're going to be talking about today.

Some of my projects with Suffolk include a train station, two towers on top of that train station, and actually a third tower, an office building, on top of that same train station. So this is all in downtown Miami. So the three projects-- basically, three groups of different people working on it. I was a BIM VDC manager for the three projects.

Now, I'm doing this beauty-- the Royal Caribbean Terminal, and also in Miami. So those have been my highlight projects working with Suffolk where we have developed everything that you guys are going to be learning here about today.

Now, these projects we actually didn't use the process we're going to be talking about today. But we did use it in these two. These are not my projects, but they're still part of the Suffolk family. And another counterpart of mine is working on them.

So this is the Hard Rock Hollywood. This is a billion dollar project-- basically an expansion. 13 buildings, a guitar-shaped hotel, the whole thing. We used the process that we're going to be looking at today to actually get this project. Because of what we did, we were awarded this project from the Hard Rock company.

We'll also use it for the 1201 Brickell. This is going to be the tallest tower south of New York. It's 1,052 feet, which for New York standard might not be high, but for Miami, this is the tallest building in Florida. So we used the same project we're going to be looking at today for this building, as well.

This building is going to be awarded November 25. So let's see if that works twice in a row. That should be fun.

Now, 4D is the new 3D. I mean that in two ways. In one way, it's a good thing, because now a lot of the industry have come to grasp and understand what the 3D word is. Before, we were fighting for BIM-- fighting to get it in, fighting for people to actually embrace it.

Now, a lot of the company architects do a very nice model. The trace are doing a good job. The GC-- everybody wants to see that model. The owner wants-- they want to see the model. If you have a model now, it's like a different-- you're not up to date. So everybody's in the same plane. So that was with the 3D.

But now, 4D is basically experiencing the same kind of push or struggle to get embraced. Everybody is asking the same questions that they once asked about 3D-- why are we going to go to the 4D? Why are we going to do this now? What's the difference? We have the schedule. We have Primavera. Everybody's been using Primavera for years now.

Everybody's good-- the same kind of questions that they were asking for the 3D. We have drawings. Why are we going to use the 3D model? What's the difference? So they're facing the same kind of struggle.

Now, the other way I mean that is in a good way. Now that we have embraced the 3D, we can go ahead and shoot for something better-- do better, do more. So that's where the 4D now stands.

That's the goal now-- embrace that, make everybody understand what it is about and what's the benefit of it. So that's what we're going to try to do today. That's what we try to do at Suffolk. So that's the question-- why 4D? Why are we going to go ahead and do this?

So I've got a little video, actually, of that building-- the 1201 building, the presentation that we did for that building. So let's take a quick look at it.

So when we present this presentation to the owners, we really went into the meeting room and, the moment we started playing the video, the drawings went to the side. The schedule went to the side. The owner, once the conversation began about what we're doing here-- that's the same thing that happened with the Hard Rock Hollywood, the $1 billion job, the biggest-- well, actually, the second biggest casino job in the east side of the United States. The number one is the Wynn Casino in Boston.

So the whole conversation became about this. Because in here, what we show is that we're not only telling you that our model is good, that we have a good model to do this job. And we're not only telling you that our schedule is good. We're showing you how we're going to build this thing for you. We're telling the owner, this is what we are going to do.

And here, we encompass almost every kind of logistics we can accomplish in all of this.

And actually, this part right here is interesting. Because the owner went ahead and looked at this. And if you look at it for a second, it's kind of like nothing's happening. And it just stays there. The reason why is because the schedule to pour these mats is a long time to get all of this done.

He didn't understand that in the Primavera file. He didn't understand that in the schedule that we printed out for him. Once you put all the activities that have to happen to get those two mats poured, you see that is a long time that you're going to be spending just in the ground before you can even get off. After that, of course, we can go up and everything is a little bit nicer and smoother.

But that specific time frame-- we were able to show him that so he understand. Because that's the first thing they're going to complain-- why? What's the problem? And every other competitor doesn't show that to them. But you explain that to the owner, and the owner understand exactly what they're getting theirself into.

And we can also see if there's another way of doing this. Yes, we can do it faster for this cost or this different way. But that's the conversation that you have from the get-go, from the beginning.

