I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at assets within the Autodesk AC Build module. In some sense I’m lucky because I’ve got a manufacturing background to guide my understanding of what is meant to be achieved.

Consider you are a assembler of ducting, duct fittings and air terminals and so on and you are building a large building. Suppliers are dropping off components, and your receiving agent will quality check and tag using QR codes and some identifying mark the components that are being delivered. From here on they are trackable and traceable throughout the assembly process and this process can be managed using mobile phones using the ACC Mobile App and which connected to the Project Manager and design team should anything like forms, images and videos, issues, requests for information, and submittals need to be referenced.

In this short video we look at how companions are identified we don’t delve into too much detail regarding the codification, but we do show how it is done both for identification of the type of elements as well as the fact that it belongs to a system and that we can also identify the system. However, that is only part of the solution. You see the issue is well how can you immediately identify the asset via the name of the asset that is printed with the QR Code. Now that name generally is mapped onto the name of the family which doesn’t make sense because families are not named in a logical way that would indicate its assembly. In this case I would say that an assembly code or some other code that identifies the element within the assembly might be the best way to choose. That is what we consider here, and we use the Mark number.

Clearly there is a lot of work to do to identify components this way. This is the nature of BIM. Work by the Information Manager at the beginning of the process enables downstream efficiencies within the process. Given the bigger picture it makes perfect sense.

There is no naming system of the assets that can be pointed to in general and you would have to come up with a system that would make sense to your discipline and project. You might already have some assembly coding system, especially if you are ISO compliant, and you would have to consider this system in the context of the Autodesk Construction Cloud. Furthermore, there may be integration that could be established between your Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and the Autodesk construction cloud. Whether these integrations are financially viable would have to be investigated. The ifcGUID is a good candidate identifier to join the linking between the Autodesk construction cloud and some ERP system.

If you need help adopting the AEC Collection or the Autodesk Construction Cloud in your practice or you are looking to invest in hardware, please contact Micrographics so that we may be of assistance.