multiple revision levels in the same drawing

[Anonymous]

My question is in regard to revision levels within the same drawing.  If a revision is made to a drawing, that revision gets clouded and identified with a revision triangle.  Once the drawings are submitted, the customer comes back with something else that needs revised.  That revision is made, clouded and identified with the next revision level and resubmitted.

The current policy here where I work is that all of the revision clouds and triangles remain throughout the set of drawings.  In other words, after a revision #1 is made and submitted, the next revision (#2) is made to the drawings, but the revision #1 clouds and triangles must remain on the drawings.  It is completely feasible to have 3 or 4 revision levels on a set of drawings.  And by the last revision, there are multiple clouds and triangles on the set, which can sometimes lead to confusion and clutter. 

My argument is that once a revision level is reviewed and accepted by the customer/architect, any further revisions result in only the current revisions being clouded and identified.  All previous clouds and triangles need to be removed (or the layer turned off) as they are no longer part of the current revision.  Each subsequent revision to the drawings should only contain the revision clouds and triangles pertinent to that particular revision.

What I am asking for here is input from other folks regarding this matter.  What are your drafting policies?  Am I wrong in how I approach revisions?  Is there a written AIA standard supporting or rebuking my position? 

ALL opinions are welcome!

[RobDraw]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

once a revision level is reviewed and accepted by the customer/architect, any further revisions result in only the current revisions being clouded and identified.  All previous clouds and triangles need to be removed (or the layer turned off) as they are no longer part of the current revision.  Each subsequent revision to the drawings should only contain the revision clouds and triangles pertinent to that particular revision.

---

This is my preferred workflow but if the client asks for some other method we adjust accordingly. Having drawings cluttered with revision clouds is only going to make them hard to read and possibly cause confusion. I've worked on projects that had enough revisions to make the drawings unreadable if we left he clouds on. 

[pendean]

There is no "governing" standards on the topic, that's a preference you and your company's management need to agree about together and implement.

AEC companies are split 50-50 on the two methods as far as I can tell.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your input. Just to clarify, it isn't the architect requesting how we treat multiple revisions. This is our internal policy, which I don't agree with and am working diligently to change.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your input. I am only interested in changing our policy to avoid confusion and clutter on the drawings. Ultimately, if the customer/architect approves the drawings and a revision was missed or overlooked because of having too many clouds on the drawings, it is on them. But I feel we need to do our due diligence to make the drawings as easy to read as possible.

[pendean]

Sadly, that is for you and your bosses to discuss internally, there is no "here is how it all should be done" universal document you can reference.

[Anonymous]

I'm not aware of any national or international standards regarding the use of revisions, but I can tell you how my company does it, and we work for some pretty big clients. 

We first create 2 layers, (REV 1) & (REV_TBLOCK01) We revise a drawing, cloud up what has been revised and mark it with a rev triangle that contains whatever rev we're on, update the title block. It gets issued for approval to the client, once they approve we go IFC (issued for construction), rev clouds and triangles stay on. If they have remarks during the approval issue, we incorporate their comments and keep the same rev, just expand our clouds to what they've added.

Assuming we went construction, and later on we changes to make, first thing we do is turn REV 1 layer off. This removes the clouds, triangles, and title block info from the sheet without actually removing them from the file. 

We create the new layers, REV2 and REV_TBLOCK02, make our changes and cloud using those layers. Add newest rev to title block. 

We can always only see 1 rev on the drawing at any time.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your input. The layer approach is what I am leaning towards right now. By turning layers on and off we can see only what is current, but have the ability to "back track" if necessary.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your input. I am finding out, sadly, that there is no "written rule" governing this. That is why I am trying to change the mindset here to avoid confusion and clutter with multiple revisions all appearing at the same time. It would seem as though the layer approach would best achieve this.

[lbengineer]

I would leave the revision triangle on the drawings and take off the old clouds. The drawings would be difficult to read with too many clouds. Especially if you have many revisions.

[vinodkl]

At my work place we would remove the rev cloud and keep revision triangle as it is and update the revision log about the changes clearly in the title block which would make the drawing legible instead of being cluttered with rev cloud. Use different layers for different revision and freezing them is also a good idea.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your input. I am leaning towards different layers for each revision level that we can turn off, but still retain.

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your input. I am looking to proceed with a very similar solution.