This is the exact model we used. After this, we have multiple other models that we did for a specific area for the owner in the same context. So the owner understands exactly how every piece of their building is going to get built. This is the first one we did. We included the hoists, the jumps of the tower crane, the actual installation of the glass, the precast-- all of that.

And this is an 82-story building. So if you do it the normal way that you normally would do it, which is linking 3D models to an activity task, it will take you forever to go and click all the columns floor by floor and link that to an activity in Primavera. So this process that we're going to look at just simplifies that and makes that whole process of three, four days just going through it and linking and linking and linking-- makes that a 10-minute process.

And that's what we wanted to do. Because the moment that you can make that process automatic, you can concentrate on logistics. You can concentrate on actually making the presentation or the movie. Or, what we're going to do with the tower cranes? How are we going to do the barges that we have in here? We have a very tiny job site.

So we decided that we were going to use barges to bring in material and to assemble rebar in those barges and bring those up into the building. All of that stuff, you can do with that time that you're not spending just going through and linking and linking and linking. Because that's really the main complaint-- this is going to take way too long for us to do. So let's just go with the thing that we always do.

It keeps going. Again, it's just a tall building.

So the 4D-ready process. This is where we're going to look.

I am not trying to reinvent the wheel here. This is not how you do it. We get caught up into the idea that we have to come up with something completely new, something completely different to be able to make something good happen. Not necessarily. We take the tools that we already have and we repurpose those tools for something else, for something better-- a new way of doing things.

So in this, we're really going to use the same thing that you guys probably already use-- Revit, Primavera, and Navisworks Stimulate or Synchro-- whichever you prefer, whichever you use. That's all it is. This is not a new software. You don't have to learn a new program. Same thing. We're just looking at things in a different way.

For the Revit portion, it's going to be fairly straightforward. What we want to do is, we want to create a parameter in Revit and basically take that parameter and the 3D object and give it a common code, it's what I call it. That's it. You create it. You assign a common code. And you explore that model to see Synchro or Navisworks, whatever you prefer. Three steps-- things that you already do.

Now, the common codes are basically a way to distinguish the levels, a way to distinguish what we're doing in the model. And this is basically how it looks. I created this file-- simple towers, nothing special to it. You create a Synchro schedule, which is what I call it in this case-- a parameter. And for the common code, it's basically residential level one, horizontal. That's basically what it is.

The idea of all of this is to get you to draw it in, to make the building go up till the moment that it's drawn. The interior we can develop and keep going. But all of this is based on a proposal. You want to get it out there. You want to show it to people. So it's based on the baseline schedule.

You maybe don't know-- you don't know where the port carts are going to be. You don't have all that information at this time. What you have is, you have the slabs. You have columns, shear wall, glass, precast-- whatever it is. And that's what we working with.

So to simplify the process, residential level-- foundation is F 1. Parking level 1 slab is P 1 H, horizontal portion of the structure. Parking level 1, columns and walls, is P 1 V-- vertical portions of the construction. And the same thing repeats itself. For the amenity levels, for the residential levels, the same thing.

And in Florida, most of our buildings are high rises. We have the same kind of structure-- they've got parkings, amenity level, and then the residential. Parking, amenity level, residential. So that's why we base our first process in that type of building.

If you have a different building that you divide it by area, you do the same thing-- area 1, horizontal. Area 2, vertical. Same thing. You keep it simple so that you can actually share that information with somebody else-- another project in your own company. That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to replicate these things so everybody in the company can do it without the assistance of you, specifically, or somebody else.

It's a thing that-- intuitive. Residential, R 1 H. That's all it is.

So in Revit, to get this done, we have to make sure that when we build our models, we build our models like we're actually going to build. If a wall stops-- it's from ground floor to parking level 1-- then that's one level. Then that's what we're going to do. We don't build a wall from ground level to parking level 6 because the wall is the same all those levels. Because when you bring that to 4D, that's not going to work. You're building the whole thing at one time, and that's not really how we do it.

So the same thing applies for the columns. The same thing applies for the shear walls, all of that. If you have the information of the port breaks at the beginning, hey, go for it. And also cut your slab to the right location so that the 4D may look exactly how it's going to get done.

