IAI Reaches Important Milestone as Industry Leaders Submit aecXML Schema.Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 5, 2000 International Alliance for Interoperability International Alliance for Interoperability is a not-for-profit organization that supports the development of the IFC specification and the deployment of buildingSMART. Pledges Timely Delivery of Standards for the AEC AEC US Atomic Energy Commission Noun 1. AEC - a former executive agency (from 1946 to 1974) that was responsible for research into atomic energy and its peacetime uses in the United States Atomic Energy Commission Industry AEC+FM professionals from throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe witnessed presentations and demonstrations of nine proposed schema to help the commercial building market significantly improve its communications during the aecXML Mid-Year Working Meeting conducted by the International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI IAI Infection And Immunity (journal) IAI International Alliance for Interoperability IAI Institut für Angewandte Informatik IAI Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research IAI International Association for Identification ) in Atlanta. Leading public and private sector firms presented their initial work on developing aecXML schema to sharply improve the exchange of information in areas such as pricing, soliciting and receiving quotes, specifications, classification, and e-commerce. Representatives from Bentley Systems Bentley Systems, Incorporated, provides software for the "Design, construction and operation of the world's infrastructure". The company’s software serves the building, plant, civil, and geospatial vertical markets in the areas of architecture, engineering, construction (AEC) , R.S. Means, Timberline timberline, elevation above which trees cannot grow. Its location is influenced by the various factors that determine temperature, including latitude, prevailing wind directions, and exposure to sunlight. Software Corporation, Architectural Computer Services Data processing (timesharing, batch processing), software development and consulting services. See service bureau, SaaS and ASP. (ARCOM ARCOM Army Reserve Command (replaced by RSC and RSG) ARCOM Army Commendation Medal ARCOM United States Army Reserve Command ), GeoPraxis, Dimensional Solutions, the National Institute of Building Sciences The National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) is a non-profit, private organization dedicated to bringing together government, professionals, the building products industry, construction labor, and the end consumer to identify and resolve current and potential problems that (NIBS nibs n. Informal A person in authority, especially one who is self-important. Used with his or her: His nibs says we must do it. ), Bidcom and the General Services Administration The General Services Administration (GSA) was established by section 101 of the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 (40 U.S.C.A. § 751). The GSA sets policy for and manages government property and records. (GSA (1) (Global mobile Suppliers Association, Sawbridgeworth, U.K., www.gsacom.com) A membership organization of suppliers of GSM products and services. Its goal is to promote GSM as the worldwide mobile communications standard. See GSM Association and GSM. ) participated in the workshop which attracted more than 130 attendees. Primavera pri·ma·ve·ra 1 or pri·ma ve·ra n. 1. A tree (Cybistax donnellsmithii) of Mexico and Guatemala, having opposite, palmately compound leaves, yellow flowers, and close-grained, light-colored wood. 2. Systems, Inc., scheduled to appear, submitted its presentation to the aecXML.org site. The IAI program was conducted in the Georgia World Congress Center The Georgia World Congress Center or GWCC is the major convention center in Atlanta. It is the fourth-largest convention center in the United States at 1.4 million ft2 (130,000 m2) and hosts more than a million visitors each year. , in downtown Atlanta, in conjunction with the Construction Specifications Institute The Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) is an organization that maintains and advances the standardization of construction language as pertains to building specifications. annual trade show and exposition. CSI CSI Crime Scene Investigator CSI CompuServe, Inc. CSI Commodity Systems, Inc. CSI Commodity Systems Inc. (Boca Raton, FL) CSI Crime Scene Investigation (CBS TV show) CSI Christian Schools International is a member of the IAI Board of Directors. "We're very pleased with the number and quality of the participants, and with their enthusiasm in aecXML schema development process," said IAI aecXML Domain vice chair, Duane Barrett. Barrett is a software professional with Bentley Systems, Inc., has extensive experience with technical standards-setting organizations, and is one of many professional volunteers committed to making IAI's aecXML initiative a success. "The number of participants, the discussions, and most importantly the live aecXML product demonstrations made it clear that aecXML will have tremendous impact on the AEC industry," said Cameron Smith of Meridian Project Systems, Inc. "Meridian was pleased to announce at this year's aecXML mid-year meeting that we have joined several of the aecXML Working Groups, pledging our support, our experience and our technical resources to this important initiative." Richard Geissler, IAI's executive director and COO, said, "The