Archibus Smart Client Extension for Revit

Using Equipment Elements for Equipment Inventory

BIM models often have a large number of equipment items that are important to catalog for asset management, preventive and reactive maintenance.

Catalog your Existing Equipment

You can catalog your existing Equipment to Archibus to correlate the lifecycle management processes with the information in your Revit model. To do so:

  1. Name Revit View. Create a new Area Plan view and name it to contain the word “Equipment”, for example, “Level 1 – Equipment Plan”.

    Alternately, you can use the Set Asset Type command to set the asset type to use for creating Archibus area assets to “eq – Equipment”. Either has the same effect, namely to instruct the Number, Edit Data, and Catalog commands to connect new area assets to the Equipment table.

  2. Insert Equipment. Use the Revit Insert / Load from Library / Load Family command to load Mechanical Equipment or Specialty Equipment families. Drag and drop them from the Project Browser to insert them into the plan.

    You do not need to Set Asset Type, since the default mappings within the Archibus Extension for Revit map all types of equipment to the equipment table.

  3. Data Edit. Use the Data Edit command to give each piece of equipment an unique Equipment Code. You may use the Revit Identity Data “Mark” parameter value or the equipment bar code number.

    Notice that if you placed the equipment item within a Revit room that is cataloged with Archibus, the equipment’s Building, Floor, and Room Code will automatically show the correct value.

    Also notice that if you move an equipment item between rooms, Archibus will update its room location automatically.

  4. Publish Enterprise Graphics. Use the Archibus / Enterprise Graphics / Publish 2D or Publish 3D commands. The graphics on the Web will show the inserted equipment elements as intelligent equipment assets. See Publish Enterprise Graphics directly from Revit.
  5. Detail and Review. You can continue to work with your Suite inventory in the Smart Client program:
    • Use the Asset Management / Asset Portal / Equipment / Draw Equipment view to enter in more Equipment information in the Smart Client grid.
    • Use selections such as the View Equipment Plan or View Equipment by Department views to review and report your equipment information.

One-Step Catalog

If your equipment has a consistent numbering scheme in the “Mark” parameter of your equipment entities, you can catalog all your equipment in the model within one step.

  1. Add an entry to the Archibus BIM Parameters table mapping the “Mark” equipment parameter to the Equipment Code (eq_id) field of Archibus. (You need to perform this step only once per Archibus project.)
  2. Ensure that all levels have the Set Level Properties command to identify their Building and Floor Code.
  3. Invoke the Catalog Model command. Archibus will catalog all of the equipment in your model in one step.