Now, if I just tell you about the 4D part in Revit, it's really only a portion of the process. This is pushing what we know as BIM into a little bit farther away-- something more than what we currently do. So there's also a portion for the Primavera side.

So the scheduler-- the whole idea is that the modeler is on one side doing the model, just going at it, doing the model from the drawings that we have. And the scheduler is on another side completely, developing the schedule. You don't have to wait for each other. You don't have to wait and wait till the schedule is done so I can start, or wait for the model to-- no. We do it simultaneously. That way, we do it faster.

But since everybody's using the same codes and everybody's using the same process, what we get is basically the same idea. You create an activity code, which in Primavera is normally used to assign responsibility to people. That's what we normally use it for. Instead of using it for that, we repurposed that whole system to assign the codes that we have, the common codes-- the P 1 H, the R 1 V-- that kind of thing.

So the same process that we have in Revit applies in here. We create an activity code. We assign it to the corresponding activities. And we export that schedule to either the Microsoft Project or Synchro, whatever you're working on. This is how that looks. I created-- again, this is a very simple schedule of those two towers that I showed you before.

And in here, you have activity code, Synchro schedule. It has to be the same name as the one that we created in Revit so they can actually talk to each other. And four rebar footings, F 1. Pour footings, F 1. All the activities that relate to this area of our model, we give it the same code. All the activities that talk about columns in parking level 1, they're P 1 H. The walls in parking level 1 are P 1 H-- the same thing.

So you build your schedule in this way-- the scheduler one side, the modeler in the other side. And you basically do the same thing that you did before.

Now, for the software, this is where we bring everything together. We put everything in one place. We combine forces in the 4D world. You're going to be using Simulate-- no problem-- Microsoft Project. You're going to be using Selection Sets and you're going to be using TimeLiner-- basic tools that we already know.

If you're going to be using Synchro, then you're going to have export from Revit with a plugin. And you're going to use Auto Matching, which is a fantastic feature that completely makes this process actually work.

So let's a go live. Let me show you how that looks like in an actual project. So this is the project that we did. I'm actually going to go ahead and do that again just to show you.

So I'm going to create a new project in Synchro. I don't have to save that. I'm going to go ahead and import the Primavera file that we created-- basically that test file that I did before. We're going to do the same thing with the 3D model. We're going to bring in the 3D model and all its components.

So this is it. These are the towers we had.

Now, Primavera and the model-- this is where they're going to connect. In Synchro, you have to create a new rule. I'll call this AU 2017. We want the different activities to match with many different objects. So we do many to many right here.

We have that. And basically, what we're going to be telling Synchro now is to look for-- what did I call it? Synchro schedule. And here, we tell the activity codes. Synchro schedule.

So now in the resource attribute, you're looking at the model. And in the task, actually, you're looking at the actual Primavera file. So when we do that, we can still save that, click OK, and do a search for all the items that we have in here.

So now, what we did in the model on one side and what the scheduler did in this other side, this office-- we all combine here in literally five minutes. We do Assign All. 1,182 have been assigned. And suddenly, we have our movie. We have our 4D. We have what we need to start showing.

And actually, I'm going to make this two days so it goes a little bit faster.

So now what we did in the model automatically goes ahead and links to what the scheduler did on their side. So you have a 4D model in a matter of minutes. You have a 4D model that you can actually use. And of course, this is a test file. I don't want to make anything crazy.

But once you go into a model and when you're actually drawing, when you're actually making the 3D model, you go ahead and you implement those activity-- the common codes. It's not that you go back to it and do it. You do that right there, because we do that either way. We go into the parameters and we assign levels and we assign names-- whatever it is. So from here, you already do it. You put your common codes in there.

The scheduler does the same thing. They use the activity codes already. In this case, they're just adding a number. They're just adding a code.

And now, you bring it all into Synchro. And by clicking by five minutes going through it, you sync up your whole tower of 82 floors in five minutes instead of-- because this is a trade-off. This is the difference. If you don't, then the other way of doing it is-- and you know how long that's going to take you to go one by one, level by level, trying to accomplish this.

Now, this is what makes the whole process different. Because now-- and actually-- now we can get it done a lot faster. Now it's no longer a question of, this is going to take forever. The presentation is in a week. This is none of that. All of that is taking out of the equation. The people that we normally do our model and the people that normally do the schedule-- we just bring those two together and we make it happen.

