Manufacturer BIM Content Can Save Time, but It Cannot Skip Validation

Manufacturer-provided BIM content should save a project team time. Sometimes it does. Sometimes correcting the family takes longer than building a clean one from scratch.

Vertiv recently highlighted its Consultant Portal for India, which provides technical documents, design tools, BIM resources, training and access to engineering support. The development reflects a useful trend: manufacturers are making more design and product information available directly to consultants and project teams.

Access is only the first step. Before manufacturer content enters a coordinated model, the team still needs to confirm that it represents the approved product and behaves properly in the project environment.

Manufacturer families are hit-or-miss

We have used manufacturer families that worked well with little adjustment. We have also received content with an incorrect hosting type, weak reference planes, inaccurate dimensions or geometry that was difficult to control.

One common problem is a surface-hosted family. On a simple model it may appear convenient. On a coordinated project with multiple linked models, changing its location or elevation can become unnecessarily difficult. A family created with the wrong host can also fail when links are reloaded or the host condition changes.

The family may look correct in a product library and still be poorly suited to the way the project team needs to place, coordinate and document it.

Current product data matters more than a familiar file name

Timing creates another risk. Manufacturer content may have been created for an earlier product configuration and may not reflect the latest approved submittal.

On one project, a Generac generator family available to the team was not current for the approved project selection. On another recent project, a manufacturer-provided Revit add-in generated busway families for quick modeling, but the generated families did not accurately represent the dimensions in the latest submittal. If the team had relied on that output without checking it, the coordinated clearance and connection assumptions could have been wrong.

This does not mean manufacturer content or manufacturer add-ins are generally unreliable. It means their output must be treated as a starting point until it is checked against the information approved for that project.

The model should follow the approved equipment data, not the other way around.

What to check before live use

Our review would cover at least six areas.

Hosting

Does the family use a host that matches the project workflow? Can it be placed and moved reliably when architectural, structural and trade models are linked?

References and origin

Are reference planes logical and named? Is the insertion point useful? Do alignment, rotation and elevation behave predictably?

Dimensions and clearances

Do width, depth, height, connection locations and required service clearances match the current approved submittal? Are clearance zones separate from physical geometry and easy to control?

Connectors

Are electrical, mechanical or plumbing connectors present where required? Do their sizes, systems, orientation and properties support the project’s intended use?

Parameters

Are important parameters understandable, correctly typed and mapped to the project’s schedules or data requirements? Are values based on current product information?

Model performance and documentation

Is the geometry appropriately detailed, or is it heavier than necessary? Does the family display correctly at the required views and detail levels? Can it be tagged, scheduled and revised without workarounds?

Repair it or rebuild it?

Not every imperfect family needs to be discarded. A correctable parameter or small geometry adjustment may take only a few minutes.

The decision changes when the hosting strategy, reference framework or parametric behavior is fundamentally wrong. If the team has to pull the family apart, replace the host, rebuild references, correct connectors and verify every dimension, a new project-ready family may be safer and faster.

A practical rule is straightforward: repair the manufacturer family when its foundation is sound and the required changes are limited. Rebuild it when correcting the existing content creates more effort or more coordination risk than starting clean.

In both cases, record the source submittal and revision used for validation. If the approved equipment changes, the family should be reviewed again in a timely manner.

Better manufacturer content needs a clear purpose

Manufacturers can make their BIM libraries more useful by designing for real project workflows. That includes reliable non-hosted or appropriately hosted options, clear reference planes, verified dimensions, usable connectors, controlled detail and visible revision information.

Project teams, however, cannot outsource their quality check. A manufacturer logo on the download page does not confirm that the model matches the current submittal or the project’s BIM standards.

Manufacturer content can provide a valuable head start. Validation is what turns that head start into dependable project information.

For help creating and validating electrical and MEP BIM content for coordination and construction use, contact DDG.

Sources

• Express Computer report

• Vertiv announcement