With employee turnover rates reaching all-time highs, companies are making employee retention a priority as older employees are set to retire within the next decade. Holding on to current employees is less expensive than hiring and training new ones. One way to retain employees is to offer opportunities to employees to continue their education, training or certifications.
The facilities management industry in particular is facing a challenging workforce outlook. Continuing education is an effective way to enhance the skills of the next generation, says Jake Smithwick, Ph.D., MPA, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
For example, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte offers a 100 percent online construction and facilities engineering master’s degree designed to help working professionals earn a master’s degree on their own schedule. The program also covers some of the industry’s most relevant topics, including RFP development, safety, BIM, sustainability, team development and more.
“Technology will undoubtedly play a role in overcoming workforce challenges, but it can’t replace the ingenuity and innovative value that individual facility professionals bring to their organizations,” Smithwick says.
The university is also launching a new research project to better understand the personality profiles of facility professionals to assist in the hiring process and identify future leaders in the field, he adds.
Training and educating staff is a strong tool for employee retention, because it helps employees stay current in the industry, learn new ideas and implement those ideas to benefit the organization and their team, says Alana Dunoff, president of AFD Professional Services and instructor in the facilities management program at Temple University. Having a staff that is continuously growing is an asset to the entire organization, she adds.
Employers can help employees continue their education by offering opportunities to earn education credentials, attend conferences, webinars, programs and events, earn degrees and licenses (associate, bachelor, master, doctorate, etc.), participate in training, get access to resources, whether financial or otherwise, get access to memberships and more.
“Employees that have the opportunity to learn, earn a credential, attend conferences etc., often feel highly valued by their organization and if they are also recognized for their success that continues to build on a sense of belonging and appreciation – which is a terrific way to encourage retention,” Dunoff says. “If we feel valued, we will return that with loyalty. Regardless of where you are in your career, we all want to feel valued for your contribution and appreciation for the knowledge and expertise that we bring to work each day.”
Continuing education opportunities are a relatively inexpensive way to invest in the growth and professional development of employees, and it is also a strong recruiting tool, says Dunoff.
“If a potential hire knows they will be able to continue their learning, that may be an additional incentive to accept an offer,” she adds.
There are numerous ways that offering education opportunities to employees can benefit employers and employees, and prioritizing them can help organizations grow internally and externally and keep their employees along the way. Retaining employees saves money and helps build stronger relationships, which leads to more success.
The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industries have witnessed a remarkable transformation with the advent of Autodesk Revit, a leading Building Information Modeling (BIM) software. Revit has streamlined management, building, and design processes, revolutionizing the way projects are executed. In a groundbreaking development, the integration of Chat GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) takes Revit to new heights of intelligent workflow automation. This article delves into the myriad benefits and practical implementations of Chat GPT, shedding light on how it simplifies and enhances Revit workflows.
Real-time Collaboration
One of the standout advantages of combining Chat GPT with Revit is the facilitation of real-time collaboration among team members. Within the Revit environment, Chat GPT functions as an interactive chatbot, fostering seamless communication. This integrated chat system allows team members to discuss design modifications, provide feedback, and address other critical matters without the need to switch between multiple platforms or applications. Consequently, communication is improved, and decision-making is expedited, leading to reduced project delays.
Automated Design Changes
The integration of Chat GPT into Revit simplifies the process of automating design modifications. Leveraging its natural language processing capabilities, Chat GPT enables users to specify desired updates or corrections through the chat interface. Subsequently, Chat GPT translates and seamlessly integrates these changes into the Revit model. This eliminates the need for repetitive manual tasks, reducing the potential for human error and freeing up valuable time. With automated design changes, designers can iterate and experiment with design options more efficiently.
Intelligent Recommendations
Chat GPT within Revit possesses the ability to evaluate a user’s design concept, grasp project constraints, and provide intelligent design suggestions. By utilizing machine learning capabilities, Chat GPT can offer optimized design solutions, material selections, or construction system components based on specified parameters. This data-driven decision-making process not only enhances design quality but also empowers designers to navigate complex challenges more effectively, ultimately saving time.
