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The AEC Lens

Archive for January, 2012

Keynote Speakers Announced for Fiatech Technology Conference & Showcase

Friday, January 27th, 2012

Fiatech’s 2012 Conference Program Committee is developing a particularly strong set of
presentations, which we are confident will provide you significant value from the sharing of
advancements, developments and demonstrations of leading technologies and processes.
We are pleased to announce our outstanding Keynote Speakers for this year’s conference.

Monday, April 2

Matthew May
Founder
Shibumi Creative Works

Elegant Solutions: Rules to Innovate By

The business world is waking up to the fact that innovation is taking on a new shape, and that simply flooding the market with overblown and overbuilt new products is not the answer. They know that what’s next is all about being nimble, agile and flexible in creating compelling customer value, flowing that value through streamlined processes and seamless experiences void of burden and waste, and embedding a real discipline around the daily pursuit of better in service of the customer. In this talk, Matthew E. May will illustrate the 3 principles and 10 key practices that foster a culture of cross-company innovation, inspiring managers to unleash the human creativity of every individual in the organization, while providing the knowledge needed to design idea systems and structures that avoid the typical downfalls of traditional approaches. Examples drawn from a number of companies and organizations point out the do’s and don’ts, must-haves and nice-to-do’s.

Tuesday, April 3

Anirban Basu
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer
Sage Policy Group

The Dog Ate My Home

Mr. Basu’s presentation will focus on the economy’s nascent economic expansion and its sustainability. Special attention shall be given to the performance of the global economy, the local and U.S. economies, regional economies throughout the U.S., financial markets, labor markets, real estate and other salient aspects of the economic environment. The speaker will also discuss the state of the small business environment as well as the role of small businesses in the recovery. Finally, the speaker will provide an economic outlook for the year to come on both a national and local level.

Wednesday, April 4

Thomas Frey
Executive Director
DaVinci Institute
Sponsored by Bentley

The Future of Innovation and the Converging Forces of Change

People make decisions today based on their interpretation of what the future holds. That’s why we say “the future creates the present.” This is just the opposite of what most people think—that what we’re doing today is going to create the future. In reality, the image that people have in their heads today of what the future holds will determine their actions. So if we change people’s visions of the future, we change the way they make decisions, today.

We are seeing a number of converging forces that will both rewrite the rules of business and redefine the world of innovation. Smartphone apps have exploded onto the scene creating a nexus for physical products vs digital products. At the same time, the same devices are driving an “awareness revolution” creating ongoing conflicts between privacy and transparency.
Crowdfunding is on the verge of taking on the banking industry. Traditional colleges are being undermined with online education. And Baby-Boomers are beginning to shed many of their physical possessions as they prepare for their retirement, and a new generation with different values will be assuming power. So where will the creative minds of tomorrow take us?

At the heart of all these changes is an increasingly untethered society, finding new ways to make connections in a fluid ocean of ideas and talent that meet the hyper-individualized needs of the people creating our future. The businesses of tomorrow will be defined far more by the journey they’ve taken than the facilities they exist in.

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PLM for AEC: A Better Way to Manage Buildings

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Author: Peter A. Bilello, President, CIMdata Inc.

The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry, the designers and builders of the world’s infrastructure, arguably stand to gain even more than other industries by implementing product lifecycle management (PLM) strategies. This is because AEC has only made modest progress in the management of the intellectual assets of projects at the enterprise level.

Peter A. Bilello, President, CIMdata Inc.

The AEC industry designs and constructs everything from houses of all sizes to small-town apartment complexes, schools, and office buildings to big-city skyscrapers, refineries, power plants, bridges, dams, and factories; in short: any and all structures. Some of their finest work is flat on the ground, so to speak, as airports, freeways, and mass-transit rail systems. Underground, AEC deals with subway systems, water mains, gas pipeline networks, electrical conduits and associated infrastructure, sewer lines, and storm-drainage tunnels and supporting facilities.

This is the realm of architects, civil engineers and structural engineers, and a host of skilled tradesmen. PLM strategies have many obvious benefits to building owners but implementation has lagged other industries. A big reason is that every AEC project has two complex hand-overs of information. The first is turning the architects’ design into construction plans for the general contractor and subcontractors. The other hand-over is the completed building from the general contractor to the owner.

PLM began as extensions and toolkits to computer-aided design (CAD) systems and solid modelers to manage the initial explosion of engineering information in digital formats. The initial focus was the same as CAD and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), which was discrete mechanical products made with machine tools.

(more…)

Tags: CIMData
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2011 Autodesk University General Session Keynote Presentation

Friday, January 20th, 2012

This is the 2011 Autodesk University General Session Keynote presentation given by a number of speakers including:

Jeff Kowalski, Chief Technology Officer of Autodesk at 0:5:14
Jeffrey McGrew, Principal, Because We Can, at 0:24:10
Mark Hatch, CEO of TechShop at 0:29:49
Chris Anderson, Author of ‘The Long Tail’ and Editor of Wired Magazine at 45:44
Carl Bass, CEO and President of Autodesk at 1:09:40
Lynn Allen, Technical Evangelist at 1:32:55

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BIM versus GIS – a Panel Discussion at the Autodesk University 2011

Monday, January 9th, 2012

Here is a 90-minute recording of a panel discussion that was held at Autodesk University 2011 uploaded on Youtube by geoExpressions. The session focused on exploring BIM and GIS from a variety of perspectives including technology; data accuracy, access, integration and analysis; collaboration and efficiency; and a look to the future.

BIM versus GIS: The Session Intro.