Related Links: Achieving Spatial Coordination Through BIM A summary of E.M. Rogers "Diffusion of Innovation" theory A publication jointly developed by three national mechanical, electrical and plumbing associations and released on Nov. 7 aims to elevate the playing field for specialty contractors foraying into spatial coordination through building information modeling. It promises to advance the state of practice by sharing practical, hard-won insights and implementation lessons from leading companies in the trades."Achieving Spatial Coordination Through BIM: A Guide for Specialty Contractors" claims to be the first guide for specialty contractors seeking to embrace BIM practices and technologies in their firms.
Image by Veer Related Links: Imagining Construction's Future: Science-Fiction Writing Contest First Place: Metadata Second Place: Hard Light Third Place: Canopy Honorable Mention: Of Man and Mouse Best Short Form: New World Meet the Judges Nothing original was ever built or invented unless someone imagined it first. But in the extremely practical world of construction, almost everything we set out to imagine and build is based on what is currently doable. Almost all cutting-edge industry innovations are built on the last string of innovations that proved out and paid off.Science fiction, however, earns its special place by opening a gap
Related Links: Imagining Construction's Future The judging panel for ENR's Imagining Construction's Future science fiction contest included two ENR editors, Jan Tuchman, editor-in-chief, and assistant editor Sigmund (Luke) Abaffy, as well as three guest judges: Liza Groen Trombi, a leading science fiction publisher; Paul Levinson, a notable science fiction author, and John Hillman a highly inventive practitioner from the construction industry.Trombi is president of the Locus Science Fiction Foundation and editor-in-chief of Locus, "The Magazine Of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Field," which is published monthly in Oakland, Calif. Locus reports on the science fiction and fantasy publishing world and
Pictures, notes and video are captured in a social network-type of news-feed format that can push alerts to select workers. Related Links: Textura IPO Turns Up the Heat on Construction Tech Startups FieldLens The most important elements of social networking sites are their ability to share media, post comments and store all that data and more as a permanent web record. The same can be said for web tools that manage a construction site. The new web application FieldLens aims to become the Facebook of project management services."I tried using Facebook on a project two years ago," says Todd Wynne,
Photo courtesy of U.S. Army U.S. Army Barracks Complex at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Within five years facilities assessments and life cycle maintenance scheduling and planning for all $830 billion worth of Dept. of Defense facilities are to be brought into the Sustainment Management System developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Related Links: Sustainment Management System homepage On Sept. 10, Frank Kendall, the U.S. Dept. of Defense under secretary for acquisitions, logistics and technology, issued a memorandum notifying officials at all military components of the DoD and the Washington Headquarters Service that they will all be required, within
Video courtesy of EarthCam One World Trade Center time lapse video, 2004 to 2013 Related Links: World Trade Center webcam site EarthCam, Inc., a Hackensack, NJ-based provider of webcam content, technology and services, including job-cams for construction projects worldwide, posted an edited time lapse video of 12 years of construction at New York City’s World Trade Center to commemorate the anniversary of the attacks that brought down the trade center’s twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001.The video spans the period from October, 2004 to September, 2013 and was hand-edited from hundreds of thousands of high-definition images captured of work at
Image Courtesy of Autodesk Get The Point software users say the tool, for integrating design files with total stations for layout control and construction verification, has saved them money by avoiding rework. Related Links: Get The Point website Service provider network based on similar total station/design file integration from Theometrics Autodesk Inc. has acquired the technology assets of Larkspur, Colo.-based Get The Point LLC, which developed software to transfer information from Autodesk's design applications to robotic total stations and move CAD and BIM control points directly from design files to layout in the field.The software is also bi-directional. It can
Related Links: A live cyber attack dashboard from Deutusche Telekom State-Sponsored Attacks research report from Lieberman Software Technology security experts in many sectors surveyed at a recent conference shared a common concern: 74.3% of them could not say with confidence that their systems have not already been breached by a foreign state-sponsored cyber attack or an advanced persistent threat. Further, 62.9% think it likely their companies will be targets of such attacks within the next six months.Most (52%) were not confident their staffs could detect such intrusions, and 57.7% said they think the U.S. is losing the battle,although 30.3% said
Related Links: Black & Veatch, 2013 Strategic Directions in the U.S. Water Industry Report McGraw-Hill Construction Water Infrastructure Smart Market Report Municipal water delivery systems around the world range from the rudimentary to the mind-bendingly complex. And their customers regard the water those systems deliver as either rare, precious and costly or overabundant to the point of inconsequence and cheap. But although many users take the water delivery systems themselves for granted, when they fail, perform badly or their managers seek funds to improve, many ratepayers can be counted upon to howl in complaint.Water-system managers walk a tightrope between the
