The AIA TAP and Bentley's BE Conferences

This year, the annual AIA TAP (Technology in Architectural Practice) conference went back to being held as a pre-convention workshop to the AIA National Convention and Expo, which I wrote about last month in AECbytes Newsletter #34. The event was entitled “Change the World: Harnessing BIM Technology and Integrated Project Delivery for Sustainable Design,” and it included a broad array of sessions on BIM, integrated practice, and sustainable design. An overview of the event is captured in AECbytes Newsletter #35, including details of the sessions on the new concept of building information networks, BIM and sustainable design, guidelines for energy modeling from an environmental design firm, and a look at how one firm has formalized its use of BIM into a business strategy by drawing up a BIM map.

This will be followed by a report on another conference that was held towards the end of last month, which is Bentley's annual user event, the BE Conference. It had a new format this year that focused more on user presentations and stories than on learning sessions. We also got a sneak peak on the next release of Bentley solutions, which is supposed to be their biggest ever.

Also included on this month's agenda is a guest feature entitled "BIM and the Process Improvement Movement" by Sohail Razvi, an analyst in Computer Aided Facilities Management (CAFM). He first describes the “Capability Maturity Model Integration” (CMMI), a process improvement model for the development of products and services developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University over many years. He then proposes developing a “Building Information Capability Maturity Model” based on the CMMI that can benefit the AEC/FM industry as it undergoes its current BIM-driven transformations. This will bring the AEC/FM industry in alignment with the constellation of industries that have already benefited from process improvement approaches.

The Viewpoint series returns with a discussion of BIM and Green technologies by writer and consultant, Scott H. Boutwell, and in the the Tips and Tricks series, we have tutorials showing how to create custom wall types in Revit Architecture and set up networked DataSet configuration for Bentley’s Building Solutions.

Thank you!

Lachmi Khemlani

Editorials > June 2008