Navisworks - how many Clashes are typical?

[Doverfelt1]

Our company just bought Navisworks. I was wondering if there is a rule of thumb or a table that kind of gives you an idea of how many clashes in a certain size model you should see or have?? The first project we did here the contractor said we had 1100 clashes. Quite a few people freaked out at first in the office till we talked to the contractor and they said that was good. They typically see 10000. Is there any data out there to compare too.

One more question, does your firm fix all of the clashes found in the model. The firm I worked for before did no clash detection. We did at first and spent many hours fixing issues that no one will ever see. We later had the mine set that the PDF's is what the contractor bids on and builds from, not the model. The model was to help the contactor, but the Documnets rule the project. Why spend time fixing issues in the model that don't show up on any sheets in the Final documnets. I would really like to hear back on this one too.

Thanks

Doug

[dgorsman]

What is normal is entirely dependant on your models and work processes.  If your models are "sloppy" (e.g. not putting in every single building wall penetration), that may very well be acceptable with respect to the time saved.  But if you have pipes running through each other, that is probably a little too sloppy.

I work in a refinery and compression environment, so its expected we will have very few clashes; in a more architectural or commercial structure environment you very well could have thousands of valid clashes which are left to be sorted out on-site during construction, such as insulation coping.

The final issued drawings are what you are contracted for, but the models are your central storage house of information.  They should contain as much information as possible but not so much as to make life difficult.  So if the drawings are all 1:100 and you aren't counting bolts, modeling bolts will just be a waste of time - they aren't being counted and won't show up on the drawing except as point.  Same thing with clashing items - if they don't matter in terms of information or drawing, why are they in the model to generate nonsense clashes?