When ClearTech structural engineers review a document on Bluebeam Revu, it allows them to communicate reviews and changes more efficiently on a job site — cutting waste, saving money and improving record-keeping, communication and transparency.
Since adopting Revu, Dublin-based ClearTech, which specialises in concrete post-tensioning for bridges and the like, has won an additional 50% of projects, thanks to its much-improved estimation and communication process.
This niche contracting business with a team of just 20 full-time staff has now gone on to complete work for the likes of Salesforce, Facebook and Amazon, according to a Bluebeam case study, here.
The firm punches above its weight, attracting high-calibre clients and new business as far away as Vietnam and Indonesia. This is largely thanks to its lean approach, with Bluebeam Revu focusing and facilitating its digital operations.
Previously, the ClearTech team relied on A3 and A1 print-outs, often losing half a day waiting for designs to arrive from the printers only to spend hours marking and measuring drawings by hand.
The process was also prone to inaccurate estimations, errors and rework. Everyone used PDFs for releasing design information, but there was no easy way to quantify material measurements digitally.
Designs change rapidly. Tracking those changes and keeping every stakeholder aligned can be challenging because a single project might have hundreds of different designs.
Yet ClearTech needed to respond quickly to requests for quotes. It needed to speed up its estimation process.
With Revu the company can quickly prepare improved estimations, designs and revisions, drawings, QA/QC and manage documentation. Overlay tooling in Revu offers faster annotation methods and reduces work hours per project.
“Now, when new revisions come in, I can easily see the difference and work on them straight away,” says Leticia Siqueira, a structural engineer for ClearTech.
ClearTech also now uses Revu to track key performance indicators for workers on site. And this is all done while producing a more sustainable product – its combined solution uses significantly less concrete to achieve higher structural strength than traditionally reinforced or pre-stressed concrete.
Feargal Cleary, CEO at ClearTech, says: “What we do is we reduce the concrete depth, reduce the reinforcement, and this gives the client a sustainable solution over the lifetime of their building.
“We want to be a leading light in the industry, and we’re pushing the likes of Bluebeam to demonstrate there is an opportunity for innovation in the industry here in Ireland.”