How Ridge and Partners make the most of Bluebeam Revu

Ridge started using Bluebeam Revu around five years ago to support its QS team with accurate measurement when costing jobs. From this initial introduction, the use case has been expanded within the business to include document management, take-offs and estimations, and design reviews.

Ridge partner Nick Barringer says Revu has transformed the way the business works. “Our team was introduced to Bluebeam as a tool to make commenting and marking up of drawings more efficient,” he explains. “At the time, we didn’t see the way that we were doing things as a problem, but immediately saw the benefits once we had been introduced to the software.

“It was initially used as an internal communication tool for marking up and commenting on drawings and reports. As our understanding of the software’s capability has increased, we are now able to use Bluebeam to produce high-quality sketches to communicate early design stage concepts, alongside detailed mark-ups to assist the onsite construction teams.

“It has helped our team increase our efficiency and improve the quality of our information.”

One of the areas where the software has made a difference to Ridge is information management. Barringer adds: “One of the biggest benefits is that we can easily collate and edit multiple PDF documents in one place. Our ‘old way’ of working would involve printing, annotating and scanning a large quantity of paper hand mark-ups.

“Doing this digitally has saved us thousands in paper and printing costs and has made the whole workflow much more efficient in terms of time. It has also facilitated our transition to a truly paper-free office, reducing our environmental impact as a business.”

Ridge associate Rhys ​​​​Griffiths works in the cost management team. He explains that this has particularly helped with tender documentation.

“It’s the go-to tool for us,” he says. “We use it every day, and it helps us to work efficiently and securely. We produce a lot of tender documents and contract documents that all need to be collated and marked up. This can number anywhere from 10 to 100 documents, so we need to able to work accurately in these files. Bluebeam helps us to send them out in a consistent format that looks professional.”

Chris Mills is a Ridge senior associate who specialises in civils and infrastructure projects. He explains how Revu helps Ridge to maintain accuracy and consistency throughout the project. “We’ll take a snip of the architect section and then draw on top of it and annotate it, before sending the information out to the relevant people.

“If we’re reviewing two drawings and we need to see what’s changed, you can overlay the drawings on top of each other and see where the colours clash. On one recent project it was invaluable. We had to check hundreds of drawings and see where any changes had occurred, and that function was a gamechanger.

“Ordinarily, it would take days to go through that many drawings. It saved us a huge amount of time.”

Alex Hall works in Ridge’s building services team. He says Revu is used from the moment he gets involved in a project. “If I get given an architectural floor plan and I’ve got to do a survey, I’ll use Revu to mark it up. That’ll include colour coding rooms and overlaying where the electrical and heating services are. That gives us a reference point to check against as part of our QA processes, comparing what we’ve captured against the final drawings.”

He adds that he can use it to create quick designs himself, rather than relying on the technical team to draw something in AutoCad or Revit, which saves around two or three days each time.

He highlights the ability to edit as a further benefit. “It’s simple to remove things from drawings that aren’t relevant, adding clarity to plans and making it easier for us to work with,” he explains. “Even something as simple as the colour processing tool is so helpful. If an architect has sent us a colour drawing, I can convert to grayscale and then use colour to overlay the areas that I’m focused on.”

One of the final benefits the team mentions is the ability to make documents consistent and presentable for clients. Barringer concludes: “Revu helps us to make professional customer documents that are locked down and secure. Using Bluebeam as a presentation tool means the team can quickly sketch up and demonstrate things in meetings for internal meetings and with clients.

“A lot of people would never have thought that it was done in Bluebeam – they’d assume that it had been done in AutoCAD or Revit. It allows us to get information out the door much quicker without having to be proficient in CAD software.”

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