BE Magazine - Volume 5, Issue 1 - (Page 8) 10 report sharing a medium (41 percent) or high (38 percent) amount of data. Through supply-chain communication costs, and improved value to customers The software industry Total AEC/O Frequency of Data Sharing should universally embrace open standards that will facilitate the seamless exchange 21% of data among applications 38% High and platforms. The path to Medium interoperability may not come from a single standard, but a 41% Low set of standards. While one standard might be effective for certain data-sharing tasks, Source: McGraw-Hill Construction Research and Analytics, 2007 it may not be the best option for all. A limited group of standards should interoperability, build teams can reduce provide a toolbox of solutions to resolve waste, speed delivery, and cut costs. Interinteroperability issues. operability eliminates manual re-entry of Build team members should consider data, duplication of business functions, and interoperability issues when making techcontinued reliance on paper-based infornology purchases. The ability of technology mation exchange. to exchange data across software and platInteroperability benefits include increased forms should be weighted among the prispeed of overall project delivery, reduced mary factors for investment. Even if those infrastructure vulnerability, greater reliabenefits will not be realized today, they are bility of information through the lifecycle, of emerging importance and could come expanded markets for companies, decreased into play in the near future. Metrics and improved education will help promote this solution. The technology marketplace can benefit from fresh ideas about how to create interoperability within the build environment. These solutions could come from new players entering the market and creating competitive pressure to respond to these issues. Technology providers argue that more competition could confuse the market by introducing more applications and platforms to an environment that already has limited interoperability. However, new competition is ultimately a healthy part of market evolution, resulting in those new ideas being embraced, acquired, or improved. This article was an excerpt from the “Interoperability SmartMarket Report” that was originally published by McGraw-Hill Construction. It can be found on its Web site www.construction.com. Copyright 2007 McGrawHill Construction. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission. PERSPECTIVE Brad Workman, Bentley OF A SOFTWARE COMPANY What is your opinion of using data standards to improve interoperability? Bentley supports standards. There’s a lot that software vendors can do within their own products to support standards. A big part that is often overlooked—and is critical—is the standardization of how the end-user enters the information. We can come up with standard interchange, but if people don’t populate it in standard ways, then there’s very little the vendors can do. Why are standards important? If Bentley has to interface with every cost-estimating third-party product out there, how do we do that? If we as software vendors have to interface with everyone else, it’s going to mean X number of interfaces we have to create and that takes a lot of time and effort, and it could be problematic to meet these issues quickly. That’s why standards are very important. That is why we need to interoperate with things like IFCs. What will push the adoption of standards? Bentley has been pushing IFCs for 10 years, and in many cases the vendors have been out in front on this issue. Now that we’re starting to see adoption, we’re going to have to do a better job of fulfilling it. The vendors are working, but the demand is there too. Until the last few years, we’ve been out in front of most of the industry. Bentley had IFCs back when architects were using lines, arcs, and circles. We’ll make a lot of progress in a short amount of time. Can software vendors solve this dilemma? Many users have thought that software vendors should be taking the first steps. We’ve done that, but it needs to be validated in market adoption so that we can respond. We’re like our customers are in their businesses—we respond to the market. We, as software vendors, can’t be the only leader in that process. — “Interoperability SmartMarket Report,” McGraw-Hill Construction 8 BE MAGAZINE | Volume 5, Issue 1 http://www.construction.com/
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.