Question regarding Inventor's capabilities

Hello all. I have a question for the guru's. I'm consulting for a refrigeration equipment manufacturer and they've hit a wall of sorts. That, and they've reached a very important fork in the road. Here's the dilemma:

 

This company engineers a piece of equipment, then creates a submittal drawing for the project, the drawing then goes out to the shop to be built. The problem is this: they've been using 2D AutoCAD for so long, I'm not sure which direction to take them - 3D AutoCAD or Inventor.

 

I'm literally stuck in between this decision on which way to go. They have a recent hire who is an Inventor background, which is great. But I'm afraid the rest of the team does not have what it takes to fully dive in using Inventor. Not only that, this company wants things done absolutely a certain way. Now, to top it off, they have to start building Revit content for their own consultants to supply the demand of architects and engineers. Got that yet? lol

 

Another problem is this: risk management. I've been told the shop that builds off these drawings will sometimes get drawings that "don't work". Working in 3D would greatly help this issue. But at what cost, both financially and time?

 

I've already informed this company that they'll have to go down two roads... a road for Revit and a road for their internal work. Revit, technically can be used for the internal work, but they are requiring way too much detail to be shown. So unless they deviate from this, Revit cannot be the one and only program.

 

On one hand, 3D AutoCAD can certainly work, but this is going backwards IMHO. but, AutoCAD gives you the ability to link in their Excel engineering summary and format everything exactly how you like it on the page. I've been told Inventor is hard to get to "drag and drop" items and information that can be easily formatted on the sheet.

 

So here are my direct questions:

1. Can Inventor create 36"x24" sheets of a piece of equipment, and wiring diagrams, and so forth, mixed with descriptive text that is manually entered?
   
2. Can Inventor import Excel spreadsheets?
   
3. Can Inventor create tabulated engineering data that reference other parts, such as condensers, compressors and other parts that require electrical or thermodynamic loads?
   
4. Can you import 2D DWG files and make sheets in Inventor? Or can you export easily to AutoCAD to form your sheets? Any advantage or disadvantage is merging the two platforms?
   

 

I'm going to have more questions, but basically I want to see this company shift away from AutoCAD and into Inventor. But again, I'm afraid that the CAD team that's here do not have what it takes. And this is a tight-knit group of people so it's not like they're a "number" which can be replaced easily. It's like family here. I've been contracted to come in and knock out their Revit content needs, while assessing the other part and I am afraid that AutoCAD LT is here to stay.

 

Any and all comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

-TZ

TZ,

 

 

I would tell you yes to all of this and would add that Inventor can export Revit files directly with electrical connections for MEP so there is no need to develop Revit rfa files separately. I would also tell you that you should be talking to your reseller as they would echo all of this for you. I know we have an office in Houston and Dallas if you are our client.

 

 

I would also tell you that AutoCAD 3D instead of Inventor would be a very bad move as there are no parametrics in AutoCAD in the 3D space to work effectively with models. Your team would be far better off on the Inventor side of things when you go 3D. You will also retain AutoCAD for free when you get Inventor as well as ACAD Electrical, Showcase, ACAD Mechanical, Navisworks, and some other programs too.

Mark, huge thanks for replying. Here's why the Inventor-to-Revit option was nixed... first off, level of detail. The Revit community does not want every single nut and bolt for mechanical equipment. Me being a Revit guy first and foremost, I'll side with this view 100%. The second part, and this part I'm not as familiar with by association but through hear-say, is the way Inventor handles the list of Parameters that drive the geometry. I've been told by many people that the Inventor-to-Revit option doesn't produce a "native" Revit model that the industry needs. This is actually a huge problem in the Revit community and has been for quite some time.

 

So, that explains why two paths are needed. But once the Revit content is built, it's pretty much done unless the product line gets a new product, or completely re-engineered.

 

Inventor, I'm assuming, would be the same thing: once your parts are developed, it's only a matter of "configuring" them on a per-job basis at that point, correct? And when you say "yes to all of this", are you saying literally yes to the 1-4 questions, or did you mean a general "yes"? My apologies for asking you to clarify, I just want to be very certain I'm giving this company the correct information.

 

Again, very big thanks in your reply Mark. I'd love to get a PM of your office's Dallas location and a contact if you don't mind.