Alliance is committed to moving as quickly as possible, while ensuring proper procedures are followed, in publishing a version of the aecXML schema this year." Schemas submitted last week will be evaluated by a team of independent reviewers and returned with comments in five days. Once submitters make required changes, the schema will be posted on the aecXML website for 21 days of peer review. After that time, comments will be considered and final schema will be approved by the aecXML domain and included in the existing standard. aecXML version .87 is currently posted and the IAI anticipates that Version 1 will be completed by the end of 2000. "The construction industry, all of us involved in construction, from architects to engineers, developers and building owners, to the software companies serving them, want true interoperability -- the ability to exchange information rapidly, accurately and without regard to software application or platform over the Internet," said Norbert W. Young, Jr., FAIA FAIA Florida Association of Insurance Agents FAIA Food Additives and Ingredients Association (Kent, UK) FAIA Fellow, American Institute of Architects (honorary position) and the Alliance's chairman of the Board, during his opening remarks. Young is president of McGraw-Hill's Construction Information Group (CIG CIG Ceiling (height above ground level to base of clouds) CIG Conference Intergouvernementale (French: Intergovermental Conference) CIG Conservation Innovation Grants (USDA NRCS) ) the world's largest purveyor (World-Wide Web) Purveyor - A World-Wide Web server for Windows NT and Windows 95 (when available). http://process.com/. E-mail: <info@process.com>. of technical information for the construction industry. Young and Geissler repeatedly emphasized the Alliance's pledge to ensure that technically sound and commercially neutral schema will be forthcoming as soon as possible. The critical issue will be the Alliance's ability to blend overlapping and second-edition schema together to ensure the AEC+FM industry has a few robust schema as opposed to scores of overlapping schema. They also said the alliance has eight active affiliates throughout Europe and the Pacific Rim which are aggressively examining the potential of the aecXML schema. The GSA, one of the largest building owners in the world, in cooperation with Bidcom, Inc., a leading building and real estate e-business services provider, successfully demonstrated a proof of concept that allows data exchange between remote systems using aecXML over the Internet. GSA can query and retrieve updates of projects hosted by Bidcom and make the them available through its internal reporting system IAI's technical experts, Jeffrey Wix (Jeffrey Wix Consulting Limited, United Kingdom), and Prof. Dr. Thomas Liebich (TLC TLC total lung capacity; thin-layer chromatography. TLC abbr. 1. thin-layer chromatography 2. Limited, Munich, Germany) presented substantial information on the relationship between aecXML schema and IAI's "industry foundation classes (IFCs)." The Alliance has been developing IFCs, the standards for the exchange of dynamic objects among various AEC+FM software platforms and applications, since 1995. IAI published IFC (Internet Foundation Classes) A class library from Netscape that provides an application framework and graphical user interface (GUI) routines for Java programmers. IFC was later made part of the Java Foundation Classes (JFC). See JFC, AFC and AWT. See also ICF. R2.0 last fall, and will issue IFC2x in the next two months. Autodesk, Incorporated (U.S.), Nemetschek A.G. (Germany) and GraphiSoft (Hungary) were certified implementers of IFC R1.5.1 within the last month. All three are world leaders in CAD software development. IAI assumed responsibility for the aecXML initiative, inaugurated by Bentley Systems, Inc., last September, in order to ensure the development of schema would be a global, industry-wide activity. Keith Bentley, CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. and one of the founders of Bentley, is the aecXML Domain chairman and has been active in attracting industry support to the IAI program. The Alliance was incorporated in the U.S. in 1995; early the next year an IAI United Kingdom was established in London, quickly followed by an IAI German speaking organization headquartered in Munich. Since then there have been a total of nine independent IAI organizations registered throughout Europe and the Pacific Rim representing more than 600 public and private sector entities in 24 countries The Alliance exists to develop technical standards to facilitate interoperability -- the free exchange of information among software applications serving the AEC+FM community. It accomplishes this goal through the creation, promulgation PROMULGATION. The order given to cause a law to be executed, and to make it public it differs from publication. (q.v.) 1 Bl. Com. 45; Stat. 6 H. VI., c. 4. 