SCRUG April Meeting Summary

Thanks to everyone who attended last night's meeting. Thanks to our sponsors Kelar Pacific, Microdesk, ProGroup & U.S. CAD. Special thanks to Ann Laughlin of LPA for helping with logistics.

Reg Hiebert and Roque DeLa Torre of ISEC displayed some incredibly complex and detailed families for a hospital application, and talked about their process of development and the evolution of this technology, which does involve laser scanning and precise placement of these assemblies using modeled building data.

Randy Sharp shared his insight into process change and described how the roles of architectural project team members must change and what skills they must acquire to successfully perform in a BIM project environment.

"To efficiently work in the BIM environment we must learn new ways to work. New ways to work mean new ways to describe the traditional roles of a project delivery team."

The next SCRUG meeting will be Thursday, May 23rd. Bill Brown's students from Santiago High School will present their Revit work.

Other agenda items to be added. Join SCRUG Local on LinkedIn to stay up to date on meetings, news and other SCRUG events.

SCRUG Meeting Update - April

The April SCRUG Meeting is this Thursday, 6:30 p.m. at SCRUG's former home, LPA in Irvine. The meeting may be recorded for future webcast.

RSVP for the April SCRUG meeting.


At SCRUG, Roque DeLa Torre's presentation, Subcontractor Coordination in the Real World, will highlight the fact that implementation must take place throughout the industry. And I guarantee that a few feathers will be ruffled when, in Essential Roles of the BIM/Revit Team, Randy Sharp describes how everyone in the organization must commit to process change. 

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I re-launched the SCRUG in part to focus on the home building industry, which has been slower to adapt than other market sectors, and because of the awareness that there are still many firms that are not fully committed and therefore are struggling with BIM implementation.

Revit implementation challenges are the same for everyone involved in this area of architectural practice. BIM adoption was slowed in part because of the efficiency of CAD methods that have evolved over the past decade. These efficiencies were driven by the limitations of CAD and in some cases are opposed to the whole concept of BIM.

Anyone who has used Revit extensively knows that it is more efficient and yields a better product than traditional methods. In contrast, many CAD users do not realize how dramatically that technology has affected our profession, with every efficiency accompanied by invisible costs which may be as intangible as the benefits of BIM, however no less real. The process of Building Information Modeling returns the overall responsibility for design to the architect. Responsibility that has been given away in bits and pieces for the expediency that is demanded by CAD.

Revit implementation requires commitment, perseverance, and encouragement on all levels. While focusing on production and deliverables there must also be an emphasis on moving BIM upstream. The benefits of BIM and Revit are known to all. The real challenge is finding the right approach to training, transition and implementation that provides the confidence users need to overcome the obstacles that are encountered during process change.

A. Jay Holland

April SCRUG Meeting

Our next meeting will be held on Thursday, April 25th. Location to be announced.

Subcontractor Coordination in the Real World

Speaker: Roque DeLa Torre

This presentation is a look at Revit from a construction standpoint, beginning with the process of developing models to full interaction with installation teams working in the field. This is a unique perspective of how Revit can benefit both the design aspect and final implementation of a project, which will highlight the importance of the developing intelligent models that react to project changes.

ISEC Inc. is a specialty interiors subcontractor with offices across the U.S. Roque is a highly accomplished Revit specialist with an international back ground of collaboration with design teams in both Architecture and Construction. Roque's experience extends to Revit Structure and MEP. He is a member of ISEC's Revit development team.

This is a condensed version of the class that Roque will give at the upcoming Revit Technology Conference this July in Vancouver, B.C.

Essential Roles of the BIM/Revit Team

Speaker: Randy Sharp

AEC firms need to evaluate their technology strategies along with their processes and personnel to ensure they have appropriate systems in place to best serve  their organizational needs.

This presentation will feature the use of Navisworks as the primary digital tool for coordination, quality assurance, and construction administration, and emphasize concept that every member of the team must acquire the appropriate skills according to their role in a project.

Randy is a unique Revit early-adopter who has actually swung a hammer for a living, with more than 20 years as a journeyman carpenter and building contractor on both commercial and residential construction. He is a BIM Strategies Specialist who has assisted several firms with their transition from CAD to Revit.

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RSVP for the April SCRUG meeting.

Join SCRUG Local on LinkedIn

Thanks to our sponsors for their generous support.

The Future of SCRUG

Colleagues,
 
I was surprised last month when the LA-RUG user group announced its 2014 Preview to be held in Orange County. I assumed that The Consortium had withdrawn after the re-launch of SCRUG. Their last meeting in O.C. was October 2012.

Why LARUG | OC Exists is an unedited excerpt from an email that I (and many others) received from Jay Zallan, President of LA-RUG, which outlines the intentions of that group. I decided it would be in the best interest of the membership not to hold two conflicting meetings, and gave our full support to the LA-RUG.

The South Coast Revit Users Group has received commitments from our sponsors, Kelar Pacific, Microdesk, ProGroup, and U.S. CAD, to support and expand this group. However, due to the overlap between the two groups, the SCRUG has agreed with Autodesk Territory Manager Chuck Keeley's proposal to share this sponsorship with LA-RUG. 

We will reduce the number of our meetings, skipping every third month, allowing LA-RUG to benefit from the support of our sponsors. I also invite the LA group to collaborate on joint SCRUG/LA-RUG meetings, combining presentations from both L.A. and O.C.

The next two SCRUG meetings are tentatively scheduled for April 25th and May 23rd. Location and topics to be announced. I thank everyone for their continued support of the South Coast Revit Users Group, the first and foremost Revit users' group in Orange County.

~A. Jay Holland