This year’s FIATECH Technology Conference was held just ’round the corner from our office in Austin Texas. FIATECH is a consortium of several companies – including many software companies – united for the purpose of improving design, engineering, construction, and maintenance of large capital assets (i.e. manufacturing facilities, refineries, large commercial buildings, etc). More …

We’re big advocates of “going paperless.” Our desks are free of folders, pens, printers and sticky notes. There’s not a single TPS report to be found. We’re also big advocates of software. So, when a visitor to our website shared their concern about the paper waste from printing blueprints, we were intrigued. Can estimating and takeoff software end the destruction of forests (or at least save a few thousand More …

This is the first in a series of “state of the industry” reports in which we will share our observations on construction software industry trends. While reporting the recessive state of the industry is not breaking news, there are some interesting trends that we can share. Not everything is gloomy, and significant technological shifts are underway. Our observations are based on roughly 6,000 conversations with construction software buyers More …

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) had big plans for the construction industry – $131 billion big.

That stimulus money is supposed to help an industry that is still hemorrhaging jobs today. So far, the ARRA has sent money to all corners of the construction industry, from residential More …

It was a record-setting year at the 2008 Construction Management Association of America (CMAA) conference. Over 900 people attended the show to catch-up on the latest trends and innovations in construction management. Among the group of attendees was EADOC, Meridian Systems and Synchro, 3 construction management software vendors. We met up with these companies to get an insiders look at what makes their systems unique and separates them from other construction management software More …

A major theme at this year’s PCBC show is how to remain profitable in a difficult home building market. The solution is expressed in the term “Lean Process,” an operating philosophy and practice of identifying and removing waste in product and process. We interviewed 10 leading software vendors to investigate how software supports lean construction in building More …

Recently, we’ve noticed a big change in construction firms’ views on the web-based, or Software as a Service (SaaS), model of using project management software. Among AEC companies evaluating new construction management systems, we’ve More …