2. and promotion of IFCs and aecXML schema. For further information about the Alliance visit its web site, www.iai-na.com. Industry Leaders Support aecXML "Architectural Computer Services, Inc. (ARCOM), publishers of MASTERSPEC for the American Institute of Architects The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a professional organization for architects in the United States. Organized in 1857, the Institute conducts various activities and programs to support the profession and enhance its public image, including periodically awarding the AIA , is committed to the development and implementation of public domain aecXML standardized schema for specifications and property sets. The accurate exchange of electronic information between applications is critical to the construction industry. ARCOM is developing tools for MASTERSPEC users and encourages current cooperative efforts between application providers." Dr. Edward F. (Ted) Smith, FAIA, CSI President ARCOM "The speed of adoption and the level of industry support for aecXML is unprecedented in the engineering-construction-operations industry. In less than 12 month we have gone from concept to broad-based support, and I am proud that Bentley was able to be the catalyst for this effort." Keith Bentley CEO Bentley Systems, Incorporated "Primavera is committed to using aecXML within both Primavera Project Planner (P3) and Expedition -- and now our services within PrimeContract.com. The ability to enter information once and have it shared intelligently across multiple applications from different vendors as the project evolves is what customers want so they can fully automate and integrate their design, construction and maintenance processes. By implementing the aecXML standard, we are confident that cross-application integration will be possible and we are working with other software vendors to make this a market reality as quickly as possible." Joel Koppleman President Primavera Systems, Inc "Cephren sees XML XML in full Extensible Markup Language. Markup language developed to be a simplified and more structural version of SGML. It incorporates features of HTML (e.g., hypertext linking), but is designed to overcome some of HTML's limitations. as very important for Internet transactions for the construction industry and aecXML is the leading initiative to define an industry wide schema for use by buyers and sellers and to also facilitate transactions between marketplaces and integration with back office systems." Ashok Segu CTO (Chief Technical Officer) The executive responsible for the technical direction of an organization. See CIO and salary survey. Cephren "Timberline is committed to aecXML schema formats. We are proposing four draft schema. One defines a main document element EstimateReport for e-business among architectural, engineering and construction disciplines. Another defines EstimateTackoff used in communicating takeoff, quantities and estimating applications. The final two submissions are EstimateDatabaseAssemblies defining the element type in product dimensions linked to quantity calculations in an estimate, and TS_BuyoutDocuments used in the procurement profess, specifically for request for quote, quote and purchase order documents." John Geffel Senior Vice President Operations and Market Development Timberline Software Corporation "We have already adopted XML as the dominant standard for communication between heterogeneous applications. To that extent, we support the aecXML initiative of bringing the architectural, engineering and construction marketplace together for exchanging meaningful information in the shortest period of time." Nisha Mehta Engineering Manager Dimensional Solutions, Inc. Scott Mayeux Product Manager Coade Engineering Software, Inc. "Every day that passes without effective interoperability between CAD tools and energy simulation programs means missed opportunities to build more resource-efficient buildings. We believe the growing industry consensus behind aecXML opens the door to countless exciting new solutions that will dramatically lower the cost of designing, delivering, and operating the high performance and energy-efficient buildings that sophisticated owners are now demanding." John Kennedy Principal and head of software development GeoPraxis "Our clients are demanding solutions that integrate CAD into their business process. Data should be entered once and reused. XML is the technology that will enable this integration. The key to making this work in plant engineering, procurement and construction  The introduction to this article is vague. To comply with Wikipedia's guidelines, it should be improved. is aecXML." Pat Cichanski Instep Software "As a technology XML is exciting as it provides an ideal mechanism for overcoming the historic difficulties of data exchange across application and organizational boundaries. However more exciting than the technology is the growing support for aecXML within the AEC industry. Meridian Project Systems, Inc was pleased to announce at this years aecXML mid-year meeting that we have joined several of the aecXML Working Groups and have pledged our support, our experience and our technical resources to this important initiative." Cameron G. Smith Vice President of Development Meridian Project Systems "As an information provider, Means has continually struggled to get our content into the wide range of applications our customers use to conduct their business. With XML we can focus on the information exchange process without having to worry about matching database structures or program interoperation. This is opening up new channels for us to integrate cost information into design, estimating and planning tools. We are pleased to be working with other aecXML and IAI member firms to standardize the exchange language and further improve our ability to deliver content in the applications our customers use regularly." Roger J. Grant Vice President and General Manager, CMD CMD cerebromacular degeneration. Group R.S. Means Co., Inc |
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