Clash reports, how are you handling them?

[GrumpyGrizzly]

Looking for standard processes where someone creates a Clash Report (Who IS that person), what does the report format look like (.html images would be awesome to see), how do you get the clashes to your discipline leads with information they can use, how do you track whether the clash has been corrected, etc.

Basically, in my case, as a 3D/BIM Coordinator, I create the Clash Reports, set up the sets, rules, format for documenting them.  I'm  NOT an expert in all disciplines so for me to go through every clash and say "HVAC, move 6" up to avoind that cable tray" would be a huge waste of my time.  I need the disciplines to handle that themselves.  Then we need to have almost daily coordination meetings to make sure the clashes are being addressed.

Currently we have a requirement to create a weekly report of hwo many actual clashes we have with a bar chart showing the progress.  This can be taken from the .xml file format that NW will produce. 

Does anyone have a workflow set up for this process?  Luckily all my disciplines are in-house so we can make the meetings happen with minimal bloodshed. 

Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

I've posted something along these lines over on the AUGI website with no response.  It's kinda dead over there these days.

[Patrick_Aps_9121]

In my situation, not everything is done in-house, so whenever we get a new version of the model of our steel contractor, we feel the need to do a clash detection.

In short; the workfloz is the following:

- I have an NWF which combines all the models

- I make sure this NWF has loaded the new version of the models.

- I save as a temprorary NWF, detach (delete) the models that have nothing to do with the clash test. This is to avoid waisting time on false clashes.

- I save as NWD before starting the clash. I include the date YYYYMMDD in the filename so that everybody understands this is about the clashes that were there on that day.

- I run the clash test (The steel contractors model against all our models) with a difference of 2mm or 0.1 inch. This is to avoid getting results of faces touching each other. 

- In the clas result, allthough i also do not have a lot of time, I go through all the results, and change status (Active are real clashes, all doubles and other false clashes are Solved)

- I rename the Active clashes

-From the clash result I run the Viewpoint report to create all the viewpoints for each clash.

- I save the NWD again, so it includes the viewpoints.

Then it is over to the project team to open the NWD (with Freedom of Simulate) to discuss who has to do what to avoid the clash. They do this using Simulate by using the redline tags and save this all in the NWD.

- I export the viewpoints. XML report from this  NWD, so the next time the model gets an update, we can go back and review what has been done about it by importing the viewpoints in the new NWD of the new date.

[GrumpyGrizzly]

Thanks a bunch for the reply Patrick.

So, you actually go through all the clashes that come up and categorize them?   What's a realistic number of clashes you'll get in one report?  Right now, I've got a facility that has quite a few thousand clashes. 

Do you rename them based on who is involved  (i.e. telecom vs hvac, electrical vs structural)?

I tried exporting my clash tests as an .xml file in my .nwf, went to import them into my base model and next thing I know I was looking at an error reporting page and my background image.  That's happened every time I've tried it.  This was on a VERY simple test file with 2 clashes. 

Basically, I think I need to be able to make a clash report, clean it up a bit (killing duplicates, etc), let my disciplines hash it out to see who's moving what.  My problem lies in putting it all back together so we can look at it again next week and see what problems have been solved based on comments made and then categorize those clashes accordingly to be able to track them.  I'd think if all my disciplines got together for a meeting and went through the clashes, made comments, and walked out with some kind of direction, that'd be great.

I agree with your idea of dating the .nwf/nwd's and have already thought that one out.  One problem we have is we have a dedicated computer running three sessions of NWM at the same time.  They each open a model and save it as a .nwd every 20 minutes or so.  So, if it takes us 2 days to create the reports, have the meetings, bandage our wounds and create the report we need, by the time it's created, the .nwd has been updated 144 times.  and that's IF it only takes two days to figure out what we need to do.  Also take in to account, we have 150+ designers and drafters working on the files while all that is happening in the background. 

Our client is asking for clash reports now and so far we've just given them numbers and a simple bar chart to show how many we have this week vs last week. 

Thanks again for your response, I look forward to hearing some of your answers to my questions.

Paul

[Patrick_Aps_9121]

Hmm, I'm in the Plant Design area, and I only get up to 50 clashes, doubles included.

Try spliting up the clash detection the way it will be erected:

- First clash the walls against the constructional items (concrete beams and steelwork)

- Then clash HVAC against  (walls and constructional)

- Then electrical against(HVAC and walls and constructional)

Which then makes it very clear also which department has to do the changes to avoid the clash.

In the results tab of clash, change the report type to "Viewpoints" and see what happens: every clash gets saved as a viewpoint. Save the NWD and you have save the results.

The automatic creation of NWD every 20 minutes might be good for the people who do the input. The other members of the project team are more served with a single NWD of the complete model every day (or night). So that have more feeling about what status they are lookning at.

