Revit users prefer when other teams are also work in Revit. That’s when things flow, as long as everyone knows what they’re doing. Though often times we may not get to choose who we’re working with and what software is used for coordination, which becomes a challenge when companies prefer working in different software.

This tends to be the case on small projects where technical software details may be lower in priority to other factors needed to seal the deal. Time is also a typical factor, you may often hear the phrase, “It’s much faster for me to do in CAD”. In our industry today, especially North America, we still see a number of offices who haven’t fully adopted Revit, or not at all, though I don’t blame them. It’s not easy.

One scenario is if the architect is working in CAD, while the MEP engineer prefers working in Revit. This poses a challenge for MEP Revit offices if their template, and families were not flexible between Revit and CAD backgrounds.

Solving this issue is a matter of having your office properly set up with a robust Revit template, a well-managed library of families, workflows for both Revit and CAD, and coaching. Whether it’s a year long project or a quick-and-dirty two week stint, the goal is to deliver the same quality of work at company standards, no matter the situation. Though this isn’t easy.

Every company has graphical standards that they wish to achieve, which means finding a common denominator of settings in Revit that also work for CAD. Workflows need to be created to address modifications to the template as necessary, and families may need to be modified or newly created with functionalities that could meet both scenarios. Not to mention shared parameters need to be managed properly ensuring the template and families are working together.

This situation can be a horrendous mess if designers were left to solve them on their own, especially if they’re not familiar with customizing Revit. Often times, short cuts are taken leading to a myriad of modeling problems. The solution is best left to a BIM Manager who also has a strong grasp of both Revit and CAD and understands the necessary nuances to navigate both scenarios seamlessly.

Having things set up right means more time spent in design, and less time spent on the nitty gritty model setup processes. Neglecting the importance of being properly setup means adding hours of work and frustration on every project, scaling over time, which unfortunately we see in the industry everyday. That’s a lot of money spent due to the lack of a proper BIM setup which companies should highly consider resolving. Most especially any company recently adopting Revit should hire a BIM consultant to put them on the right track.