I need some advice/bounce ideas off someone

[cadgal]

Hello

I've wrote in here a few times about my company starting to use MEP and I would like some advice on people who have used it.

 

Background: I work for a civil engineering firm, doing wastewater treatment plants. The majority of my company does civil work (roads and such) while I'm in the small subset doing Water Resources work. For that reason, my company mostly supports Microstation and on a smaller scale, Autocad. In the past 5 years or so, we've moved more to AutoDesk products, essentially using Landdesktop as Autocad. We currently use Land desktop 2008. A smaller portion (4 of us?) have moved into civil 3d 2009. Only one person is using the functionally of civil 3d, the rest are using it as just Autocad.

 

Which brings us to MEP. I have MEP 2010 installed on my machine, and have had a week training on it, lots of personal time trying to figure it out, and think I'm halfway decent with it. My boss has been pushing for us to do 3D work for years and we finally have a project manager on board for us to do part of a project in 3D. For this reason, i really want to make this work (plus, I think 3D is so fun).

 

At this time, I really think I am the most knowledgable person in the company about this product, yet I am not the IT support for this. When I need certain things I am talking to a brick wall. I know a bit, but I am far from knowing as much as I need. Plus, I may not know the "exact" thing I need, just a vague idea. (for example, for quite a while I was told that the "styles" needed in MEP did not exist, because I didn't know what to call them really. It was only after training I was able to say - here, I need this, and I know it exists!! Prior to that, i was told I needed to create each style as needed. Yep for every stair, every pipe diameter, everything lol. Same thing with Autocad architecture. I asked and asked for it, it was only after training that I received it, because the trainer told my IT person it was needed. )

 

So on to my questions/dilemmas:

I'm almost ready to tell my boss that it's not feasible to do this project in MEP, but I really dont' want to because we've both worked really hard to get to this point.

We are going to do the part of structual and process portion of this project in MEP. (one building). the other buildings, the civil, the mechanical, the electrial will all be done in autocad (2d). My problem is:

I create the model in MEP

I cut the sections/floor plans in MEP

I have to export the sections/floor plans to 2008 - This is where the trouble starts. This takes away the "live" update feature, the section is exploded, I have to change all the linework to the correct levels, I have to change the units (it exports to arch feet, I need arch units, per company standard).

I can do this, but I fear I will be doing this 20 times a week, and that's going to get old real quick. everytime the model updates, i need to update multiple plans, and moving everything to correct levels, the possiblilty of error is high. The levels are important, because the mechanical and electrical sheets (and the process sheets) need to be able to turn off certain features and make the rest of the structure light weight.

My other concern is that each time I cut a section/floor plan from the model, I need to be careful to place it in exactly the same spot, because the other disclipines's reference it and it can't be moving around.

 

Maybe I'm just having a bad day, but I was hoping to have someone tell me it'll be alright and offer encourgment, ideas, solutions, ect to help me.

 

Thanks for reading, I know it's long!

[tzframpton]

Well, the only advice I can give is simply what I've been through myself. I was the one and only person here that brought it up to get AutoCAD MEP, and my company accepted the request. Honestly, it took me a couple of years of "fiddling around" with the program here and there until I could say I was an experienced user in my downtime (along with asking question after question on AMEP related forum boards). The downfall of this program, it takes an extensive amount of time to learn this on your own. What's not "too" bad about it, is that it's AutoCAD based, meaning the learning curve is actually easier than most because it still works like AutoCAD does.

 

I would say just use AMEP to aid you incrementally in your design process. Don't try to use AMEP to its full potential right away - that is a road you DO NOT want to travel down, unless you have someone there supervising your design and when you get into a tangle he/she can help you iron out the wrinkles.