The same thing, the same concept can be applied in Navisworks Simulate. And Simulate's a little bit longer process because of the way that the program is set up.

But once you have those parameters included in your Revit model, you can easily search for them with the Find tool. Actually, I have it here. So element Synchro Scheduler requires seven-- you look for that. And it immediately is going to go ahead and find it.

Now you create your set out of that selection. And you can go ahead and link that set to your schedule like it is down there. Instead of going through it and clicking and trying to save everything, from the moment you make your model, already, you have that information for you to use in any of these softwares.

That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to make the process faster. We're trying to take away all the blocks, in a way-- everything that will stop you from getting this thing done.

And if you look at the process, you see that now, we're trying to involve another group of people, another department. We're trying to get the schedulers involved in what we're doing.

So now, we're actually pushing the envelope from what we know as BIM-- Building Information Modeling-- where you have a BIM person in a room, in their office, that goes ahead and makes all the models and makes all of that. Now we actually switch into a VDC idea, a Virtual Design and Construction concept.

Before, the BIM was basically helping us to take the GC and help the GC communicate with the architect, the owner, and the traits. That's what BIM was doing. That's what BIM is for. VDC pushes the idea, now, to, it's not a collaboration with the outside world but a collaboration within our walls, within our company. Now, instead of saying, oh, there's a BIM guy that does that, we've got to say, no, everybody-- the project managers, the estimators, everybody puts in a little bit of what they do.

So these models can actually be a model that you can use for construction. You can actually take this model and see how the building is going to get built, how the pieces fall together, exactly what the pieces are. You get all of that information out of the model now.

You can look at all the different ways that we can take this 4D and actually use it-- proposals, of course. That's a given. If you go to the theater downstairs, you'll see all the videos of the 4D buildings going on. Everybody likes it. It's good. It's cool. You can understand the whole process a lot faster because you're looking at it. So that's a given. We know that.

Now, the team collaboration is where the VDC comes in. Now we've got to talk to each other. We've got to communicate with each other. As a GC, as an architect, we've got to communicate with each other. As the owner, as-- the trade partners take huge benefit of this. The architects, now, we can actually get the schedule design from the architect.

We look at the process of the building and the way that it's going to get built. And instead of an architect giving you a whole set of plans, you tell them, concentrate on this area, because this is the area that we're going to actually get built faster. This is the area that's going to get built first. So if you're going to give me some kind of drawings, give me good drawings, finished drawings for these areas. This is what I need the most. I don't need the architecture fixture right now that's going to go in the third level when I'm still going through the parking level 1.

All of this helps us communicate that better with the architects, with the owner-- the logistics of it. When you actually go through it and you see how everything is going to get built in there, you see all the different processes and all the-- the precast is going at the same time as the curtain wall is going. You know that you're going to have a logistic nightmare in that area.

And it's a lot better to look at it and be able to see it right there than to flip through 25 pages of schedule trying to find out how the activities connect and how the activities go with one another. That's a big difference. It's a big benefit for all of us.

The manpower allocation from the subs-- you show the subs this model, your 4D movie or whatever it is, and suddenly, the subs can understand when they're going to need more of their people, where they have to allocate that people. This is going to be, OK, so two months from now, it's going to get really busy. So we need to be ready for that.

This is what we're trying to do. We're trying to make the whole construction process easier for everybody. And the same way that the 3D work came in and revolutionized and disrupted the whole industry, the same way 4D wants to do the same thing. We're finding, again, the same kind of thing-- people don't want it. But I think it's a great idea.

And sequence of operation is, of course, you can see it. You know exactly when this is happening. And if they overlap to each other, you can move it. You can change it. You can update your schedule before you get to the job site, and suddenly, you've got 30,000 people in the same place trying to do different things. Because that's, every time, exactly what happens.

Those are the benefits that we get from looking at this in the new way, from taking all of the information that we have and putting it together so we can actually make a building better, faster, and do it with less, like we heard in the keynote speaker yesterday.

So these are the three thoughts right here-- pixels are cheaper than bricks. Every time. Every time. Pixels are cheaper than bricks.

