If you are considering whether to outsource Revit modelling, it is rarely about a single model and almost always about the volume behind it. A large part of any detailed design phase consists of work that repeats itself. The same detailing that recurs in twenty places, a component that has to exist in four sizes, a series of floor plans in which the same change has to be made again and again.
That part is not difficult, there is just a lot of it. And that is exactly where a drawing office gets stuck, because the hours go on repetition while the substantive work stays on the shelf.
We are set up for precisely that kind of volume. We draft and model at a high pace, with a permanent team in which everyone has more than ten years of CAD experience, and with our large, variable team we scale up or down per project. We do not do engineering, and we do not provide calculations or structural advice either. What we do is build the model, develop the families and produce the drawings from it.
Cable tray routing in the model, built with parametric families that carry the material schedule with them.
An as-built file as an example of Revit modelling
The situation we come across most often in Revit modelling is an existing situation that does not match what is on paper. At Firefly we were given as-built material in which the drawings had been printed incorrectly and partly updated by hand. It was hard to read and messy, and there was no consistent structure to it. The easy route would have been to call the client every day with questions about unclear sections. We did not do that. We sorted it out ourselves, reconstructed the logic behind the drawings and still delivered a clean set.
What we take away from that is that the quality of the material supplied is rarely the problem it seems to be. Almost every file has gaps, and the question is who fills them. A drafter who stops and asks at every ambiguity simply shifts the work back to the client, which is exactly what outsourcing is supposed to prevent. We work it out and only put forward the points where a real decision is involved. A second lesson lies in the structure. A file that has been updated by hand does not translate easily into a model, and then it is wiser to rebuild parts than to keep repairing.
We make that trade-off visible rather than quietly spending hours on it. We have now completed more than twenty projects and hundreds of drawings for Firefly, and files like this came along regularly. A third point is quality control, because with reconstructed work in particular a second pair of eyes needs to confirm that the assumptions are right before the set moves on.
What you get when you outsource Revit modelling
When you outsource Revit modelling to us, the output runs from model to drawing. We build the model, develop the families and templates and produce the 2D drawings the project needs from them. That means floor plans, elevations, sections, detail drawings and the associated material schedules. We also handle revisions to existing models and the processing of as-built situations. Where the work lends itself to it, we build parametric families, in other words smart components.
Such a component adapts to a new situation or a different size, so it is created once and then placed everywhere without having to be redrawn. The material schedule updates along with it, so if the component changes, the schedule changes automatically. Greenhouse construction offers a telling example. Companies there often work in AutoCAD, which is not smart at building components such as valves in piping systems. If you need a valve in 90 and in 110, you draw it by hand each time, whereas with a smart family it is in place in a single action.
In work like this, that saves at least seventy per cent of the time. We can clean up or rebuild existing families and templates, and which is wiser depends on the state of the existing set. If a family set is very messy, rebuilding is sometimes quicker than repairing. Alongside Revit we work with AutoCAD and Rhino, supplemented by Inventor, Grasshopper and, to a limited extent, Dynamo and Vault, always in the latest versions.
No ongoing payroll costs and no idle staff once the peak is over. If one of our people is off sick or on holiday, we replace them and the work simply carries on.
The delivered set when you outsource Revit modelling
A delivered set has to fit what happens to it next, and that determines how we set it up. The model contains the built elements with their parameters, so that a change in one place carries through to the rest. We include the families we create, and they are built so that your drafting team can adapt them and reuse them on a following project. Material schedules come from the model, not from a separate file that drifts away from reality. We produce the 2D drawings from the same model, so drawings and model stay in step. Exchange runs via Revit formats and, where the downstream process calls for it, via DXF, DWG or STEP files. We deliver the source files, so you can continue working without involving us, and the intellectual property is yours. What we do not deliver are calculations, structural justifications or permit documents, because that is engineering and we do not do it.
With a revision round you also get insight into what has been changed, so the set connects with the previous version. We deliver in parts, so the downstream process can already start on the first batch while we work on the second. For a contractor, that often means construction continues while the rest of the file is still being processed. Each part has passed through at least three review layers before delivery, which keeps the number of errors minimal in practice. We agree at the start exactly which components the set must contain and in what form they are delivered, so there is no discussion at delivery about what is still missing.
Outsource Revit modelling to your own CAD standards
When you outsource Revit modelling, matching your own standards is not an extra service but the starting point. We work to the drawing conventions of the organisation that brings us in, and you provide them to us. In concrete terms, that means the layer structure, the naming of elements and families, sheet layout, hatching, how dimensions are shown and the way views and sheets are organised.
A model that is neat in itself but deviates from your library still needs a round of rework afterwards, and then nothing has been gained. That is why we ask for those conventions before we begin. If there is no documented standard yet, we work with what actually happens in the existing set and put that choice to you.
If a convention is missing on a detail, we make a proposal rather than inventing something ourselves that nobody will recognise later. The review layers also keep an eye on this point. A second team member checks the work, Sam, our team leader, then reviews it and Barry, our project manager, assesses it last, and any deviations from the standard are spotted there.
When revising existing files, we keep to the structure already in them, even if we would do it differently ourselves, because consistency within the set outweighs our preference. We do this in our own environment with our own licences, not in your systems. A short first delivery is the quickest way to test whether the standard has been adopted correctly.
Frequently asked questions about outsourcing Revit modelling
Let us handle your Revit modelling
Send us your documents and drawing conventions and we will let you know within one to two working days what we can take on and when.