 

-TZ

TZ,

 

 

I agree 100% with the level of detail Revit users want as well. Realistically the rfa file should be under 500kb to be usable, that's why in Inventor we can simplify the model to remove what is not needed by the end user. If you are making a single product and not a family the parameters for size changes do not matter that much be there is some technology in Inventor that will take a family of parts/assemblies and generate a family more properly in Revit. I would have to check if they fully integrated it or not in the last release or two. Here is a link to the simplification and revit export class I did at AU a couple years ago...

 

Component structure addin: http://blogs.rand.com/manufacturing/2010/11/autodesk-inventor-autodesk-revit-bim-exchangewith-parameters-and-component-structure.html

ADSK Files: http://blogs.rand.com/manufacturing/2010/08/autodesk-digital-prototyping-providing-bim-content.html

AU Class: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4015397/MA30-1R%20Digital%20Prototyping%20%26%20BIM.pdf

 

 

And the answer to 1-4 was yes. I think you guys just need a good dog and pony show that hits these criteria.

 

 

You can call our rep in our Dallas office anytime. For a technical rep you would want Wyatt S from our Dallas office. Dallas office:

972-570-0007

I did just check, iparts and iAssemblies will take their table in Revit now with geometry. So your designers would just have to create them in this manner and then the separate objects would appear in the rfa.

Thank you for the links. Seems a bit outdated, but reading the material now.

 

And yes, a good dog and pony show is needed I think. I'll be contacting your Dallas coworker shortly.

I did just check, iparts and iAssemblies will take their table in Revit now with geometry. So your designers would just have to create them in this manner and then the separate objects would appear in the rfa.

I watched the video for the BIM Family Toolkit 2011. But this video shows that geometry recreation is necessary, and now you're saying geometry comes over... is there an updated link or video that reflects this so I can see how this works? And, I'm still worried about the level of detail. Thanks in advance Mark.

 

-TZ

I may have spoke too soon when I said iAssemblies will transfer, I think it is only the active one that will go and not the entire family of products. Might be different if done as an iPart, but I don't have time to check on it right now. Either way if you say your rfa files need to be more intelligent and parametric for your clients and you have that skill right now, it may take the rest of the designer a while to get to the point where an iAssembly or iPart creation and export if viable anyway.

So I did a little YouTube digging, and found how you can import Excel files. This is a great start. Also, I monkeyed with an Inventor (I have it installed as my BDSU package) Drawing file and saw that I could add sketches in to create a custom titleblock and edit the border and all that jazz. I could also import a standard DWG file, albeit it seemed to be poor quality. This may be a simple rendering technique for performance. I haven't created a PDF from this yet to see if a DWG import is truly pixelated.

 

I'm more confident now that Inventor can do all the meticulous "nitty gritty" things this company will want after searching a few methods and processes.

TZ,

 

 

Don't forget that sometimes there are better ways too. When someone tells me they want to bring AutoCAD files into Inventor I immediately start a question answer session with them on what that really means since I can do it 6 different ways for different results.

 

 

Mark

Very good point. Specifically, 2D wiring diagrams is the reason.

I probably still need more information because I could take that a couple different ways too. Inventor can actually create nailboards and 3D harnesses around your components which might obsolete your old wiring diagrams. Or since the new Suites come with AutoCAD Electrical, you might be able to just make them faster and more accurate. If you just want to drop them into a drawing next to some component views for reference we can do that too.

 

 

Something to consider though at this point, it doesn't matter what the technology can do for you, it matters whether your company is wanting to change before they have to and adopt better tools. There will always be an initial drop in productivity that can sour an new endeavor like this and management really needs to be the driving factor that can force the hand of a weary draftsman or engineer set in their ways. Proper implementations allow time to ease that initial drop in productivity and allow the team to work at it from both ends supplementing and sustaining the legacy while at the same time embracing the new methods. Done right IMOP you are looking at software cost + implementation time just to get off the ground running and that is sometimes either not in the budget or not understandable to higher ups.

I agree completely Mark. I'm basically going to print this thread and recite it to the owners of the company I'm consulting for. The owner, luckily, is a good friend of mine so he listens to me. The part that is difficult is that my background is AutoCAD and Revit, not Inventor. And I know, hands down, that Inventor is the tool for the "internal" CAD department. What will need to happen, honestly, is AutoCAD will need to be uninstalled for a while and "force" the CAD team to use Inventor. This is what we did at my last company with Revit, haha. But it worked!

 

I did see a YouTube video of AutoCAD Electrical being used alongside Inventor and it was quite impressive. This is the level I want to see this company get at. Hopefully they will listen and follow suit. Thank you again for your encouraging words.

 

-TZ