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Hello dear piping designers.
I would like to share a concern that has been growing over the past few years regarding the implementation of BIM in industrial engineering projects, particularly in piping design.
While I fully support the adoption of BIM and the benefits it can bring to our industry, I am increasingly concerned thatthe misconception that BIM means Revit is leading us in the wrong direction.
My fear is that, rather than improving engineering efficiency, collaboration, and information management, we may be compromising years of progress in specialized industrial design workflows simply to comply with software requirements that do not necessarily reflect the actual needs of our discipline.
Are we truly embracing BIM, or are we misunderstanding what BIM is supposed to achieve? I mean, we have been doing BIM and colaborative projects from many many years.
I believe this is an important and increasingly relevant discussion for our industry, and I would genuinely like to hear how other professionals and engineering companies are experiencing and addressing this situation.
More and more frequently, we are encountering industrial projects where clients require BIM implementation and automatically specifyAutodesk Revit as the mandatory design software, regardless of the engineering discipline involved.
In industrial piping engineering, we have been using specialized tools such asAutoCAD Plant 3D for years, specifically developed to meet the requirements of industrial plant design, engineering documentation, and construction.
However, when we are required to replace Plant 3D with Revit, tasks that are relatively straightforward in specialized piping software become significantly more complicated.
When you receive an RFQ for an industrial piping project where the client specifically requires Revit,what is your approach?
I am genuinely interested in hearing about practical experiences from piping designers, stress engineers, BIM managers, and engineering companies working on industrial projects.
Are we moving towards better engineering through BIM, or are we sacrificing discipline-specific efficiency for the sake of software standardization?
Best regards!
Hi Pablo,
You raise a very valid point, and I agree that the industry often confuses BIM with the software being used to deliver it.
BIM is about the creation, management and exchange of coordinated information throughout the project lifecycle. Revit is one tool that supports this process, but it is not the definition of BIM.
Process piping design has very different requirements from building services design. Tools such as Plant 3D have been developed specifically around process plant workflows, including piping specifications, component libraries, P&IDs, equipment integration, isometrics and construction documentation.
Forcing all disciplines into one authoring platform doesn't necessarily improve collaboration. In some cases, it simply transfers the complexity from one discipline to another and introduces additional workarounds, cost and risk.
I think the more important question when responding to an RFQ is:What does the client actually need from the BIM process?
Is the requirement for a coordinated 3D model, clash detection, asset information, data exchange, facilities management, or simply a model delivered in a particular software format? These are very different requirements.
My preference is to use the most appropriate tools for the task and agree the interfaces, information requirements and exchange formats at the outset. A federated model and properly managed information exchange can bring the disciplines together without forcing everyone to design in the same software.
There will, of course, be projects where Revit is the right choice, particularly where piping is closely integrated with building services and architectural models. But for complex industrial process piping, I don't believe it should automatically be the default.
Ultimately, we should be specifying the BIM deliverables and information requirements based on the needs of the project, rather than allowing a software preference to dictate the engineering workflow.
Standardisation of information and collaboration makes sense.
Standardisation of every discipline's design software does not necessarily follow.