customer story

How Commodore Builders uses Revit data for accurate Quantity Take-Offs on complex BIM models

“Since using Toric, we’ve seen faster reports with full granular detail. We’re able to validate and provide better accuracy for quantity take-off. We’re able to reduce labor for any project change”

Amanda Finnerty, Director of Internal Operations | Commodore Builders

Amanda Finnerty, Director of Internal Operations at Commodore Builders

Key Facts

Industry

Construction

Data Sources

Revit

Data Services

Excel, PowerBI

Objectives

Improve accuracy and speed performing Quantity Take Off on an intricate curved building design.

Results

• Process and analyze Revit data faster
• Accurate QTO from building design
• Interactive visualizations
• Reusable visualizations for future projects

View PDF

Author Note

As the Director of Internal Operations, I am responsible for the consistency and efficiency of standard operating procedures. I oversee the discovery and implementation of new technology, and strive to identify and implement technology aimed at improving visibility and consistency in processes across Commodore Builders. I leverage Toric on a day-to-day basis to improve our data analytics efficiency, and enable data-driven decisions across the company.

Overview

At Commodore, we’re realists. We know there’s no perfect science in construction, but we look for the best tools so we can expect fewer surprises, make our lives easier, and keep our clients safe in a world that’s changing fast.

As soon as we saw Toric in action, we immediately recognized the potential to help us get greater clarity on projects. The simplified process to extract and transform our data and the reusability of the reports made us realize they could help us in a number of ways. We started with a quantity take-off and were impressed with the data workspace, and data visualization capabilities. The interface has exactly what we were looking for, and we used Toric to solve the problem of pulling our model data from Revit and interacting with it directly during analysis.

We used Toric to quickly validate steel tonnage and confirm that our estimates were on point. The most helpful feature was the reusability of our visualizations. Our calculations are instantly updated after BIM model interactions, and we can explore revisions as needed without any manual labor.

When we first implemented Toric, we were able to catch a discrepancy in design and impress our clients with our thoroughness. Toric was instrumental in helping us make sense of a complex project with curved wall designs and feel confident in the results of our analysis.

Challenge

Using BIM to get timely and accurate quantity take-off for intricate curved wall design

‍“We used Assemble, and it’s a good solution, but to make it work took too much time. It took a lot of effort to get it up and running, which is a big deal for us. We don't have a lot of time to do these takeoffs. Now we have a model, apply the report, and get a fast takeoff with Toric by letting the data visualization do all the work for us.”‍

We originally used Assemble, and while the software is great, it was too specific and limiting for our needs. We could not use Assemble to create an accurate measurement of our curved building design, and while we don’t always have complex quantity take-offs, we know every project requires this step, and we wanted to be prepared to handle complex designs at scale in the future.

Solution

To solve this, we used Toric to pull data from our Revit file. As early adopters, we worked with the Toric team to ensure our needs were met and I was pleasantly surprised at how little input was needed from my team and me to get started. I gave the Toric team a mess of data, and they returned with an efficient and reusable solution for our needs.

We used the no-coding dataflow to ensure our visuals were updated whenever a change in the source happened. With Toric, updates were instant and we were able to complete the report in an hour when this process usually took us an entire day.

We saved time, gained confidence in our results, and were able to five into granular details when needed. I gained scalability by reusing the report and swapping out the model file if we have any similar projects instead of starting from scratch.

What was very impressive to me is that Toric understands our business team needs. There were people to help us get what we needed - granted, we have to fly on our own. Still, I feel confident in the product after seeing it in action, especially due to the app’s reusability, which saves us a lot of time and helps us spend that time identifying ways to optimize our processes. Now it's a matter of formatting and putting some consistency to the estimates that we're putting together so that we can have this spectacular output with Toric.

Result

Since using Toric, we’ve seen faster reports with full granular detail. We’re able to validate and provide better accuracy for quantity take-off. We’re able to reduce labor for any project change since we’re able to reuse our visualization and dataflows.

What I found is when you show people what you can do, their brain starts exploring new ways to use data, and they start asking for different reports. That’s what we’re experiencing right now with Toric.

The quantity take-off was our first success, and now that we’ve seen immediate value, we’re starting to explore other ways to leverage Toric in our data strategy.We started developing reusable data visualizations to gain clarity on our historical projects, and we’re able to make better-informed decisions fast than we were before. We want to be ahead of the game, not catching up, and I believe Toric will help us.