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Spring 2010 United Construction Information (UCI) Meeting
CIOB CPD accredited Spring 2010 Meeting was a Construct IT-buildingSMART-COMIT Uniting Construction Information (UCI) event held in conjunction with the University of Reading on 19th May 2010. The theme of the meeting was focused on Sustainability: The Impact and Challenges. Summary and Presentations from the event are available online ... more
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Building on IT Survey
Construct IT and the National Computing Centre (NCC) in association with The Knowledge Practice (TKP) have recently completed the first of a series of three IT benchmarking surveys frocused on information technology expenditure and trends in the UK Construction Industry. This major piece of work believed to be the only comprehensive survey of its kind dedicated exclusively to the construction sector. Building on IT 2010 follows on from the original highly successful series of surveys carried out during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s.
The report
aims to re-establish an important source of industry benchmark data designed
to help construction organisations manage, plan, develop and invest in modernised
IT infrastructure and systems to ensure organisation competitiveness, industry
process efficiency and client value.
Please contact us for further details and/or to purchase a copy of the final report ... more >
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Autumn 2009 Meeting
The Construct IT CIOB CPD accredited Autumn 2009 Meeting was held in conjunction with the London South Bank University on the 26th November 2009.. The theme of the meeting was focused on The Challenge and Opportunity of ICT Investment & Strategy in the Economic Downturn. Summary and Presentations from the event are available online ... more
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Future Generation of IT
The Future Generation of IT report from an ICT Vision Planning workshop held on 26th January 2009 has now been published. The collaborative research initiative involving Construct IT aimed to identify possible futures that the construction industry might face and to start developing a construction IT vision for the year 2030 ... more >
Spring 2009 Members' Meeting
The Construct IT CIOB CPD accredited Spring 2009 Members' Meeting was held in conjunction with the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff on the 21st May 2009.. The theme of the meeting was focused on Managing Information on Infrastructure Projects. Summary and Presentations from the event are available online ... more >
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Knowledge Driven Industries: Improving Organisational Competitiveness Seminar
Construct IT jointly hosted a seminar on the 13th May with the Research Institute for the Built and Human Environment (BuHu) and Management and Management Sciences Research Institute (MaMS) of the University of Salford on Knowledge Driven Industries in relation to Improving Organisational Competitiveness.
Professor Charles Egbu, Chair in Project Management and Strategic Management in Construction at the School of the Built Environment within the University of Salford, kicked the event off by exploring the concepts, benefits, and tools and techniques of knowledge mapping for improved decision making in sustainable developments. Examples of glass recycling and waste minimisation projects were used to present some of the benefits and challenges of effective knowledge mapping. Dr. Maria Edith Burke from the University of Salford's Business School with a research interest in the area of Information Management followed by exploring knowledge sharing for improved organisational competitiveness. The session focused on identifying key roles of KM in potential future worlds, examining the implications for business and considered the practical barriers to knowledge sharing in European SMEs. In the final session Professor Farzad Khosrowshahi, Director of Construct IT, discussed modern visualisation techniques in aid of knowledge acquisition. Some of the tools were introduced and briefly explained with the intention of bringing this relatively new field of science, which is increasingly gaining importance, to the attention of construction professions.
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Strategic Positioning of IT in Construction: An Industry Leaders' Perspective' Report
The 'Strategic Positioning of IT in Construction: An Industry Leaders' Perspective' report has been published and is available through Construct IT. This report presents the analysis of a survey that was undertaken to assess the awareness and understanding of senior executives and IT directors of the UK's top contractors and consultants on three core areas:
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Academic Members' Meeting 2008
Construct IT held an Academic Members' Meeting prior to the Spring 2008 Members' Meeting in Warwick, bringing together leading academics in the field of construction ICT to create a greater collective understanding of current research along with focusing on the future for construction ICT research, while exploring the opportunities for collaborative research in the UK. Presentations are available online .... more >
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Construct IT sponsors 'Best ICT Paper' at BuHu 8th International Postgraduate Research Conference
Construct
IT are supporting the BuHu 8th International Postgraduate
Research Conference, June 26th-27th 2008, Czech Technical University
of Prague (CVUT), Czech Republic,
in contributing £100 for the postgraduate research conference prize of
'best ICT paper' .... more
>
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Doctoral Research Workshop
Construct IT in conjunction with ARCOM hosted a Doctoral Research Workshop on the 14th March 2008 at the University of Salford Think Lab. Summary together with the presentations are available online .... more >
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SME Assisted Business Centre
Construct IT recently secured funding for a Business Development Portal for Construction SMEs.The aim of this project to take the first substantial step to wards establishing a seamless Construction SME assist portal with the view to lay the foundation for its cumulative development into a definitive point of reference for all Construction SMEs within the region, nationally and potentially at the international level. The project will commence with developing the hardware and software infrastructure for:
The project will also pave the way for the enhancement of the system to incorporate a full cooperative job management system which can be used by a number of SMEs to independently act under a Virtual Enterprise environment in order to bid for large projects and manage them to the point of delivery.
