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Managing the Coordination ProCess 199

different ways to meet a variety of workflow requirements. Most often, each discipline will
develop at least one separate Revit project file, and many of these project files will be linked into
each other for reference. Because there are several workflow possibilities, this chapter will focus
on the coordination among a traditional design team consisting of the following:

◆ ◆ Architect
◆ ◆ Structural engineer
◆ ◆ Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) engineers
The workflow within a traditional design team is more complex than you might assume. If
you were to graph the dependencies and coordination between these parties (Figure 6.1), you
would see a web of primary relationships (architect to/from structure, architect to MEP) and
secondary relationships (structure to/from mechanical and piping).

Figure 6.1 Architect
The relationships
of interdisciplin-
ary coordination Structural Plumbing

Mechanical Electrical

In addition, these relationships can be further parsed into physical and logical relationships.
If we use mechanical and electrical as an example, you can see that a physical relationship
means making sure a light fixture is not hitting the bottom of a duct, whereas a logical
relationship means making sure the electrical design properly accounts for the load of the
heating coil in a variable air volume (VAV) box (being designed by the mechanical engineer).
It is the complexity of these possible workflow scenarios that makes this process prone to
errors and illustrates the importance of proper coordination between the different disciplines of
a design team. So, what are the tools that can be used for collaboration between Revit products?
Three distinct tools are typically used in a collaboration scenario:
Linked Models Linking models together using the Revit Link tool provides full visual
fidelity of the referenced content, showing the complete context of the other disciplines’ data,
fostering a complete understanding of their geometry. The data can also be controlled and
shown in any manner appropriate to the use. You can turn it on or off, half-tone the data,
or enhance it with color or line pattern overrides. Linking also provides support for the
Interference Check, Copy/Monitor, and Coordination Review tools.
Copy/Monitor Copy/Monitor is a powerful tool available in all products built on the Revit
platform and is considered the most intelligent of the coordination tools. It offers several
benefits. It lets you link Revit files from other team members (structural engineers or MEP
engineers) and copy key elements from their model into yours. Once that link is created,
you can monitor that relationship and know if the element has moved or changed when you

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