We can go ahead and we can talk about the process and how it applies to me specifically and how it applies to my company or a smaller job or a bigger job. Those are all good conversations to have, and definitely conversations that we need to have. But the whole idea is, either way-- if you're big or small, if you're just a sub or a GC or an architect-- everything that we can do in a computer, everything that we can do this way is the better way of doing it.

It's always a better way of doing it. Because at the end of the day, we can go ahead and scratch the whole thing and say, you know what? This thing didn't work. Doesn't matter. I don't like it anyway. We didn't get the project? Big deal. You can go ahead and just-- clean slate, go and do something else. Because they're pixels. It's in my hard drive. That's it.

But once we get out there and we start doing things and we start putting bricks together and we start building the foundation-- things that we didn't caught, things that we didn't see-- now they start really getting-- things get bad. Because everything that you do out there in the job site, everything that you fix in the job site, is always more expensive. Everybody knows that.

So the more communication we have at the beginning, from proposal stage, from the get-go-- with the owner, with the architects-- that's what we want to do. We want to tell the architect, look at the model. Look at the sequence. And give me this information in the sequence that we're going to build it. That way, we have all the information we need.

We want to tell the owner, look at the model. Look at the building. Look at the way we're going to build it and understand that all your timelines are going to have to align to this-- instead of showing them paper and letting them, basically, go through it and-- OK, it's OK. We're going to have TCO by this day. That's all I care about. I don't care how we get there.

Instead of having those difficult conversations later, we can put everybody on the same page from the beginning. Pixels are always cheaper than bricks. Always.

Work yourself out of a job. This is what you want to do. You want to work yourself out of that tedious job that doesn't allow you to do the things that you are capable of doing. That's what this process do. The whole linking, the whole connecting dots, bringing the model and bringing the schedule together? All of that is gone now. All of that is gone.

You can concentrate on logistics. You can concentrate on proposals. You can concentrate on whatever it is-- talking with the owner, developing the relationship-- anything else but that. That's what you want to do. You want to take all of that and just make it as automatic as possible, just change the whole thing. Change the way that you look at it and change the way that other people look at it.

It's going to take some effort, just like 3D took some effort. It's going to take a little bit of a push from all sides to make it happen. Because honestly, change is difficult, especially in our industry, construction. You hear all the time, I've been doing this for 30 years. You're not going to come and tell me, now, how I have to change or I have to do.

But now, the same way that we've seen the benefits of 3D and how everything that we do now is a lot better, we can go ahead and see the benefits of 4D and 5D and 6D as we move forward. But we have to start now.

The keynote speech yesterday was great-- the idea that now is the time. Now is the time for us to start. Now is the time for you to take the lead and make that change and start switching over. These process allow us to do that, at least in one little portion of the whole thing.

You're still going to have to do the presentation to the owner. You're still going to have to prepare the financial aspect of it. But one thing you take out of the way is more time that we get to do something better, to do something greater.

Automatization is the future. This is where we're going. This is what we're doing. This is where everybody wants to go. The faster we get on board, the faster we are going to be better. Because now we have the cutting edge.

When we presented for the Hard Rock, the owner of the Hard Rock looked at our project. He look at the 4D. We actually took it a little bit farther on that one. We took it to a 5D level. We included the cost.

We have a 30-month deadline. They want to open before the Super Bowl happens in 2019-- Hollywood, Florida. They want to open all of that and to have the guitar-shaped hotel, 13 other buildings-- $1 billion worth of work. But when they saw that we knew not only-- we're not giving you a number. I said, OK, we're the lowest bidder or whatever it is. But we're actually telling you, this is how we're going to do it.

Look at it. Looking at our days, looking at our schedule, looking our model and the logistics in it, you can actually see how we're going to build your building and why we're telling you that we can do this, why we're telling you that we can get there.

And this is the same for every other company, every other industry. If you're going to be talking with the owner, if you're going to be talking with a subcontractor or if you're a subcontractor talking to a GC-- this is how we're going to do it.

This is how we're going to install all these lights in here. We have it all already mapped out. We have everything ready for you to look at. This is how we're going to do all the concrete. This is how we're going to do all the dock work. You have it all in there.