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CPD Training Course Development Workshops
Construct IT for Business (CIT) organised a workshop on the 4th October 07 to address the IT skills gap in the industry and take the issues to develop a CPD course that addresses the industry's requirements. Following the first workshop, a second workshop was organised on the 15th November 2007 with the aim of focusing on the prioritised areas (identified during the first workshop) in order to define the training requirements/needs, followed by formulating them into a set of CPD/training programme frameworks along with establishing the appropriate deliver mechanisms.Two CPD courses focused on both the Strategic/Fundementals of ICT across Construction and for Collaborative Working are currently being developed following the workshops through a CPD development industry steering committee .... more >
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Construct IT Judging
| 2006 & 2007 | Lead Adjudicator for the INTERBUILD Best New IT Product Award |
| 2006 & 2007 | Member of Judging panel for the following awards at INTERBUILD: |
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| 2006 & 2007 | Judge for the following awards at the IT-SHOWCASE: |
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Interoperability in the Construction Industry SmartMarket Report
The results
of research conducted by McGraw-Hill Construction Analytics during late-Spring
2007, which was sponsored by nine industry associations including AIA, ICC,
AGC, CURT, COAA, CMAA, CSI, SMPS, and buildingSMART Alliance, are reviewed in
the Interoperability in the Construction Industry
SmartMarket Report.
The goal of the study was to assess the interoperability of software applications and platforms serving the building community based on responses from a representative sample of 295 architects, engineers, contractors and owners. The study aimed to:
Download full report .... more >
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EU CoSpaces Integrated Project: Innovative Collaborative Work Environments for Design and Engineering
CoSpaces is a €14 million Integrated Project funded by the EC under the IST Programme of the FP6, which is aimed at developing organisational models and distributed technologies for collaborative workspaces for individuals and project teams within distributed virtual manufacturing enterprises enabling effective partnerships, innovation, improved productivity, and reduced design cycles. The results from CoSpaces will therefore enable effective partnerships, collaborate, be creative, improve productivity, reduce the length of design cycles and take a holistic approach to implementing product phases. This will be achieved through enhanced human communication, innovative visualisation, knowledge support and natural interaction and will transform the current working practices to be more competitive in the global market. CoSpaces proposes to validate these collaborative workspaces against three sectors: aerospace, automotive and construction. However, the impact of this research will go beyond these three sectors due to the generic nature of the technologies.
The first phase of the user requirements capture has recently been completed through a series of industrial scenarios such as aircraft maintenance, construction site support, distributed digital mock-up reviews, remote design of car parts, etc. In parallel, the general architecture of the CoSpaces platform has been defined around four components: resource management and real-time conferencing, group management, knowledge support and dynamic service management. The project team is currently in the process of setting up a distributed engineering infrastructure between the European project partners to validate the emerging CoSpaces technologies .... more >
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Manubuild: Moving Towards Open Building Manufacturing
Part-funded by the EU under Framework6, ManuBuild is a 4 year industry-led research project involving 24 partners across Europe. The project commenced in 2005 with €10 million funding and is targeting a radical breakthrough from the current 'craft and resource-based construction' to 'Open Building Manufacturing', combining ultra-efficient (ambient) manufacturing in factories and on sites with an open system for products and components offering diversity of supply in the market. The ManuBuild vision is of a future where customers will be able to purchase high quality, manufactured buildings having a high degree of design flexibility and at relatively low cost compared to today. For the first time, inspirational unconstrained building design will be combined with highly efficient industrialised production. This will be underpinned by enabling business processes, ICT systems, new materials and technologies and smart components, etc. The potential impacts of the project include significant reductions in the number of construction industry accidents, waste and the costs and time to construct buildings. This will allow Europe to improve its building stock, whilst also releasing resources that can be allocated to other income generating industrial sectors.
The work within ManuBuild started with capturing the disparate stakeholders requirements across Europe in respect of 'Open Building Manufacturing'. The stakeholders comprised the supply chain of the construction industry as well as the potential end users of manufactured dwellings. The result of stakeholders requirements were consolidated within 12 key points against which the main Research and Technological Developments RTD will be measured. ManuBuild is a unique project in the sense that it is aiming to promote the construction industry through leading by example. Currently, the industrial partners are starting the demonstration phase of the main RTD results. These will be demonstrated using real Building projects (residential, office and educational buildings) in the UK, Spain, and Sweden .... more >
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International Workshop on Organisational e-Readiness and the Construction Industry
An International Workshop on Organisational e-Readiness and the Construction Industry was organised by the Research Institute of the Built and Human Environment (BuHu) at the University of Salford in conjunction with Construct IT from 28th-29th June 2007, Think Lab, University of Salford.
CIT participated in a two-day workshop of leading national and international researchers and practitioners to discuss the issues of organisational e-readiness. The workshop address several topics such as:
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Uniting Construction Information
Construct IT For Business are actively engaged in the Uniting Construction Information initiative which is being embraced by the DTI to unite the various construction IT network/membership-based organisations under 'one voice' in order to work much more collaboratively, reduce industry and Government confusion, celebrate divercity while avoiding duplication and pursuing common goals .... more >
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SME Engagement
Construct IT is engaging with SMEs in the North West through the ERDF CONNECT NW project which aims to deliver new employment and assist small businesses in property, housing management, cleaning and facilities management four elements of asset skills. It focuses on creating and developing opportunities for community involvement in regional regeneration activities. The project works with four housing market renewal pathfinder areas: Central Salford, East/North Manchester, East Lancashire and Oldham/Rochdale .... more >