On the adoption of computing and IT by industry: The case for integration in early building design

Abstract

Civil engineers were among the first professionals to embrace computerization more than 50 years ago. However computing applications in construction have been in general unevenly distributed across the industry. The significance of such a situation cannot be overstated, particularly in the North American context where fragmentation plagues the structure and the mode of operation of the industry. The paper attempts first to characterize the adoption of computing and IT tools by the industry, to describe the current status of this penetration as well as factors that prevent the practice from embracing the new technologies. Integrative approaches may hold the key to the development of a new generation of computing and IT tools that counteract effectively fragmentation in the industry. An on-going research project is briefly described to illustrate recent developments in the area of collaborative work and integration across disciplines for the conceptual design of building structures. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.