It has taken a bit of time, but you have finally moved from CAD to BIM and you are thinking, “Right, I’ve got this now.”Think again.Due to the uncanny timing and convergence of market conditions, technology innovation, social wants and government needs, a Smart Cities market is emerging on a global scale that dwarfs any previous notion of the value given to data about the built environment. AEC firms are the authors of an enormous amount of that increasingly valuable data, and there is a lot of money to be made by those who recognize its market potential.Sometimes described as
Related Links: ENR's Top Specialty Contractors ENR Development News In an economy where acquiring work can sometimes feel like an effort in futility, many specialty contractors find themselves searching for another business stream until new construction recovers. Employees at Seattle-based McKinstry Co. LLC think they have found a way to weather the storm.The design-build mechanical contractor sums up its services in its motto, "For the Life of Your Building." The company not only designs and builds complex mechanical and electrical systems, it is also available to operate and monitor the finished facility—typically, mechanically intensive data centers and research laboratories. Its
Image courtesy of Mortenson/Power Mortenson/Power used laser scans to check the accuracy of BIM models on the $1-billion Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. Related Links: http://enr.construction.com/technology/bim/2012/0430-annual-conference-hums-with-accelerating-uptake.asp Laser Scanning Hits Tipping Point http://enr.construction.com/technology/bim/2010/0609-virtualdesign-1.asp A Hospital Owner's Digital Mandate Most remodeling contractors still generate building information models for an existing structure from original construction drawings, and the inevitable deviations end up as field surprises that result in costly change orders and delays. Emerging 3D laser scanners streamline the workflow by taking the unknowns out of the equation."Laser scanning is the truth serum that fits into BIM," says Ken
Related Links: The Tomorrow Project from Intel FutureTech CIOs: Are You Paving Over a Cow Path? As computing chips become ubiquitous and smaller, imagination may be the only limiting factor in how they can be used, says Brian David Johnson, Intel's futurist, and that could have significant implications for the future of construction. Johnson talked about the future of work to more than 300 construction professionals attending ENR's FutureTech conference in San Francisco on July 10. JOHNSONBecause Intel needs to envision how its chips will be used, it is of "vital business importance" for the company to imagine how people
Bluebeam Software has officially launched its new Revu iPad app in the iTunes App store .The tool enables users to access, navigate and annotate PDF files on the go. With Revu iPad, company officials say, comments and annotations display clearly and accurately so nothing is missed, reducing the ping pong effect of ambiguous communications.The company says Revu iPad officially expands Bluebeam’s platform solution, Revu for Windows, for use in other industries. “Bluebeam Revu iPad removes current barriers to productivity, and enables technical and mobile professionals to work without limits,” said Richard Lee, President and CEO at Bluebeam Software, in statement.
Courtesy Gensler The health-care industry is on the brink of being overrun with oceans of digital data. Small, modular data centers may provide the best means for midsize operators, say experts who addressed the issue at the Greater Chicago Data Center Summit in early June.In accordance with an Executive Order issued in 2004, health-care providers have until 2015 to incorporate electronic medical records into their operations or face penalties. While providers have been slow to adopt the technology, financial incentives included in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act are
Courtesty SolFocus Inc. SolFocus, San Jose announced plans to build a 450 megawatt concentrating solar power plant in 50-MW modules in Tecate, near the border town of Tijuana, Mexico. Another example of the country's growing investment into solar power. Mexico's national electricity agency recently commissioned construction of the $19.2-million, five megawatt Cerro Prieto photovoltaic plant in Baja California, to begin in early December. Located near Mexicali along the U.S.-Mexico border, the plant's four different solar technology lines are expected to help its owner, the Comisión Federal de Eletricidade, determine what type of utility-scale solar plants should follow in the region.
Figure 1: MacLeamy Curve Figure 2: An owner's long-term view. Whatever happened to integrated project delivery? IPD was hailed as a formidable innovation to change they way buildings are designed, bid and executed. But IPD wins the innovation title only when it is compared to conventional design and construction delivery methods, and we're not seeing enough of IPD to make the comparison. What actually is happening falls somewhere between the IPD ideal and traditional, non-BIM design and construction. We are creeping away from traditional methods. Architects are BIMing, builders are clash detecting and owners are upgrading their facilities management software. The
Faith in the quality of structural-steel building-information-model file transfers between different BIM platforms increased recently, thanks to a series of digital-data-exchange validation tests performed under the auspices of the American Institute of Steel Construction. The news is good: Each of the six transfers studied was extremely accurate. Some even had as little as 0.3% error, which matches human error, say researchers."We have established a trust and comfort level with the [data exchange] process," said Brian Cobb, chief operating officer of Structural Detailing LLC (SDLLC), Brentwood, Tenn., at AISC's 2012 North American Steel Construction Conference, held on April 18-20 in Grapevine,
Social media platforms are influencing AEC firms in ways that are transforming their practices. That was one theme among many participants explored at the "KA-Connect: Building Knowledge" two-day conference, held in San Francisco April 11-12.Major design firms, such as SOM, Rutherford & Chekene, Psomas, HOK, and T.Y. Lin, shared tales of interoperability successes and pitfalls. As many of them have discovered, the more interactive the social media tools, the better.Take design firm Arup's blog and tweet platform (http://thoughts.arup.com). Carmen Whitelock, head of Arup's online strategy, says the effort goes beyond the traditional web homepage, which for many firms acts as
RSS
