NDY Malaysia: “Smart Sprinklers is essential in our day-to-day usage of Revit.”
This regional office of a major engineering consultancy which does a lot of MEP work was struggling with poor sprinkler-design functionality in Revit®. AGACAD’s Smart Sprinklers (now called Fire Sprinkler) software proved to be an ideal solution, saving the company a great deal of time and enhancing its overall BIM capabilities.
Client Profile
NDY (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd is a licensee of the NDY Group, a global engineering consultancy based in Australia known for using a collaborative approach to design in order to deliver coordinated 3D spatial solutions within a fully integrated BIM model.
Business Need
NDY has long been a pioneer in fire safety engineering design, also in the context of BIM, and its Malaysia affiliate does a lot of MEP (mechanical, electrical and plumbing) work. The problem it faced was that sprinkler design is one of the least developed functionalities in Autodesk® Revit®.
“We were having to model sprinklers manually with Revit, which requires a ton of time, recalls Julian Phoon, BIM Manager at NDY (Malaysia). “What we needed was a software to fully automate the generation of sprinkler layouts.”
In line with NDY’s approach to BIM work, the program had to support collaboration and superior documentation, and it had to be customizable in order to apply the company’s specific standards for fire safety systems.
Phoon and colleagues searched the market for suitable Revit® add-ins but found nothing that was up to snuff.
Solution
Finally, in July 2014, they heard about Smart Sprinklers from AGACAD, requested a free trial, and within a week were ready to buy.
“It really does automate and speed up the process,” Phoon says. “Producing sprinkler models with Revit finally became feasible.”
Smart Sprinklers is a powerful BIM solution for wet and dry fire protection systems suited to standards in all regions around the globe. Pre-defined or custom rules let you place heads throughout a Revit® model, connect them to distribution pipes based on visually-depicted routing options, pre-calculate pipe diameters, and more. Real-time interference checks help prevent errors.
While the software is straightforward to use, AGACAD worked with NDY’s Asia team to help them set it up best for their own needs and to answer any questions.
In fact, the team made some suggestions and requests based on their own advanced Revit-model insights and needs: to enable the use of a zero ‘split value’ for range pipes, to add a new sprinkler connection option, and to enhance the display of sprinkler elevations in documentation. In less than two months, AGACAD had updated the program to resolve all those requests.
Results
Two years later, NDY (Malaysia) is happier than ever with AGACAD and its BIM solution for sprinkler design, which Phoon says “has definitely saved us a lot of time.” That’s why they ended up getting an additional license.
“The Smart Sprinklers application is essential in our day-to-day usage of Revit. We can generate large sprinkler systems fast and accurately, and we’re able to market our BIM as a more complete solution,” the company’s BIM Manager says. “I’m also impressed by AGACAD’s customer support and how the issues get fixed in the updates.”
This ongoing client relationship is an example of how AGACAD works to create solutions for continuous BIM acceleration, ensuring that clients can finish their projects on time, on budget, and at the highest quality standards.
“We save our clients time and money by eliminating unnecessary BIM tasks, letting them focus on work that creates value. The result for users is greater profit and less stress – that’s what we mean by our slogan ‘Building BIM Together’,” notes Donatas Aksomitas, the CEO of AGACAD.
AGACAD is the developer of the world’s widest range of true BIM software for Revit® professionals, with 10,000+ users in 130 countries. The company is now celebrating 25 YEARS DELIVERING TOMORROW’S AEC.
For more information, contact us at info@agacad.com or +370 618 55 671.
