Considering IPD for the AEC Firm

Is IPD right for every firm, project or building program? The key factor to look at when taking into consideration what software to choose would be whether or not there is a lot of information exchange among companies during projects. According to a recent study of 295 U.S. architects, engineers, contractors, and owners conducted by McGraw-Hill Construction, eight out of every 10 respondents described a "high" or "medium" level of data sharing among players during a project. The telephone survey also indicated common issues within these companies, including "incompatible software tools, players using different information formats, and excessive time spent translating data for usage and costs relating to sharing that information."

 

A recent survey of almost 300 AEC industry companies showed that most firms participate in a high level of information sharing with other firms and client groups.

 

 

It's not surprising that IPD technology has been shown to work very well in the construction industry, where the challenges of information exchange are unique and especially pronounced.

"At $4.5 trillion, construction is one of the largest industries on the planet earth, yet it is unusually and highly fragmented," says Stephen Jones, publisher of Engineering News-Record (ENR). Projects are completed within a loosely connected network of some 20,000 architectural firms, 48,000 engineering firms, 240,000 general contractors and CMs, 380,000 specialty and trade contractors, and 420,000 building product manufacturers and distributors, according to ENR. And the services are distributed among more than 140,000 major owners and facilities managers. That means a total construction industry universe of as many as 1.25 million companies in the United States alone.

Two other factors further complicate construction project delivery, adding additional challenges: First, about 98 percent of the companies in the AEC market have fewer than 50 employees. Second, unlike other major industries that deliver a discreet product or specific service, the construction industry is project-based, and each project is almost always unique. As Jones observes, "It's as if all the industry's final products were one-time prototypes. And dozens if not hundreds of companies touch that asset during its life cycle and all use different IT tools to perform their work."

Extrapolate that work over the full life cycle of the constructed asset, which may be three decades or up to 100 years, and it becomes clear why project information management is such a crucial consideration in the AEC field.

Lack of Consistency in Data and Process

Due to the fragmentation and varied information platforms, there's little consistency in process, documentation, or in methods of information exchange, either for the life cycle of one specific project or from project to project. Because numerous data types and formats are required for managing the design, construction, and long-term operation of the constructed asset, the challenge is magnified further. Building teams need to make sure that the right information is available to the right person at the moment that they need it throughout the lifecycle of that asset.

In fact, the hand-offs between the various participants in project development and construction and operations are a source of significant inefficiency. First, there are issues of interoperability between data types. While new tools such as computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) and building-information modeling (BIM) have helped reduce data loss throughout project stages and over some portions of the constructed asset's life cycle, information is still lost or hard to interpret because of improper versioning of documents and files. This and other challenges affect the accuracy and reliability of subsequent decision-making. It also raises concerns about security for documents and authentication for allowing employees access to files and the sharing of and contributing to documents.