Query & Solution
Revit users often encounter queries regarding software tools, functionalities, or troubleshooting. Chat GPT acts as a virtual assistant, delivering instant responses to queries raised through the chat interface. Users can seek assistance on Revit tools, commands, or best practices by interacting with Chat GPT. This reduced reliance on external support channels ensures that users can swiftly resolve issues within the Revit environment, minimizing disruptions in their workflow.
Workflow Optimization
The integration of Chat GPT goes beyond collaboration, design automation, and intelligent recommendations; it also optimizes Revit workflows. Chat GPT has the ability to recognize repetitive user actions and offer automation solutions. For instance, it can identify frequently used design templates or create libraries of standard components, simplifying otherwise tedious tasks for designers. Furthermore, Chat GPT can assist in managing clash detections or running simulations, ensuring smoother workflows and heightened productivity.
How can Robotech Help to Enhance
The integration of Chat GPT with Autodesk Revit marks a significant step forward in smart workflow automation. Enhanced collaboration, automated design changes, intelligent recommendations, instant query resolution, and workflow optimization capabilities empower Revit users to streamline their tasks, boost productivity, and allocate more time to creative design explorations. As technology continues to evolve, Chat GPT’s potential to increase efficiency and provide valuable insights will play a pivotal role in unlocking the full potential of Revit for efficient BIM-based design and construction processes. The AEC industry is on the cusp of a new era, where Chat GPT is at the forefront of innovation, transforming the way professionals work and collaborate in the built environment.
In today’s complex world of infrastructure projects, effective teamwork and seamless information sharing are essential components for success. Autodesk offers a powerful suite of tools that include InfraWorks, Revit, and Civil 3D, each tailored for specific aspects of the design and construction process. However, to harness their full potential, it is crucial to ensure interoperability between these tools. This article explores how Autodesk InfraWorks, Revit, Civil 3D, and Autodesk Docs can work together to streamline collaboration, enhance efficiency, and improve accuracy in infrastructure projects.
The Workflow:
Project Setup:
The journey towards efficient infrastructure project collaboration begins with proper project setup. This involves establishing your projects within Autodesk InfraWorks, Revit, and Civil 3D, ensuring that each tool is ready for its specific role in the workflow.
Data Exchange:
Autodesk InfraWorks serves as the starting point for creating conceptual designs and preliminary models. These models can be seamlessly imported into Revit and Civil 3D for more detailed design and analysis.
InfraWorks to Revit:
To transition from the conceptual phase to detailed design, you can either export the InfraWorks model as an .RVT file or use the “Export to Revit” feature, which converts the InfraWorks model into a Revit model. This process maintains the continuity of your project.
InfraWorks to Civil 3D:
Similarly, to carry your design further into the detailed analysis stage, export the InfraWorks model as a .DWG file that can be imported into Civil 3D. This enables you to leverage Civil 3D’s powerful tools for further refinement.
Collaboration with Autodesk Docs:
At the heart of this interoperability workflow is Autodesk Docs, a cloud-based platform designed for document management and collaboration. Autodesk Docs acts as the central hub for storing, sharing, and managing design files from InfraWorks, Revit, and Civil 3D.
Uploading Files:
Project teams upload their design files, including those from InfraWorks, Revit, and Civil 3D, to Autodesk Docs. This centralized storage ensures that everyone has access to the most up-to-date project information.
Version Control:
Autodesk Docs provides robust version control features, mitigating the risk of errors due to outdated information. Team members always work with the latest design files, promoting accuracy and consistency.
Collaboration:
With Autodesk Docs, collaboration becomes effortless. Team members from various disciplines and stakeholders can review designs, make comments, and suggest changes, all within the platform. This real-time collaboration enhances communication and decision-making.
Syncing and Updating:
As the project progresses, updates and changes are made to the design models in InfraWorks, Revit, and Civil 3D. These updated files can be effortlessly synced with Autodesk Docs, ensuring that all project contributors are on the same page.
Data Extraction and Analysis:
Revit and Civil 3D models can be further analyzed and detailed within their respective environments. Additionally, these models can be utilized for construction documentation, visualization, and more, further enhancing project efficiency.
