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With Nexcommon Check Project, drawings, technical reports, bills of quantities and 3D models are compared with each other. And the files come back corrected: in PDF, Word, Excel and IFC.

Every major project is written by many hands. The architect draws, the structural engineer calculates, the MEP engineer sizes systems, the cost consultant turns everything into bill items. Each works on their own document, often at different times and on different revisions.

Anyone who has read a submission from start to finish knows the result: the report says one thing, the drawing shows another, the bill of quantities pays for a third. The thickness of a screed, a concrete class, a floor height, a document code cited in a report and later renumbered.

Finding them is not the problem. What happens next is.

A list of inconsistencies, on its own, closes nothing. It goes back to the design team, someone has to open dozens of files, correct them, check that the fix has not created new errors and reissue everything. Often close to a deadline.

For whoever receives the project, the cost comes later. For a contracting authority it can mean a tender with documents that contradict each other. For a contractor, a bid built on quantities that do not match the drawings. For an engineering firm, days of repetitive corrections instead of design work.

What Nexcommon Check Project does

Check Project is Nexcommon’s consulting service on the consistency of project information. It works in four steps:

1. Comparing the sources. Drawings, technical reports, the bill of quantities and 3D models are read together, with rules built over years by industry professionals.
2. A clear report. Each inconsistency comes with extracts of the documents it stems from, and with a clear distinction: what is a design decision and what is not.
3. Design decisions stay with the designer. Design inconsistencies are flagged to the designer, who decides. We never change a design decision.
4. Correction and return. We fix non-design inconsistencies directly, and design ones after the designer’s decision. Files come back in the format they arrived in: PDF, Word, Excel, IFC. Every change is tracked in a before/after log and approved by the designer, who remains responsible for the project.

What can be corrected without touching the design? Title blocks, codes and revisions. Cross-references between drawings and reports. Quantities carried into the bill when the design figure is already decided. IFC model properties according to the information requirements or the client’s requests.

An invented example

A fictional school campus, 420 files across drawings, reports, bill of quantities and models. The comparison finds 37 inconsistencies:

• 22 non-design ones, fixed directly: 9 on title blocks and revisions, 6 on cross-references between drawings and reports, 4 on quantities carried into the bill, 3 on IFC properties;
• 15 design ones, flagged to the designer with the extracts side by side and corrected after the decision, such as a screed thickness that differs between report, drawing and bill.

In the end the design team receives 31 drawings in PDF, 2 reports in Word, the bill of quantities in Excel and 2 IFC models, already corrected, with a log of every change.

Who it is for

• Contracting authorities and project managers: documents that say the same thing, before the tender or the start of works.
• Engineering firms: fewer review rounds and fewer hours spent on repetitive corrections, with files ready to reissue.
• Contractors: quantities and drawings aligned before preparing a bid or ordering materials.

Specialist knowledge becomes common

Reading drawings, reports, bills of quantities and models together takes different skills that rarely sit in one person. Check Project brings them together and returns a result anyone can use: corrected files, not just a list of problems.

The first trial is free, on one lot or one discipline of one of your projects, under a confidentiality agreement. See nexcommon.com/en/consulting to request it.

▶ Watch the video on YouTube: Project inconsistencies should not just be found. They should be fixed. (57 s, on-screen text in Italian) · Nexcommon channel

Organisations, names and figures in this article are invented for illustration.

With Nexcommon, 2D drawings, technical reports, bills of quantities and 3D models become data that decision-makers can read and query on their own.

A major project speaks at least four languages. Drawings describe form and detail. Technical reports explain choices and calculations. The bill of quantities turns everything into quantities and costs. The 3D model holds geometry and information together. Each of these languages has its own specialists, software and formats.

Those who have to decide — a public or private client, the technical director of an engineering firm, a contractor’s project manager, whoever finances or insures the asset — usually don’t speak all four. Nor should they have to.

The problem: the data is there, but it needs interpreters

Today, getting a simple answer almost always means going through someone. How much concrete does the design really require? Are the drawings delivered the latest revision? Is the material class the same in the report, the drawings and the bill of quantities? What changed between the March and the June delivery?

The information needed to answer exists, but it is scattered across hundreds of files in different formats. Those who can read it have little time; those who must decide wait, or decide with what they have. BIM promised to put everything in one place, but querying a model still takes an expert, and the project doesn’t live in the model alone: it also lives in PDF drawings, reports and cost spreadsheets.

What changes with Nexcommon

Nexcommon exists to turn specialist knowledge into common knowledge. In practice, it is now possible to analyse together the data coming from 2D drawings, technical reports, bills of quantities and 3D models, and to get answers that anyone involved in the decision can read.

There is no new software to learn and no need to convert everything into a single format. Documents stay where they are, in the common data environments each party already uses. What changes is how information reaches the people who need it: no longer files to open, but answers with the source document alongside.

An invented example: the Valcorta business park

Imagine a fictional project: an office complex with an underground car park and access roads, 640 files of drawings, reports, bills of quantities and models. Each party has different questions.

• The client wants to know whether the delivery is complete. Answer: 4 documents listed in the register but not delivered, 11 drawings with a different revision in the title block and in the file name.
• The design firm, before delivering, wants to be sure all four sources say the same thing. Answer: the foundation calculation report specifies C35/45 concrete, while the formwork drawing and the cost item state C32/40. With the three extracts side by side, it is clear at once where to intervene.
• The contractor has to plan procurement. Answer: the foundation concrete volume in the bill of quantities is 6% lower than the one derived from the 3D model. Better to know before placing the order.
• The lender wants to understand what changed between two deliveries. Answer: the list of modified drawings, with the quantities and cost items affected.

None of them had to open a model or read a calculation report. The answers are the same for everyone, and each reads them in their own language.

What doesn’t change

Specialists remain essential: they design, calculate and estimate. Their work simply reaches the people who need it further and faster. Decisions stay with those responsible for taking them, but they rest on clear data rather than second-hand summaries.

Nor do platforms change. Nexcommon connects the environments already in use — with tools such as Varco, Document Register and Fingerprint Archive — without asking anyone to give up their own.

Tell us about one of your projects

Whether you are a client, an engineering firm, a contractor or a financial operator, at nexcommon.com/en/ you’ll find our method, tools and consulting services. The best way to see what changes is to start from a concrete case: yours.

▶ Watch the video on YouTube: You don’t need to become a BIM expert to read a project’s data (54 s, on-screen text in Italian) · Nexcommon channel

Authorities, names and figures in this article are invented for illustration.