1. Alistair Wells Glen Hutchinson
Drawings
Alistair Wells Glen Hutchinson

2. Building Information Modeling
Still the main goal is to generate drawings of the construction for various purposes
Each construction team member requires drawings
Can we use BIM/3D to improve the overall drawing creation workflow

3. Traditional Method/Workflow
Drawing information usually combined into very busy detail drawings. Sometimes 8-1/2” x 11”
Contained architecture, weld, plate, and other information all together
Many to do and track, very time consuming ( ) drawings to track
Then must track thousands of reference calls to (marks/symbols) GA showing which detail drawing
Contract docs
Engineering
A & D
Sketches & calcs
Large Sheet GA drawings
Advanced
Connection details
Basic
GA drawings
This is the standard way Precasters are working in 2D now. Note the division of labour. Some advanced some basic skill sets
Cast Unit / Shop tickets
Basic

4. Traditional Method/Workflow
With a model do we need drawings for approvals?
Contract docs
Engineering
A & D
Sketches & calcs
Large Sheet GA drawings
Advanced
Connection details
Lets simplify drawing for the correct audience!
Basic
GA drawings
Do we need fabrication level of detail in these drawings?
With a model do we need GAs to do shop tickets?
Cast Unit / Shop tickets
Basic

5. Key is all have slightly different uses
Team Member Drawings
Fabricator
Engineer
Erector
Architect
Fabrication info
for production &
schedule
Info for approvals
(mainly connxs)
how to weld & put building together
Arch details
How reveals line up
Key is all have slightly different uses

6. Team Member Drawings
With 3D models does fabrication need so many details? We used to do them so that others could make shop drawings. Should we have less detail in them OR do them at different stage?
Fabricator
Engineer
Erector
Architect
Can engineering offices use models, shop drawings, or GA drawings to approve design or do we still need these traditional small detail drawings combing engineering, fabrication, architectural, and erection information?
Erectors are concerned with welds and geometry fit dimensions, not so much studs and embed information, can there be a set of “connection” drawings that contains only the “erection” information?
Note: You still have some drawings with architectural information to create for owner/architect
You still might have some drawings for coodination for engineer
However: we can automate most of the drawings that go to the erector/contractor showing how to put the building together by taking this approach, this is the most time consuming part. - also note how the marking, calling out is not only automated, but accurate with this approach…
Can architects offices use models, shop drawings, or GA drawings for approvals?

7. Connection drawings
Drawings to show placement of embed for sharing information to 3rd party.
To show how to weld, bolt, and erect pieces on the job site…”how to put the building together.”
These are done before reinforcing the model and before most shop drawings in stages as information is available.

8. Current Connection Drawings…
New procedure:
Tell TS to create connection Drawings.(selected, all, etc…)
Edit drawings as necessary
Current procedure:
Create views of component
Create new GA drawing of views
Edit drawing to add information
Move drawing later when connx. moves in model, re-edit drawing
Create hundreds of section and details symbols referring to where to find connx. drawing in project – for GA erection
Update/edit GA drawings to fix reference to changed connection in model
(loop several times steps 3-6 typically, for many connxs)

9. Conclusion Significant Productivity gains for projects
Reduction in errors
Automation of tedious, unpleasant task of creating and views that could move
Drawings at earlier stage to coordinate project has a lot of value

10. 1. Productivity gains Future procedure:
Tell TS to create connection Drawings. (selected, all, etc…)
Edit drawings as necessary
Re-editing drawings is not necessary as they are associative to connections.
Creating reference to drawings is not necessary with expansion of connection marks functionality and associativity.

11. 1. Productivity gains Future procedure:
With associativity and automation of connection drawings and reference mark it is possible to cut down on time by an estimated 60%. This could lead to savings around 10%-15% of drafting project time. This is huge savings!

12. 2. Reduction in errors:
Many errors arrise from model changes not being reflected in these GA-Conneciton drawings.
It takes time and manual tracking of changes by multiple people at multiple times to coordinate these 200+ drawings to the model constantly – this could be drastically reduced by parametric drawings to connections.
This would in turn result in more accurate, up to date, less error drawings for both erection drawings showing connection location and mark but also for the many connection drawings.

13. 2. Reduction in errors:
It is hard to quantify the savings from re-editing of GA connection and GA erection drawings but it would be significant on typical project. Changes happen.
This would be key new feature for industry. Biggest complaint from user at Coreslab is manually managing and re-editing these drawings after doing several projects in TS.

14. 3. Automation of tedious tasks:
Either user has to create model views of hundreds of connections and move to drawing sheets or create views from plan/elevation drawings and move to blank new sheets. This is a very logical, repetitive, tedious tasks that has a lot of potential to automate.
I asked a few users recently what was least favorite part of doing drawings in TS, creating connection drawings and referencing to plan/elevation was a common answer.
It is the moving of this reference symbol on drawings and updating of extrema that is mindless editing of drawings that is truly undesirable.

15. 4. Drawings at earlier stage:
Due to re-editing of connection drawings they are often put to last moment, but with invention of connection drawings these could be done much sooner without problem of repetition of editing.
This could result in drawings much sooner to coordinate with 3rd party providing much benefit to project.

16. Product - .NET development
Connection Drawings
Create Empty Drwg
Create Dummy GA Drwg
Cut Section in Dummy GA
Move section to empty drwg
Add views
Edit…
Current procedure:
Create views of component
Create new GA drawing of views
Edit drawing to add information
Move drawing later when connx. Moves in model, re-edit drawing
Create hundreds of section and details symbols referring to where to find connx. Drawing in project – for GA erection
Update/edit GA drawings to fix reference to changed connection in model
(loop several times steps 3-6 typically, for many connx.s)

17. Product - .NET development
Push button
Edit…
Create Empty Drwg
Create Dummy GA Drwg
Cut Section in Dummy GA
Move section to empty drwg
Add views
Edit…

18. Product - .NET development

19. Product - .NET development
“The process of marking connections in the model,  keeping track of which connections have which marks, and naming the detail drawings for each connection correctly is rather tedious with lots of room for user error.  The tool that Charles has created makes this process much faster and far less prone to errors … I plan on making this tool part of our modeling/detailing process on projects moving forward.” - Jason Reffner, Newcrete
“The new component manager tool is a great addition to Tekla, allowing precast users to easily manage and create connection drawings using localizations built into Tekla or their own custom settings.  This tool should help expedite the erection drawing process.” - Dave Foley, High