Best practices book - Flipbook - Page 220
reclaimed the space that was once buried beneath mountains of archived drawings. It has been
repurposed as a small employee break, meeting and library room.
An unexpected benefit: Going digital enabled the City to transform their old archival room into a library,
meeting space and break room.
Q and A on Electronic Plan Review
• What system and version do you use?
Bluebeam Revu x64 Standard version 20.
• What problems have you had or still have?
Some large pdf pages in a document are slow to load. Some projects come in with each sheet
saved as a single file rather than one bound file where you can scroll through the pages just like
a hard copy stapled set.
• Will your system allow Red Lines to be placed on the plans?
Yes, you can make clouds, text boxes and multiple other markup tools.
• How does it deal with Engineer’s Seals and Signatures?
Engineers’ seals and signatures are already embedded in the set of plans electronically.
• What would you change in the system you now have?
Not really a change to Bluebeam but more to the process. I think in order to really utilize the
system you need to be able to make print out a set of marked up plans on original size sheets.
Better way of printing out mark-ups to attach to the permit set. Right now, we can only print on
8.5 x 11” paper.
• What do you feel is the advantage?
Electronic and color archived copies of the plans. Projects are on a shared drive easily accessed
by the rest of our department as well as other departments such as Fire and Health. The
measurement tool is extremely helpful when determining travel distances, exit separations, and
square footages. It is nice to mark-up one floor plan and copy and paste those markups onto
remaining identical floors in a multi-story building and also the MEP plans (saves a lot of time).
Measurements; travel distances, square footages, diagonals etc. Saves paper, space and it is
easy to work with. If received electronically, it is ready for review. If it is not available
electronically, we will scan the project upon plan review completion and make it a pdf for
incorporation into our electronic filing system.
• What do you feel is the disadvantage?
Larger monitors would be beneficial in helping to view plans on screen. At first, there can be a
slow learning curve with some employees. If the files are not pdf files in good indexed order
from the architect it can be a tedious process to electronically incorporate revisions into a
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