Navisworks

Navisworks is the tool we rely on most for federating discipline models — Revit architectural, structural and MEP, Tekla structural steel, Civil 3D site models — into a single combined view for coordination review and clash detection, without needing every discipline to be modelled in the same native platform.

Clash detection reports generated through Navisworks are only as useful as how they're prioritised, and we structure reports so hard clashes that genuinely block construction are clearly separated from soft clearance issues that are easily resolved, rather than delivering an unsorted list that buries the problems that actually matter.

Construction sequencing review is another common use we put Navisworks to — linking a federated model to a construction programme lets a team visually check that the sequence of installation actually works before it's committed to, catching access and clearance problems that a static model review wouldn't necessarily reveal.

Navisworks' selection sets and search sets are a practical tool for organising a large federated model into meaningful, reusable groupings — by discipline, by level, by construction package — which makes repeated coordination reviews considerably faster than manually re-selecting the same elements each time.

For projects where several consultants are producing models on different update cycles, we manage federation timing deliberately, confirming which model version each discipline's latest issue represents before running a review, since a clash report generated against an outdated services model produces confidently wrong results.

Viewpoint and comment tools in Navisworks support a structured, trackable coordination conversation between disciplines — saved viewpoints tied to specific clash issues, with clear ownership and status, keep a coordination process organised in a way that email threads and static screenshots don't.

TimeLiner, Navisworks' construction sequencing tool, is a practical way to validate a proposed construction programme visually against the actual federated model, catching an installation sequence that looks fine on a Gantt chart but is physically impossible given real site access and clearance constraints — a mismatch that's considerably cheaper to catch in a model review than during actual construction.

Quantification tools within Navisworks support extracting rough quantities directly from a federated model for early cost estimation purposes, and while this isn't a substitute for a dedicated quantity surveying process, it's a genuinely useful sense-check against a separately prepared estimate, particularly at early design stages.

For projects with a large number of open coordination issues across multiple review cycles, we maintain a clear, dated record of what was raised, resolved and re-checked at each cycle, which becomes a valuable record if a coordination dispute or question arises later in the project.

Clearance and soft-clash checking — verifying adequate maintenance access or installation clearance around equipment, not just hard geometric intersection — is set up as a distinct rule category from hard clash detection, since these two categories of issue carry different urgency and are typically resolved by different people on a project team.

For projects using Navisworks primarily for coordination rather than fabrication, we still apply the same rigour to confirming model federation accuracy as we would for a fabrication-focused review, since a coordination decision based on a poorly federated model can be just as costly to unwind as a fabrication error, even without the immediate physical consequence.

Batch processing and automated report generation for recurring, scheduled coordination reviews reduces the manual overhead of producing a consistent report format at every review cycle, letting the design team focus their time on interpreting and resolving findings rather than reformatting the report itself each time.

Where a federated model needs to be shared with a client or authority who doesn't have Navisworks themselves, we export lightweight, published formats that preserve the coordination review's key findings in a format the recipient can actually open and review without needing the full authoring software.