I know for a fact that when a subcontractor comes to us at Suffolk and they show us this based on the preliminary information they may have, especially structure subs-- this is how we plan to do your building working for you-- they show us this, and they immediately go to the top of the list.

Yes, financially, it's always a 10. But if you tell me that you know already how to do it, that you already planned how to do it, this is going to save me money. This is going to save the owner money. Everybody's going to be happy. Everybody's going to be good.

That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to get this automatic process going so you can go ahead and just do exactly what you want to do and push the envelope in a new and different way.

Now, I'm going to ask you guys-- you guys have any questions about this? Any questions? Yes, sir.

AUDIENCE: How do you coordinate-- does the Revit designer generate the codes and then provide a schedule to the scheduler, like a list of all the different itemized codes? Or I guess I was wondering, is this someone coming up with their own codes, or is the modeler building it? How does the scheduler know which codes are being used?

DAREN MERCEDES: Great question. So that's exactly where the conversation started in the VDC work. We have to talk to one another.

And we take the model, basically, based on the contracts that we have. Normally, us at Suffolk, we build our own models. That's what we do. We try to go ahead and we build it. That way, we find anything that might have been missed.

But from the architect, we go ahead and we tell the architect, if your building is designed in this way-- your parking levels, amenity level, and structure-- you can go ahead and implement this from the get-go, when you're drawing, using this common code that the scheduler already knows that they're going to be use because of the type of building we're building. That's how we do it.

And that's where the communication has to happen beyond just the BIM guy talking to the other BIM guy from the other company. But now, project managers, scheduling-- everybody coming together to actually get it done in a more efficient way. That's how we get that done.

Any other questions? Yes.

AUDIENCE: So then potentially, you would like subs to also make use [INAUDIBLE] could also incorporate that in [INAUDIBLE]?

DAREN MERCEDES: Yes. Yes. That is actually the goal. And actually, right now, we have an electrical sub. That's why I mentioned it first.

We have an electrical sub for the Royal Caribbean terminal that they're already encompassing and taking this information into place. So their design build, their schedule-- so the contractor-- so that's why it's a little bit easier, because they are designing the actual lighting and electrical elements of the building.

So from the get-go, they're bringing in this information that we really just bring into Synchro and connect to a schedule that's already there. And we immediately see the whole FPL ball to the lights, when they're going to be installed.

Any other questions? Yes.

AUDIENCE: For the [INAUDIBLE] sample targets that you had in mind, I think there were two parts. I guess my question is a roundabout way of asking, did you know that it needed to be two? Or were you confident? Or did you know so much concrete would be poured per day and required so much concrete, so the delivery schedule [INAUDIBLE]? Or it's going to be filled with rebar this day, and not--

DAREN MERCEDES: Yes.

AUDIENCE: --that day?

DAREN MERCEDES: Yes, we actually did take that into consideration. Because we actually have two towers going up at the same time in that 1201 building. So taking into consideration the schedule and what we're going to do, we have one barge for each tower. That's how, basically-- yeah.

Because when we make the model-- you make the model, like I said, at the beginning. You make the model to actually build out of that model. You can actually extract quantities of concrete from that model. And that's how we estimate it now. We take the model, we do a quantity take-off of the concrete, and we put a percentage of waste. And that's basically what we're going to go to bid.

So from the get-go, we knew the amount of concrete we were going to need for each floor and that much-- was going to be able to, basically, work with all of that. So, yeah.

Yes.

AUDIENCE: So most of the cases, like when you get the design models at a pivotal stage, is that where you get the structure of your model, design, architect model? And so do you work on those design models just supporting those common goals, or do you just restart your own model of your own, and then [INAUDIBLE]?

DAREN MERCEDES: So actually, for that type of thing, at Suffolk-- and again, this is kind of a different approach-- we do build our own models. We build our structure model ourselves based on the drawings that they have provided. And we compare that model to the structure model that they have given us if they have given us a model.

Now, when we have a model from the structural engineer already and we get to the point that we get called into the job and the model's already done, per se, then you do go into this, either you build your own or you go into this mode or actually go into Revit and connecting all of that-- which is still a lot faster to do in Revit than it is to do in any other software-- to assign those codes.

