Revit Integration Extends Aras Innovator into BIM/AEC Operations

The building information management (BIM) and architectural, engineering, and construction (AEC) industries have lagged behind the modern change control and data management practices embraced by the manufacturing and engineering community.  As the BIM and AEC industries increasingly face engineering-esque pressures around mass-customization, configuration management, and prefabrication, this integration represents a compelling use cases for leveraging proven PLM capabilities.

Within the BIM/AEC space, Autodesk Revit is the leading design tool. Unlike other CAD solutions, Revit merges geometry and a proprietary database structure that effectively traps critical information needed in downstream activities. As a result, managing the disconnected data often requires expensive and error-prone interventions needed to extract a costed BOM, enforce change controls, synchronize with purchasing, and support construction/manufacturing. Project delays, wasted materials, and limited design reuse become par for the course.

With the Autodesk Revit integration to Aras Innovator, organizations can accelerate the design, planning, and manufacturing of Revit-related projects by decoupling the project design/geometry from the underlying data needed to support downstream process.  This is achieved by connecting released or “branded” Revit families and projects to corresponding parts/BOMs in Aras that contain the necessary engineering, quality, purchasing, and manufacturing data. This allows Revit designers to stay focused on project design while Aras serves to collect and manage the data to support everything from planning to delivery.

“... enable the end-to-end digital thread needed to synchronize business applications such as project management, manufacturing process planning (MPP), and even manufacturing execution systems (MES).”

Highlights of the integration includes the seamless management of Revit families, the ability to ensure only approved families are used, progress monitoring, customized output of various required schedules (doors, windows, etc.), and access to various relationships such as composed-of and where-used. But more importantly, it enables the end-to-end digital thread needed to synchronize business applications such as project management, manufacturing process planning (MPP), and even manufacturing execution systems (MES).

The Revit integration is compatible with Autodesk Revit 2018 and above, and Aras Innovator, R11 and R12.