Information technology seekers kicked off the World of Concrete trade show in Las Vegas Jan. 16 with quiet seminars. Speakers at the Technology for Construction event claimed incremental progress on Building Information Modeling and gave examples of automation success but said little about the dawn of a new information age. Most conversation wasn't about new technology. It was about identifying problems that existing technology might alleviate, planning integrations into corporate cultures and implementing successfully.
"By itself, technology does nothing. It's only by its use that you get benefits," observed Martin Fischer, director of the Center for Integrated Facilities Engineering at Stanford University. CIFE has been studying the use of virtual design and construction modeling to resolve conflicts before construction starts since 1988.