In Revit, you can easily just take all that information and basically connect all of that and assign the parameter and do all of that. If you have to do it on Navisworks, it's just a whole different thing. If you have to do it in Synchro, which is definitely more complicated, it's also-- Revit allows you to do the linking process of at least assigning the code a lot faster.

So in that case, if we're not going to build the model from zero, then we'll have to go ahead and do that, yes. Again, this is why everybody wants to get to do their own thing. Because it not only helps us check their project and their model-- and actually, that's how you find most of the mistakes or things that we miss in drawings and so forth and so on.

50% of RFIs nowadays are created based on questions that-- where's this drawing? What's the detail for this area? Please provide that detail. So when you do it like that, you can go ahead and get all of that information in. Hopefully, the sooner we get called into the job, of course, is always better.

Any other questions? Yes.

AUDIENCE: I was just wondering, what's your process for elements that have multiple tasks?

DAREN MERCEDES: Elements that have multiple tasks assigned to it. So that's exactly why the test codes are so general at this level. You're talking about parking level. And when you take different tasks of forming, rebar, actual pour, curing-- you take all of those tasks and you assign the P 1 H code to it.

So when you go into Synchro, the process of building that is going to be a lot longer than just pouring that mat. But you actually know that once that portion of the slab is done, it is done from forming, rebar, and pouring and curing. So that's what you see in the model.

Again, at this beginning stages of when we get a baseline going and when we have a proposal due, you normally don't know the pour breaks and all of that stuff. But that's basically, what it does. When you assign all of those common codes in Primavera-- or, really, in Microsoft Project you can do as well-- you assign it to all of the activities that have to do with that one portion-- slab or whatever it may be.

AUDIENCE: So what happens if [INAUDIBLE] like for finishing [INAUDIBLE]?

DAREN MERCEDES: So that's really in the Synchro world, you can create the-- if you have a different color for the parking level 1 different to the parking level 2-- that's what you mean?

AUDIENCE: No, I mean, let's say you had the [INAUDIBLE]. And you have the pouring. And then you have to finish it [INAUDIBLE].

DAREN MERCEDES: So if you model it like that in Revit from the get-go you have those different layers. Then you can basically call that out the same way-- basically do parking 1 horizontal-1 if that's what you have from the get-go, if you know that that's what you're going to do.

If you don't, then you can do the whole thing as one just to get-- because really, when you're showing a proposal, again, you're trying to draw in the builder. That's what we are. We're drawing in the builder. The two-inch slab that we're pouring on top just to-- whatever-- polish concrete or whatever it may be is not really going to be in the picture at that time, because sometimes they don't even know that's what they want yet.

But if you do have it and you do want to go into that level, then you basically add a dash 1 to that portion, wherever that's true. And again, that just keeps it simple for the scheduler to also understand that there's another layer pouring here, and we're going to do a dash 1. Everybody understands and is a little bit more easier to follow through.

Yes.

AUDIENCE: The support with the [INAUDIBLE], like the studs and the wallpaper, do you use [INAUDIBLE] before you tack onto the [INAUDIBLE]? And then [INAUDIBLE]?

DAREN MERCEDES: So again, that's a great level of detail in there. It does work with that. We have studs family in our models and all of that. And we can actually go ahead and build the interior of a specific unit and do the sequence of operation in Synchro like that. So yeah, but you'll have to go a little bit more into details.

And that's where you take it. Again, we'll take it from the basic stage and push it to something else than what we need. You add the dash 1 and you suddenly have the interior design of that unit. If that's the way that they're building it in the schedule, you put dash 1-- Unit 1-1-- and you can go ahead and build that area, as well.

Any other questions? Any other questions?

So in here, actually, I had a little bit of a issue with Autodesk in doing this. So a lot of the presentation and models should have been uploaded. They're not. So if you want that-- if you want the presentation, you want the Synchro model, you want the Primavera schedule, you want the Revit model, the Navisworks, all of that, just send me an email. I'll send all of that stuff to you guys so you guys can take a look at how you do it, link it, and actually expand on that.

The Primavera file already has all of the codes in there. So if you want to expand on that, you can expand on that. I have it to level 34 or something like that. So if you have something smaller than 34 floors, you'll be able to just take from the codes that they're already created. If you have a higher tower, then you can just add a couple more codes together, the whole job done.