When detailing a model in Revit, VDC designers spend much of their time building spool sheets, routing conduit, and placing hangers. A typical project requires these tasks to be completed hundreds or thousands of times, and doing them manually makes it harder to maintain accuracy and consistency. Mistakes can lead to additional coordination work, delays in the shop, and rework in the field. 

The modern contractor can’t afford to lose valuable detailing hours doing repetitive work. With EVOLVE, contractors can automate these tasks, reducing the time spent on routine modeling and drawing preparation. This gives more time to resolve coordination issues and get work ready for fabrication. 

In this article, we explore five detailing tasks and how you can automate them in EVOLVE. 

1. Spool Sheet Creation

Spool sheet creation is known to be one of the most time-consuming detailing tasks when done manually. Every sheet needs views, dimensions, tags, and a bill of materials. On top of this, each detailer will format their spools with slight variations, meaning the shop and field may receive sheets that vary by author. When a coordination meeting moves a spool, the sheet has to be rebuilt, adding even more time. 

EVOLVE automates spool sheet creation so detailers can prepare drawings for the shop faster. Teams can generate sheets in batches, complete with views, schedules, dimensions, and numbering, while templates keep the output consistent across detailers. EVOLVE’s new Auto Tag Arrangement feature reduces the cleanup needed to make drawings readable. When a spool changes, detailers can update its sheets without having to rebuild it by hand. 

2. Conduit Routing

Conduit routing is manual, exacting work. Detailers build each run one segment at a time, modeling every turn, offset, and elevation change between the equipment and the device it serves, and both ends have to land on the correct connection point. On a project with hundreds of home runs and branch circuits, this work consumes a large portion of the modeling schedule. When the layout changes, detailers must redraw the affected runs. 

EVOLVE’s Auto Route capability lets detailers define a pathway and generate multiple conduit runs along it, using information already captured in the conduit run schedule. That frees detailers from having to model each run segment by segment, including rolling offsets in more complex layouts. With the Connector Placement feature, detailers can add connectors to selected open ends in just one operation. These capabilities allow detailers to spend less time on routine modeling and more time resolving coordination issues. 

3. Hanger Placement

When done manually, hangers can take longer to model than the systems they support. Each one needs correct spacing, clearance from structure and other trades, and a new location whenever a clash occurs. Mistakes don’t stay in the model, either: Hanger locations set rod lengths, insert layouts, and material counts, so an error in Revit can easily become an error in the field. 

EVOLVE automates hanger placement along selected runs, helping detailers support entire sections of a model without placing each hanger individually. Shared placement rules keep spacing and hanger selection consistent across the team. Built-in collision tools can reposition or resize hangers to avoid conflicts and flag those that still need attention, reducing the time spent finding and correcting clashes before work reaches the field. 

4. Bend Trimming and Coordination

A single clash can force a detailer to trim several parallel conduits, rebuild the offsets, and re-model every bend. While that’s already slow on its own, the bigger risk is a bend that works in the model but can’t be made in the shop—and that problem usually isn’t discovered until the shop flags it. 

EVOLVE’s Smart Bend Multi-Trim lets detailers connect multiple conduit runs with offsets or kick 90 bends in one operation, even when the runs are misaligned or at different elevations. That makes coordination changes faster by reducing the need to trim and rebuild each run separately. Smart Bends also use data for the benders your team works with, helping detailers account for fabrication requirements while they model and reduce avoidable rework later. 

5. Creating Bend Instructions for the Shop

Even when a model is fully detailed, it’s not necessarily ready for the shop. To turn model data into something the shop team can use to produce bends and other, detailers usually produce spool sheets in Revit. Any time a bend changes, they have to go back and reissue the spool sheets. Each change exposes the shop to risk of working from an outdated sheet and incorrect instructions. 

EVOLVE Fabrication turns bend data from native Revit bends and EVOLVE Smart Bends into machine-specific instructions that operators can access through a web-based interface on the shop floor. If work moves to a different bender, the instructions recalculate for that machine without requiring VDC to prepare another deliverable. This reduces the need to create and reissue Revit sheets solely to communicate bend instructions, helping the shop keep production moving with fewer requests back to detailers. 

Want to Explore Further? 

On Wednesday, October 28 at 12 PM ET, we’ll walk through the automation features in EVOLVE Electrical, Fabrication, and Shop, showing how each one removes manual steps between the model and the shop floor. The goal is to move more work through detailing and prefab with the team you already have. 

In this session, we will demonstrate how to: 

• Apply automation to repetitive tasks across electrical detailing and prefab 

• Model conduit faster in Revit with automated routing and connector placement 

• Generate automatic bend layouts on the shop floor for traditional benders 

• Track prefab progress through automated work request status updates, without manual check-ins 

Register here