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On the Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District Replacement Hospital in California, construction managers Bernards and Colombo used Bluebeam Revu to reconcile two large PDF drawing sets, organize changes, replace revised pages and coordinate a ceiling redesign. Bluebeam’s customer case study says the final comparison took 15 hours instead of the more-than-week effort the team expected, while the project manager estimated nearly 400 staff hours saved. Those are historical claims from a vendor-published case study, not an independent software benchmark or a guarantee for other projects.
The project and the document-control problem
Bernards and Colombo provided construction management services for a $57 million replacement hospital in Tehachapi, California. Bluebeam describes the facility as a 25-bed, 79,000-square-foot hospital in rural Kern County. The project broke ground in early 2013. The account is documented in Bluebeam’s customer story, “Bernards and Colombo Team Up With Revu to Streamline Project Documentation for the Tehachapi Valley Healthcare District Replacement Hospital”.
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The team had to reconcile two drawing packages serving different purposes:
| Drawing package | Size | Purpose and issue |
|---|---|---|
| Permit set | 500 documents | Submitted for state approval; it did not yet contain all of the newer information. |
| Bid set | 520 documents | Issued to prime contractors with updated information that differed from the older permit set. |
Because the hospital was in a remote location, printing both sets was expensive. Comparing paper sheets manually would also have consumed substantial staff time and created opportunities to miss a changed note, dimension or detail. The practical question was not simply how to view PDFs; it was how to establish which set controlled each piece of information and then carry approved revisions into the working master set.
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Bernards project engineer William Lopez proposed using Revu, which the company already had in-house. That existing familiarity avoided a separate software acquisition decision and let the team concentrate on a repeatable review process.
How the Revu workflow worked
1. Obtain searchable PDF versions of both sets
The team requested PDF versions of the permit and bid drawings. Working digitally made it possible to place corresponding sheets together, run an automated comparison and preserve a review record without printing hundreds of pages. The case study does not establish what PDF creation or naming convention was used, so other teams should define those controls before starting: consistent sheet numbers, disciplined file names and a clear issue date for every page.
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2. Build an electronic plan room
Bernards and Colombo installed two 55-inch screens in an electronic plan room. The paired displays gave reviewers enough area to inspect corresponding sheets and the highlighted differences without repeatedly swapping paper sets. The screens were part of this project’s setup; the account does not say that 55-inch displays, or any particular screen size, are required for every job.
3. Run a small comparison before processing everything
Rather than begin with all 1,020 documents, the team tested a 100-sheet sample. Bluebeam’s case study reports that back-checking this test took three hours. A pilot like this can expose alignment problems, rotated pages, missing sheets or false positives before they affect the complete package. It also gives the team a defensible estimate of review effort.
4. Compare the permit and bid documents
Using Revu’s Compare Documents feature, reviewers highlighted differences between corresponding PDF sheets. The visual treatment focused attention on changed content instead of requiring staff to scan every line of two nearly identical drawings. The case study says the full comparison took 15 hours, compared with the team’s expectation of more than a week.
5. Sort and resolve findings in the Markups list
Comparison output is only useful when people can decide what each change means. The team reviewed and organized markups in Revu’s Markups list. A construction document-control process can use that list to assign a reviewer, record a status, group findings by discipline or sheet and distinguish an informational change from one requiring an RFI, approval or field action. Bluebeam’s account confirms that the Bernards and Colombo team used the list to organize its review; it does not describe a specific status taxonomy or approval form.
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6. Replace superseded pages in the master set
As state approvals arrived, the team used Revu’s Replace Pages function to insert updated drawings into the master set. The case study says this took one-tenth the time of updating a paper set. The important control is to preserve the revision identity while replacing the page: retain the approved sheet number and revision, remove the superseded page from active use and record when the replacement entered the master file. The source describes the speed advantage but does not provide a measured time in minutes or a separate audit of the resulting set.
7. Extend the process into BIM coordination
The workflow was not limited to two-dimensional sheet checking. The team created three-dimensional PDFs from a sectioned building-information-model (BIM) view and sent them to the architect with markups. That communication explained a ceiling change needed to make room for additional ducts and piping. A sectioned 3-D view can make a congested overhead condition easier to understand than a note on a plan alone, while the markup identifies the requested change for the design team.
8. Use the same files for field and day-to-day work
Bernards and Colombo planned to use Revu for takeoffs, color coding and routine project tasks. The trailer had Wi-Fi for field plan review, allowing staff to access the current digital information without carrying complete paper sets. These additional uses are described as the team’s planned or ongoing practice in the customer story; they are not evidence that every Revu feature is necessary on another project.
What the case study reports
The following figures belong to the historical customer account. Bluebeam does not give the retrieved page a clear publication year, so the numbers should not be read as current product performance or as a controlled comparison with another software system.
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| Measure | Reported result | Attribution and scope |
|---|---|---|
| Project value | $57 million | Bluebeam’s description of the replacement hospital project. |
| Facility size | 25 beds; 79,000 square feet | Bluebeam’s description of the hospital in rural Kern County. |
| Documents compared | 500-document permit set and 520-document bid set | Drawing packages used by the Bernards and Colombo team. |
| Pilot review | Three hours for a 100-sheet back-check | Project-team result reported in Bluebeam’s case study. |
| Full comparison | 15 hours, versus an expectation of more than a week | Project-team result reported in the vendor case study. |
| Labor estimate | Nearly 400 staff hours saved | Estimate attributed to Mike Funderberg, Bernards’ project manager. |
| Page replacement | One-tenth the time of updating a paper set | Bluebeam’s case-study claim about inserting approved pages into the master set. |
Funderberg described the labor impact this way: “The utilization of Bluebeam for this document comparison effort saved nearly 400 hours of the Bernards/Colombo staff’s time to devote to other pressing issues.” The quotation appears in Bluebeam’s customer case study and should be understood as the project manager’s estimate, not as an independently audited measurement.
