Increasing PDMS deliverables efficiency in Civil Structural department

Shahrouz Raeisi, London, 1st Dec. 2010 s.raeisi@yahoo.co.uk

May companies handle structural modelling and drafting in PDMS in a traditional way which means
with no structural admin activities or a minimal administrative efforts by other disciplines helps.

Managers will not have enough monitoring and control power on drafting team and normally the way of
handling tasks will be decided by designers to match their desired target and deadlines.

Top nine the most important tasks in Structural Admin with AVEVA PDMS 12.0 which will help to
increase efficiency in structural department follow:

1. Customized Cats and Spec.

Do not ask designers to make the cat and spec and also do not ask PDMS administrator to do it
also.
This has to be done and own by structural admin.

2. Connection Catalogue
This doesn’t apply to many companies because they do not do detailing in PDMS and all they
attend to do is design drawings which will be handed over fabricators for detail drawings but for
those companies who attempt to do more detailing in PDMS they already know that this is also
Structural Admin responsibilities and not PDMS admin’s.

3. Details Design Templates (Lift Logs etc.)

Many of special and specific details in a project can be modelled by PDMS model templates for
instance if there are different sizes of lift logs but the form and shape are similar and just
dimensions are different with just one template you can model all different types in no time.
(mean just couple of data entry for each after preparing model template)

4. Area Based Automatic Drawing Production Admin and Templates

This is just as strong as clone in Tekla. If you have many similar drawings such as different
plans or elevations or any other similar type of drawings, simply prepare one drawing template
for it and using AB ADP you can create drawings for each elevation or plan with couple of
clicks and etc and just clean them up using manual drafting techniques.

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 Increasing PDMS deliverables efficiency in Civil Structural department
Shahrouz Raeisi, London, 1st Dec. 2010 s.raeisi@yahoo.co.uk

5. Access Platforms, Staircases and Ladders (ASL Modeller)

This is a very good improvement in PDMS 12 which can make a huge difference in terms of
time and money with minimal Structural Admin efforts. You will have staircases and ladders
and access platforms much faster with the profile sections not just as plates in PDMS 11 so you
can have a proper material take off as well.

6. Training, Guidelines and procedures documentation

It is also very important especially with traditional project based structures in many companies.
People are joining a project team from different origins and with different background. If
managers don’t provide proper training, guidelines or procedures they will end up wasting time
for poor quality deliverables.

7. Drawings quality
Drawings quality in some of companies is visually absolutely poor. There is no pen width or line
type set. If you are spending so much on these drawings and deliverables at least try to get some
satisfaction by very minimal draft admin.

8. PML.NET
PDMS 12 is supporting .NET technology for PML programming. Do not miss it and try to make
the best of it in your repetitive time consuming tasks.

9. Civil and structural Pipe Supports

One more last thing, Structural and civil pipe supports needed to be owned by CS department to
avoid conflicts with piping in terms of responsibilities. Do not leave pipe supports as last activity
otherwise you will end up doing it on overhead budget.

If you have your own PDMS Structural Admin then ask him to read through this maybe it can be a bit of
help for better ideas.

If you don’t have then easily either search for one or drop me an email and we will do it for you on
outsource basis as a PDMS Structural Admin package. The whole package will be customized based on

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 Increasing PDMS deliverables efficiency in Civil Structural department
Shahrouz Raeisi, London, 1st Dec. 2010 s.raeisi@yahoo.co.uk

your specific project requirements and this can increase drawing and modelling speed by 15-20% and
also will enhance the deliverables quality as well.

A presentation about this topic will be prepared and shared with you later.

Do not hesitate to contact me if you need any future information.

Reference:
Aveva PDMS 12.0 Manuals

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