Engineering Inc. - March/April 2008 - (Page 17)

T he software is fairly well developed in certain areas, but gaps remain in others. ture technology is daunting, Sean Smith says Sean Smith, division greSham, Smith and PartnerS vice president at Gresham, Smith and Partners (GSP), a 900-person Nashville-based firm. “The software is fairly well developed in certain areas, but gaps remain in others,” he says. “It’s unrealistic to think that you can install a package and use it productively out of the box. There are a lot of nuances and subtleties to address.” Moving to BIM requires firms to reshuffle and reorder an array of clearly established processes and relationships. “BIM is supposed to be a smarter system that improves design, construction and facilities management processes,” says DJG’s DeYoung. However, “When you involve a number of companies—and numerous people have their fingerprints on a project—you crack open the door for ownership and chain-ofcustody problems. BIM can make it more difficult to define the boundaries and liabilities,” which, in turn, leads to disputes and costly litigation. For their part, software vendors say they understand the problems and are working hard to develop more open platforms upon which to build the technology. Paul McRoberts, director of engineering for the A/E/C Division of Autodesk, says the ultimate goal is to support a wide array of electronic file formats, including PDF, XML, Java, Excel and DWG, to name a few. Christopher Garrell, a product manager at Bentley Systems, says past attempts to create more open standards have been unsuccessful. “Data degradation, data loss and lack of data exchange are a huge issue in structural engineering software,” he explains. Bentley is developing an integrated structural model, something Jarrell says will enable the company’s software applications as well as competing products to read and write the same file format without passing through a translation layer. For now, though, most firms will simply stay tuned to developments in the BIM arena as well as to the government agencies that choose to use it. Just as it took years for the industry to sort out the dizzying array of issues, concerns and problems surrounding CAD, these same issues are playing themselves out in the context of BIM. “There’s no question that BIM offers sophisticated capabilities and features,” says GSP’s Smith. “There are compelling reasons to use it, but it is a formidable transition.” n Samuel Greengard is a freelance business writer based in West Linn, Ore. Learn. Network. Grow. your next engineer on ACeC’s Job Board . . . Find where today’s engineering job seekers go to find their next jobs. Since the ACEC Job Board’s inception in August of 2005, over 1,000 member firms have posted job openings and more than 7,000 job seekers have posted resumes. Find your next new hire at: www.acec.org/jobbank/index.cfm MARCH / APRIL 2008 ENGINEERING INC. 17 http://www.acec.org/jobbank/index.cfm

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Engineering Inc. - March/April 2008 Table of Contents From ACEC to You News & Notes Market Watch Legislative Action Election Preview BIM Bottom-Line Strategies From the Ground UP 2008 Annual Convention Primer Across the Federation Business Insights 2007 ACEC/PAC Honor Roll Membrs in the News

Engineering Inc. - March/April 2008

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