[lee.mullin]

There's another useful response on the LinkedIn group

http://www.linkedin.com/e/k2xifg-gm4dewrm-30/vaq/49313143/3004022/35781305/view_disc/

Hopefully Ronan will come over here to answer any further questions

[GrumpyGrizzly]

Thanks Lee,

I just posted a very long response to Ronan over on Linked In and when I hit send, Linked in apologized for not posting my comment due to a system upgrade.  I'm going to wait a little bit to see if they post it. 

Sometimes, I really hate Linked in.. OK, a LOT of times..

[chadrholbrook]

I have lead the coordination on a few projects and I am constantly revisiting my process to make it better with each project.  By no means is my way the one and only way to do it, but I have found it works well for me.

I have a template NWF I setup with all my clash categories setup the way I use them for every project.  The only thing I have to do it append all the files, and setup the clash detection categories to include the appended files.  The rules and categories themselves are always setup.  I typically have one NWF for each area of the project and one comprehensive NWF for presentation purposes.  That NWF contains all the clashes that have ever existed with that specific model.

Once I run the clash detection on all categories, then I create a report for each category as Viewpoints, then as HTML.  In the past, I have found that my jobteams typically use the NWD that I include with my reports more than they use the HTML.  I post those reports to a site where everyone gets a notification that a new report was posted.  It is then up to the subcontractors to take responsibility to communicate with each other and figure out who and where they will be moving to correct the issues.  I have learned a lot about what systems can and cannot do through my experiences, but I do not want to take it upon myself to tell them how to design their systems, so it is up to them.  I require that not only the CAD guy, but also a knowledgeable (sometimes the same person) person are all in my meeting so that there is someone from their company who knows the systems capabilities and limitations, not just someone who is knowledgeable with the software.

During the height of coordination, I typically have one coordination meeting a week.  There have been times where I have required a model by the end of each day in order to expedite the process, but I typically resort to that when I am getting limited cooperation.  It does work, trust me.  It doesn't make me friends, but it does work and it is completely realistic.  If you spread your coordination meetings out to much more than a week apart, you tend to lose control of the coordination and people start becoming unresponsive which makes your job even more difficult.

The bottom line is that you have to be flexible and open to trying new things.  I have put my process together with a lot of trial and error.  I still find ways to improve my process with each project, but the secret is to find what works for you and build upon it.  Once you have a good base to start from, tweaking the process to improve it will be the easy part.

This is in response to one of the other posters.  I have beta tested Navisworks for a few years now (since before Autodesk owned it) and I have learned to stayed away from assigning the "Resolved" status to a clash because I see this status as being a clash that did exist, but was fixed by a correction to the model.  Instead, I use "Reviewed" in the case where it is a clash we need to keep our eyes on or have questions about, and "Approved" as the status I assign if there is a false or duplicate clash.  The "Resolved" status is the only status the software assigns when a pre-existing clash no longer exists, so I tend to keep that separate from the other status assignments for that reason.  If you start flirting with that status, you lose the ability to track whether it was assigned by a person or it was actually fixed in the model.

[GrumpyGrizzly]

Thanks Chad.  From what I'm gathering from several sources, the Viewpoint method seems to be a favorite. 

The template file I've already discovered and agree with you 110%.  Perhaps Autodesk needs to implement a way to create and save one for our use just like a template in Autocad or Autocad MEP.  Currently I've created one with our company logo as the drawing and all my batches and rules for Clash Detection as part of it.  I start out my models using it and append everything else to it. 

I'll definitely take a lot of your advice and refine it where it works best for my situation and I appreciate your taking the time to write this up for me.

Thanks again,

Paul

[Jeff1406]

Hi Patrick

I read with interest your comments as I'm new to Navisworks and learning how to carry out clash detection, then report the clashes to the architect and structural engineer.

When I run clash reports using the XTML (or Tabular) output, I get a very handy report with images of each clash. Unfortunatley I can't seem to be able to email these reports to the consultant without the images getting lost (actually the links to the images I guess, so they are missing). Do you know how to do this please?

I've followed your advice and all works well with the saved viewpoints in NW Freedom, but it may be a bit difficult for the consultants to locate exactly within their models where the clash is occuring. The Properties tab helps, but does not seem to give grid line coordinates. Is there a way around this please?

Cheers

Jeff

[dgorsman]

Ensure you are sending both the HTML report and the image folder.  The paths should be relative, so as long as the report and image folder are in the same relative position they should work.  There's the off-chance there may be some browser security issues which prevent the images from displaying.

[Patrick_Aps_9121]

As for the report, print it to a PDF on a machine where the images are visible. Then you get one "unchangable"PDF report of that clash report.
As for the Viewpoints and the orentation: there are several ways:
- Use Revit to create Floors and Axes, and they become usable in NavisWorks
- Draw an 3D AutoCAD file with axes and 3Dtext with the axes names
- All users could do the following: View tab -> HUD -> Coordinates to see the coordinates of the Point where they are standing (not the coordinates of the clash, but still..)

[bimovation]

Im curious of you could share your base NWF or some screenshots of your tried and true presets?