2D drawing sunset key to improving clarity and productivity

BY WAYNE MAIURI, CSWP

How much time does your design team spend creating erection drawings? What if you could reduce that time by 50 percent or more? What if your erector could have a 3D view of each piece to be erected individually—and could quickly access all the necessary information to erect each piece without shuffling between multiple pages on a set of 2D erection drawings?



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XceleRAYtor view with field erection detail
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Traditional 2D erection drawing

Consider this scenario: Typical 2D erection drawings as shown on the opposite page are cluttered with annotations that direct the reader to other pages for further instructions on how to obtain a complete project view from plan to elevation. Adding to the clutter are numerous symbols that attempt to illustrate what is happening in the 3rd dimension. Rather than providing value, these complicated instructions make the 2D drawings confusing to navigate.

Imagine a more efficient approach. What if everyone could work in three dimensions in order to schedule the erection sequence and develop the bracing plan? What if the erector could use the model to erect their building? What if your design department could release the 3D model with minimal effort and annotate it with easy to understand instructions for erecting the building?

Now, they can. XceleRAYtor is designed to generate easy to understand, step-by-step instructions for the erector to erect the building from the 3D model. In the image below, you can see the second piece in the erection sequence is selected. You can see all the information the erector needs, including Mark Number, Overall Dimensions, Elevations, Joints, Connections, etc. In this view, the user will only see what is important, and they can rotate, pan, and zoom. They can click items like connection, and automatically launch a PDF of the connection. The opportunities in this model are far greater than anything we can put on a 2D PDF drawing.

Finfrock Technologies sees this as the next stage in going completely paperless. Our precast concrete production has been paperless using XceleRAYtor for the last three years, and we are very excited about this next stage. It will provide the design department with huge gains in productivity, and will simplify the information that is used to erect the building better than ever before. — Finfrock Technologies, Apopka, Fla., 407/293-4000; www.finfrock.com/technologies

As vice president of Finfrock Technologies, Inc., Wayne Maiuri oversees the strategic business development and operation of the company’s innovative software suite designed exclusively for the precast concrete industry, Command Suite, including management of sales and support teams. He has spoken at numerous Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute conferences and is an expert on technology innovation in the Design-Build industry. He has over 20 years of AutoCAD experience, over 20 years of SolidWorks experience and is a CSWP and CSWP-SMTL certified professional.