Lumos & Associates, a Reno, Nevada-based engineering and consulting firm, manages over 100 structural projects annually. These projects range from seismic retrofits and industrial foundations to residential builds and commercial developments.
With a structural engineering team of just eight members within a larger company of 120 employees, Lumos delivers high-quality results across a wide range of work.
To understand how they achieve this, we sat down with Donovan Rae, the then Senior Project Manager in Lumos’ Structural Engineering Division.
With a career spanning decades in structural design, Donovan has tackled everything from residential remodels to high-rise buildings. At Lumos, he was the team leader, overseeing quality control, mentoring junior engineers, and driving business development efforts.
Success for Donovan means achieving efficiency without compromising on quality. For him, tools like ClearCalcs are critical to simplifying complex workflows, saving time, and empowering his team to focus on creating value for clients.
Before adopting ClearCalcs, Lumos relied on a mix of legacy tools like Enercalc and spreadsheets. These solutions required manual re-entry of data, making workflows time-consuming and error-prone.
As Donovan described:
"In the past, a project would mean, ‘Okay, here’s a beam.’ Then I’d have to write down what my loads were, plug those into the column, and then go back and adjust again for the next floor. It was time-consuming and inefficient, especially if something changed."
With a growing number of projects, the team needed a solution that could automate calculations, integrate seamlessly, and adapt to a wide range of project scopes.
ClearCalcs provides tools and features tailored to simplify engineering workflows. For Lumos, it has become a key part of their day-to-day operations, delivering both efficiency and flexibility.
Lumos uses ClearCalcs’ project defaults feature to configure new projects quickly and accurately.
Engineers can set baseline assumptions like snow loads, material properties, and regional codes, which ClearCalcs automatically applies across the project.
By tailoring defaults to match regional conditions, such as Nevada’s variable snow loads (ranging from 30 to 500 pounds per square foot), the team ensures compliance with local codes without manual recalculations.
"First thing I do is copy in my typical sections to save time. Then I go through and adjust any project defaults for that given project—like snow loads, which vary a lot in our area," Donovan explained.
For structural engineers like Donovan and his team, this feature translates into immediate time savings and fewer errors in initial setups. By centralizing these settings for the entire team, ClearCalcs eliminates the need to input this data repeatedly, saving time and ensuring consistency.
For larger projects, Lumos uses ClearCalcs’ member schedule and project organization tools to organize their structural calculations. ClearCalcs makes it easy to structure projects with separate folders for key sections like roof, foundation, and floors. This helps engineers stay organized, even on complex builds with extensive calculations.
"I’ll make folders like roof, second floor, deck, first floor, foundation. For really small projects, I might not even make folders—I just use a general one if it’s only six or eight calculations. But for large homes, it’s more detailed, like 100-plus beams and columns."
By keeping related calculations grouped together, the team can quickly locate specific elements, reducing the time spent searching through files or recalculating data.
For collaboration, this structure ensures that everyone on the team understands the project setup, minimizing confusion and duplication of work.
ClearCalcs’ load linking feature is one of the most transformative tools for Lumos. It automates load tracking across beams, columns, and other components, ensuring accuracy and updating results in real time when changes occur.
"Being able to link all of that [load paths] seems to save time and is much more efficient, especially if something changes. It tracks everything all the way down and also flags issues—like, 'Oh, guess what? That beam no longer works.' It’s been great."
Lumos is also replacing manual spreadsheets for lateral designs with ClearCalcs, consolidating workflows into one powerful tool:
"We’re now getting into using it for our lateral designs where that was always spreadsheets and stuff before. Now we’re trying to get into utilizing it so that everything can be in the same software—one-stop shop."
Once designs are finalized, Lumos uses ClearCalcs’ structural report export feature to generate professional-grade reports for submission to building departments.
"Once we get close to the end, we export everything for the building department review. Sometimes I make a schematic directory for internal use, but only the final designs go out."
ClearCalcs automates the reporting process, saving time while ensuring no critical details are overlooked. This feature ensures reports are thorough and tailored for regulatory reviews.
Moreover, having a clear and standardized report improves communication with stakeholders, including clients and building officials, helping projects move forward without delays.
ClearCalcs has significantly improved Lumos’ workflow, delivering measurable results:
"The software has made us a minimum of 30% more productive. It’s eliminated at least 30% of the work from what we did previously."
By reducing time spent on calculations, ClearCalcs increases profitability, especially on fixed-fee projects where efficiency directly impacts margins
"If this software saves us 30% of the time, it allows us to have a little bit more profit. That’s huge for fixed-fee projects."
Additionally, ClearCalcs’ commitment to updates and new features, such as lateral design capabilities, has reinforced its value for the team:
“ClearCalcs has been proactive about implementing new features and incorporating user feedback, further enhancing its value for our team.”
ClearCalcs has transformed Lumos & Associates’ workflow, becoming a cornerstone for efficiency and accuracy in tackling complex projects.
With features like automated load tracking, customizable project defaults, and seamless report exports, ClearCalcs saves time, reduces errors, and empowers engineers to focus on delivering exceptional designs.
For Donovan, ClearCalcs is the tool he trusts to support his team’s success:
"You really want to check this software out because it seems to have everything an engineer needs. The way it’s constructed will save you time and therefore make you more money."
"Every time I use it, it’s been a successful day. It just works."
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