He also explained why the team’s view of the software broadened: “I was originally attracted to Bluebeam because of its takeoff capabilities and its price. Bluebeam has since shown me that it’s much more than an affordable solution for performing electronic takeoffs.” This is a participant statement in the same vendor-published account; it is not a current price comparison.
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Why this approach mattered on a hospital project
It reduced the exposure created by parallel drawing sets
The permit and bid packages were close in size but not identical in content. A visual comparison created a direct way to identify where the later bid information differed from the state-submitted material. That matters on a hospital, where architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing changes can affect procurement, inspections and installation sequencing.
It replaced a print-and-carry bottleneck
Printing was especially unattractive at the remote Tehachapi site. Digital files reduced the need to produce duplicate paper packages for a large comparison and let reviewers work from a common electronic plan room. The case study does not quantify printing costs, paper volume or travel time, so the benefit is logistical rather than a published dollar saving.
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Approvals arrived over time, so document control was not a one-time comparison. Replacing pages in the master set gave the team a way to incorporate approved information without rebuilding a complete paper binder. The associated control challenge remains human: someone must verify the correct page, revision and approval before the replacement becomes the active reference.
It connected design intent to constructability
The 3-D PDF and markup sent to the architect addressed a specific coordination problem: a ceiling had to change to accommodate additional ducts and piping. Showing the affected section and annotating it helped communicate the spatial consequence, not just the textual instruction. That is a useful pattern for other congested areas, although the case study reports only this example.
A practical document-comparison procedure for similar projects
The Bernards and Colombo story can be translated into a controlled sequence without assuming that another project will achieve the same timings.
- Define the comparison scope. List the two issues, identify the sheets that should correspond and name the approval or bid milestone each set represents.
- Normalize the files. Confirm that every sheet is present, legible and oriented correctly. Record the issue date and revision for each PDF before running a comparison.
- Test a representative sample. Select about 100 sheets, including disciplines with dense details and sheets likely to have changed. Back-check the automated output against the originals.
- Set review ownership. Give each markup a responsible reviewer and a disposition such as accepted, needs clarification, superseded or incorporated. The exact labels should match the project’s quality plan.
- Run the full comparison. Use the PDF comparison function, then inspect highlighted changes rather than accepting every visual difference automatically. Page shifts, title-block changes and scan artifacts can create findings that are not design changes.
- Resolve consequential changes. Route design, procurement or field-impacting differences to the appropriate architect, engineer, contractor or owner representative.
- Publish a controlled master. When an approval arrives, replace only the intended pages, verify the revision identifiers and archive the superseded pages according to the project’s retention rules.
- Distribute the current view. Make the active set available in the trailer and field locations, and tell crews how to identify the current issue. Wi-Fi can support access, but it does not replace a backup or an offline plan for connectivity failures.
Limits, risks and transferability
This is one customer’s account of one hospital project. The project began in early 2013, and the source describes approvals as ongoing “as of this writing”; it does not provide a clear publication date. The reported 15-hour comparison, more-than-week expectation, nearly 400 saved hours and one-tenth paper-update time are therefore historical, attributed results. They should not be presented as a universal productivity rate.
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The story also does not establish current Revu pricing, editions, operating-system support or licensing. Teams evaluating the software today need current information from the vendor rather than relying on a historical case study. Bluebeam’s current construction case-study index still lists the Bernards and Colombo story, which confirms catalog availability, not an independent update of the project figures.
There are operational risks even with a digital workflow:
- Bad source files: Missing, misnumbered or low-quality PDFs can produce an incomplete comparison.
- False positives: A shifted sheet, changed title block or altered scan can look like a design revision.
- Uncontrolled replacements: Inserting a page without recording its revision can create a new master set that is difficult to audit.
- Connectivity dependence: Field review over Wi-Fi needs a fallback for outages and areas with weak coverage.
- Human interpretation: Software can highlight differences, but qualified project personnel must decide whether a change affects code compliance, cost, sequencing or safety.
The case study evaluates no competing products, so it cannot support a product-versus-product verdict. Its useful comparison is between the team’s documented digital method and the paper process it was replacing: digital comparison was reported as faster for this job, less dependent on printing and easier to organize through markups.
What construction teams should take from the Bernards and Colombo example
The strongest lesson is procedural rather than promotional. Start with two clearly identified drawing issues, prove the method on a sample, keep findings in a reviewable markup register and treat page replacement as a controlled publishing step. Add 3-D coordination when a spatial change is difficult to explain in plan view, and make the same approved files available to field staff.
Bernards and Colombo did not rely on a single “compare” click. They combined PDF preparation, large-screen review, a pilot back-check, organized markups, controlled page replacement and communication with the architect. That combination is what made Revu useful for their document-management problem. The vendor case study provides a concrete historical example of the workflow and its reported results, while each project team must set its own file standards, approvals, staffing and measures of success.
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