Letter from the President - April 2019
April in our house means lacrosse season for my boys! If you have never watched a lacrosse game, it is fast-paced and exciting like ice hockey, but with fewer broken teeth (although one son did manage a dislocated jaw one year). Having watched my boys grow through the sport, it is amazing to me (Miss No-Athletic-Ability-Whatsoever) how intense the games can be. Lacrosse is a team sport, with specific roles for each player. Playbooks are filled with strategies similar to other team sports. No one player can be successful without their teammates, and each player knows and executes their individual responsibilities for the good of the team.
Whether building a structure or manufacturing a vehicle or engineering a life-saving piece of medical equipment, collaboration software can be a vital part of the process. Software and technology have helped to bolster collaboration among teams. Models can be shared among team members across different disciplines with little configuration required. Having three-dimensional models allows for more realistic visualization and earlier understanding of construction, manufacturing, and project outcome.
With the advent of BIM (Building Information Modeling), project collaboration has invoked a sort of paradigm shift, specifically in the AEC industry. What used to be a very linear process from design to construction to occupancy has become more of a team effort from the very beginning. Terms such as “federated models,” “levels of development,” and “clash detection with simulation” have become common vocabulary among project teams. Collaboration meetings occupy conference room schedules, sometimes on a weekly basis.
Whatever industry you are in, collaboration is always a key to success. Even if you are a solo contractor, like myself, you hopefully have clients and other consultants that you work with on a daily basis. For multi-disciplinary firms, collaboration is sometimes the only key to project sanity. This issue of AUGIWORLD brings the experiences of our AUGI authors in the realm of collaboration. Remember there is no “I” in TEAM!
