How Bluebeam Revu’s Tool Chests empower civil construction companies

Material provided by Bluebeam

At the heart of the longevity of New South Wales civil construction specialist Devcon Civil is its commitment to innovation and sustainability – and its use of Bluebeam showcases why.

A third-generation family-owned company holding decades of experience in roads, civil, concrete, drainage, kerb and gutter and associated works, Devcon delivers projects of varied sizes and complexity between Sydney and the Hunter Valley.

Delivering a diverse span of projects is a deliberate strategy of the company, as this approach not only future-proofs the business; it offers enhanced value to clients and creates an environment of innovation.

“Our clients are our partners and we work in synergy with them to transform ideas and plans into a reality,” estimating manager Cameron Pass said.

“We are driven by a sustainable approach to everything we do and continually seek new methods and innovative solutions.”

Bluebeam has been pivotal in enabling and enhancing a range of workflows for the business – powering innovation and diversification of Devcon’s business since its implementation in 2018.

“Bluebeam was central to my previous role, so it was a no-brainer that when I joined Devcon that we would transition over,” Pass said.

“We use it for all of our take-offs and markups, and the toolchests have greatly improved the accuracy and speed of markups, and also the quality of our sketch outputs.”

Bluebeam Revu’s tool chest

Bluebeam Revu’s tool chest is a customisable collection of markup tools that allows users to save and share their preferred markup tools and settings for quick access – including commonly used symbols, annotations, measurements, or other markups that are frequently used in construction and design projects.

Users can create their tool chests to streamline their workflows, making it more efficient to add consistent markups to their documents. It helps maintain consistency across different projects and allows for better collaboration among team members.

Customisation – matched with enabling consistency – is a key aspect of the tool chests, ensuring they are fit for purpose for construction, civil works, and associated businesses.

Devcon’s mobilisation of the tool chest

Revu has been an invaluable tool for teams across Devcon for the past five years – one that is used daily across the whole organisation – in particular, its range of customised tool chests.

The estimating team – dubbed superusers – mobilise tool chest features to detail job requirements and costings, while the project team integrates the detailed estimations into project delivery planning.

More than 500 preset tools have been created – each used in specific scenarios across projects – that are organised according to categories of works, such as demolition, road works and storm water works.

“Each of our teams secures specific value out of the product,” Pass said.

“The system we’ve created builds accuracy, consistency, and shared understanding – internally and across the business partners we interface with.

“For example, a demolition chest which will include measurements for demolishing curbs and fences, area measurements for demolishing concrete and pavement and even trees – meaning we have more accuracy and less variations.”

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Layered tool chests enable the business to template sets of tasks – 10 different groups of tools which are then grouped by types of works, such as storm water works, driveways and subsets of these, roads, footpaths and the list goes on.

“They are flexible and customisable – the tool chest is the base. However, once you have your markups and measurements in the system then there are so many options as to what you can do with them,” Pass said.

Building a competitive edge

Importantly, Revu and its tool chests gives weight and details to the tender bidding process. “Drawing templates have brought a level of professional communication that provides clarity to the client as well as the project delivery team,” Pass said.

As subdivision specialists working with a broad range of organisations in delivering projects, agility is key. A recent project in Sydney highlighted the value of the tool chests – in particular, the flags.

“In projects of this type we have hundreds of pages of drawings which we are now able to effectively develop and manage the tool sets and its flags – which are effectively page markers – which allow us to jump around the document and navigate quickly,” Pass said.

“This not only saves time and effort, it builds confidence and collaboration and enables us to focus on the project at hand. It’s been a game-changer.”

Six reasons why Devcon invested in Revu

Efficiency: tool chests help improve efficiency by allowing users to create a personalised set of commonly used tools and markups. This reduces the time spent searching for tools in the software.

Consistency: By creating standardised toolsets, teams can ensure consistency in markups and annotations across different projects. This is particularly important where standardised communication is crucial.

Customisation: Users can customise their tool chests to include specific symbols, shapes, and markups relevant to their workflow. This customisation can enhance user experience and streamline the markup process.

Time Savings: Having a readily available set of tools in the tool chest can save time during the markup process, allowing users to quickly add annotations and collaborate more efficiently.

Collaboration: tool chests can facilitate collaboration by enabling team members to share standardised toolsets, ensuring that everyone is using the same set of symbols and markups for consistency.

Project-specific Tools: tool chests can be tailored to the specific needs of a project, allowing users to create tools and markups that are relevant to the unique requirements of a particular job.

To learn more about Bluebeam and to explore how these tool chests can transform your workflow and elevate your projects, click here.