Benefits:
Efficient Collaboration: The interoperability between InfraWorks, Revit, Civil 3D, and Autodesk Docs streamlines collaboration among different disciplines and stakeholders, fostering a cohesive project environment.
Version Control and Data Integrity: Autodesk Docs’ version control features ensure data integrity, reducing the risk of errors due to outdated information and enhancing project accuracy.
Cloud-Based Access: The cloud-based nature of Autodesk Docs enables team members to access project files from anywhere with an internet connection, facilitating remote collaboration and flexibility.
Reduced Redundancy and Duplication: The interoperability workflow minimizes redundancy by allowing seamless sharing and updating of design models, eliminating the need to recreate designs in different software tools.
Enhanced Visualization and Analysis: InfraWorks provides a high-level visual representation of the project, while Revit and Civil 3D offer in-depth design and analysis capabilities, creating a comprehensive workflow.
Streamlined Documentation and Reporting: Revit and Civil 3D models can be leveraged to generate construction documentation, reports, and visualizations, enhancing project communication and documentation.
Time and Cost Savings: By streamlining data exchange and collaboration, the interoperability workflow can lead to significant time and cost savings throughout the project lifecycle, promoting efficiency and profitability.
In conclusion, the implementation of Autodesk Docs in conjunction with Autodesk InfraWorks, Revit, and Civil 3D presents a robust and comprehensive approach to enhancing collaboration, efficiency, and accuracy in infrastructure design and construction. This interoperability workflow not only streamlines data exchange but also empowers project teams with the tools they need to work cohesively, ultimately leading to successful and cost-effective infrastructure projects.
Individuals residing in major countries spend over 90% of their lives indoors, within buildings that receive limited exposure to daylight. Research highlighting the benefits of daylight on health, happiness, and productivity, suggests that we should be more concerned about the effects of this environmental factor. It is appropriate, therefore, that many countries have requirements and standards to ensure that buildings, and their inhabitants, receive adequate access to daylight. Yet, despite widespread recognition of its importance, for many architects and urban planners, it is both a time-consuming and often frustrating process to understand daylight on their sites. Introducing daylight potential analysis: enabling you to visualize daylight potential in context with the surrounding buildings and environment, in just a few seconds. Meaning you can make fast, smart decisions that enhance daylight on your site.
Autodesk Forma’s daylight potential analysis
Daylight potential analysis simplifies the process of meeting daylight requirements, providing architects and urban planners with quick, valuable insights into the daylight performance of their projects. The analysis’s result provides a Sky Component score that can be used as the base to identify areas with less-than-optimal daylight, as well as those sections where it might be impossible to achieve reasonable daylight conditions. This function also highlights façade areas with inappropriate levels of light that could be modified to improve housing quality.
The analysis function of Forma uses the CIE Standard Overcast Sky Model to predict the light conditions on building surfaces. The Overcast Sky Model represents a heavily clouded day in September and is commonly used in daylight simulations. Considered a conservative representation of light conditions, this model is relevant independent of changes due to the sun and other weather conditions.
Running the analysis
To access the analysis in Autodesk Forma, navigate to the Daylight Potential option in the Analyze menu on the right panel. Open the Analysis Area Selection menu at the top of the right panel and continue to select one or more site limits or zones. This will define the area where the daylight potential analysis will be computed.
How to interpret the analysis results
The result of this analysis, shown as a percentage score, is a Sky Component measure of how much light reaches the facades from the sky. For different points on a building, the Sky Component score indicates how much light would shine through a window placed at those specific points. For daylight falling on vertical facades, the sky component is referred to as Vertical Sky Component (VSC).
The daylight conditions are usually regulated by a component called Daylight Factor, which is computed based on the daylight reaching interior spaces through windows and room layouts in the presence of an overcast sky. Given the inter-relationship between VSC and the Daylight Factor, VSC can also be used as a predictor for daylight conditions.
The table below shows expected daylight conditions for different ranges of VSC scores.
