Assembly is a powerful tool to document joinery, interior, or other repetitive packages. However, due to some limitations in assembly, it is not widely used in real projects. As there are lots of tips and information on how to use assembly, we are going to talk about the limitations and the workaround to work with it.
Assembly cannot be grouped
This is the major drawback of assembly. It would be great if the assembly worked in Group. However, the assembly cannot be added to a group or grouped. Due to this limitation, the assembly cannot be used in the residential project as there are repetitive unit layouts that should be grouped.
Some elements cannot be included
Assembly doesn’t like some elements shown below. If one of them is included in your selection to create Assembly, it will exclude them automatically.
Architecture
Stacked Wall
Curtain Wall
Curtain System
Stair
Railing
Group
Model Line
Structure
Truss
Beam System
Annotation
Detail Component
Mass & Site
Mass
System
Duct
Piping
Cable
Conduit
Editing will create a new one
Another annoying feature is that the assembly doesn’t get any changes if there are more than one assembly in the project. It will automatically duplicate the new assembly type when it is edited, which means it is not suitable for design development. You can change the assemblies as your design goes, but it is time-consuming and that’s why many users just group them and added to another group (being nested group). Functioning like Group will allow users to use more assembly and prevent nesting groups as well.
Can’t have Assembly mirrored
Don’t get me wrong, it can be mirrored, but it will create a new type. It does make sense not to have a mirrored type as there will be some misinformation. However, it would still be good to have the option.
Watch out whether it has assembly views associated
When the assembly is dissembled, make sure the assembly doesn’t have the associated views. If you delete the one with the associated view, you will lose them all. Therefore, make sure to associate the views with other assemblies so that the views will remain.
Identical Assembly needs specific criteria
Assembly has a special function, which will match the existing assembly if it meets certain criteria namely:
Naming Category
Same number of elements
Same category
Same position
It is quite annoying to meet this, so rather copy the existing assembly. It may be useful to check whether it is available in the project or not.
Material Take-off Sum Up
Material take-off schedule will not generate individual materials for each element in the assembly. It will sum up as one element. It should have been listing each element included in the assembly since it is quite picky to match the existing assembly type.
To Sum Up
Having mentioned all of the above, Assembly requires a specific workflow and there are certainly not quite user-friendly. It is important to understand the tool and adapt it to your project, then finally you will be an expert in Assembly! (Or rather use Group). We are still figuring out what packages are the best for this tool to make your life easier. Maybe a precast panel setout package would be suitable?
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