Digital Engineering Works (DEW) is a Building Information Modelling (BIM) and digital engineering firm specialising in mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) design, based in Liverpool, England.
Founder Alan Farrell has built a niche line of business for himself by taking on complex jobs that are already in the design phase. Most of DEW’s projects have encountered special challenges in MEP design.
“I’ve been using MagiCAD for around a year now, and I have two other people on my team involved with the software as well,” said Alan. “I typically take up a building project from stage 3 and carry it through to stage 5.”
Alan has gained experience in designing Proton Beam Therapy clinics. These cutting-edge medical centres provide the latest cancer therapy (proton beam), as well as more familiar treatments like MRI and chemotherapy. The clinics have specialised MEP requirements.
“I’ve mainly utilised MagiCAD’s Builders Work Tool to highlight all of the openings through walls and structural elements that are required to run MEP services through,” said Alan. “On a typical project, if I was to do clash detection and add the builders openings manually, it could take on average around six weeks. I can get this process down to two weeks of work – and on top of that I benefit greatly from the coordination and modelling tools. MagiCAD provides plenty of extra tools and functionality that are missing from out-of-the-box Revit.”
Alan gave a specific example of how he maintains the design integrity using MagiCAD.
“One job has 600 openings through the walls – each opening would take me one hour of work to see what size the opening is, give it a reference, record the dimensions, and produce a schedule, etc. MagiCAD’s Builders Work Tool does all of this work for you automatically.”
He continued, “It’s also important to consider how services can be practically installed on site – sometimes the designer positions elements too close together, in which case I’ll need to add additional space or re-position elements to bring the model in-line with Construction Design Management (CDM) considerations.”
The Proton Beam Clinics that he’s worked on are heavily laden with additional MEP requirements. These clinics provide state-of-the-art cancer care. Alan explained, “There’s a lot of high-tech equipment going into these buildings. The services in the model have to reflect the real world products and services. There’s a significant amount of coolant to be distributed and the power requirements are enormous. There is also a lot of coordination between radiation protection and services to think about,” Alan said.
“The people behind MagiCAD are themselves industry professionals and MEP Engineers with countless years of experience between them, which is reflected in the quality of the product. The software is brilliant,” he concluded.