Vertical Sky Component (VSC) default thresholds – For points on facades
Daylight conditions
VSC ≥ 27%
Conventional window designs are usually satisfactory
15% < VSC < 27%
Larger windows/changes are usually needed in the layout
5% < VSC < 15%
Difficult to provide adequate daylight
VSC < 5%
Achieving reasonable daylight is often impossible
Analysis results are divided into color bins using the thresholds from this table. For the darkest areas achieving reasonable daylight is often impossible, while for the lightest areas daylight conditions are usually satisfactory. The maximum score for VSC is around 40%. As for non-vertical faces, the Sky Component scores can go all the way up to 100%.
Additionally, the inspect tool can be beneficial in understanding the Sky Component values for specific points on the building. To enable the Inspect Tool, navigate to the icon on the top right corner of the 3D canvas. You can then proceed to select specific points of interest to be examined.
What is the difference between Forma’s sun hours analysis and daylight potential analysis?
The daylight potential analysis feature works on the basis of how much of the day sky can be seen through the windows and does not take into consideration the sunlight or sun rays. On the other hand, the sun hours analysis works by measuring the number of sunlight hours at different points on the ground and on the building’s façade. If you are building too dense, or have balconies or overhangs above the window, this will negatively affect the amount of daylight in the apartment and can be analyzed and rectified using Forma’s daylight potential analysis.
Powered by Forma’s daylight potential analysis, you can quickly explore a large number of options, and enhance both business and environmental outcomes. Leveraging the effective combination of data-driven insights and compelling visuals, you can not only arrive at informed decisions, but also get all the stakeholders on board right in the early phases of planning. Forma’s analysis capability has therefore significantly simplified the process of designing healthy and high-quality living spaces.
Autodesk has recently released a new update for Revit 2024 that addresses 25 quality issues improving functionality and stability. This is an important update for all Revit 2024 (all versions) users, and we recommend that everyone using a 2024 version, update to this version as soon as possible.
What can you expect from this update?
The update addresses an extensible storage schema issue affecting addons and projects that are upgraded for Revit 2024.
This update is especially important for worksharing users that all project team members are using this release of Revit or higher. Why? To avoid the possibility of older versions of Revit 2024 reintroducing this problem back to the project teams’ model.
This update also provides several other fixes and performance improvements.
Dealing with the variety of projects and systems in the Revit world comes with many unknowns, so our support team continues to work with you to relay any issues to us.
Functionality Fixes:
Fixed an issue when an element with Entity attached is operated by a user in an upgraded file and a previous version file is opened in the same session containing the same schema.
Fixed an issue related to the graph nodes functionality in Dynamo for Revit.
Fixed an issue to assign unique GUIDs to part that have stored GUIDs to prevent duplicates.
Fixed an issue when reloading versioned parts so they retain size and description parameter values.
Fixed an issue to retain element GUIDs when changing the element type using the type selector.
Improved stability when upgrading models with P&ID elements.
Fixed an issue in which Revit could potentially produce empty or invalid geometry when importing an elliptical cone or cylinder from DWG, DGN, or DXF files.
Fixed an issue where the Interference Check tool was disabled when the Shared Views Palette was opened.
Fixed an issue where project parameters with similar names written with different case letters didn’t show in the element properties or type dialog.
Fixed an issue where the Version History page for Revit Cloud Workshared models would only display the last 1000 versions.
Fixed elements on sheet cannot be edited with work shared when a schedule on sheet is filtered by sheet.
Fixed an issue with Create Similar on Toposurface elements.
Fixed an issue where some old models could not upgrade using Revit 2024.1.
Stability and Performance Fixes:
Prevented potential stability issues due to periodic spline-based surfaces created from imported or linked CAD geometry.
Improved stability when upgrading a model.
Improved stability when importing or linking PDF files.
Improved Personal Accelerator’s cleanup behavior when it is tracking many models.
Improved stability when creating a ceiling in a ceiling plan.
Improved stability when dragging or flipping MEP family connector grip controls.
Improved stability by disabling the user modification of an air terminal’s flow value when the flow parameter is defined in a formula.
Improved the performance and stability of flow and pressure drop calculations of fabrication models containing many networks.
Improved stability when some duct and pipe systems were deleted after the sizing operation.
Improved stability when editing a panel schedule template.
Improved stability when placing line boundary conditions on curved analytical panels.
Fixed an issue that could result in poor stability when using the Change Service feature on large selections of ductwork.
