Some respondents see BIM delivering value to facilities management in the future.

Ted Weidner, assistant vice chancellor for facilities at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, notes, "[BIM] is a nice tool for architects and structural engineers so far, but its real value will be in providing me with better information earlier in the design process and more timely and accurate information about the building equipment when the facility is turned over to me after construction."

Other respondents look for advances in automated specification software that can link to object information in BIM, then link the specs to manufacturer's product data and CAD files.

Still others wrote that BIM's fundamental contribution is in forcing collaboration to take hold. "Collaboration is 'the next thing' for the industry," wrote one. "BIM has helped the industry catch up with other industries. The next step is to work on that model and on projects in a real-time, collaborative mode."

"This is the future of our industry," wrote another. "BIM is a crucial electronic advancement," wrote a third.

Yet surrounding the subject of BIM and its integration into project and program management as well as collaborative systems, the need to improve the software that supports all of them was frequently mentioned. The words that came up most often were "cheaper," "simpler," "streamlined," "user-friendly," "interoperable" and "integrated."

Hardware Nirvana

Current users are enamored with their iPads and smart phones, and they are beginning to get excited about taking even more small-form computing power into the field on tablet PCs. But John Fish—director of project support services and quality assurance at Baton Rouge, La., engineering firm Ford, Bacon and Davis—says his office is waiting for tabletop touch- screen technology to make its way into the industry.

"I've never seen one in a construction office, but we're all just salivating to try it," Fish says. "In engineering, we're very adept at using 3D modeling, but it takes a trained pilot to navigate a model using a mouse or a joystick. With a touch screen, you just use your fingers, pull out the model, move it around and rotate it as you need.

"The human interface is so much easier, especially as we all begin to integrate tablet computing into our daily routine. If you're in a construction office, you would love to just be able to manipulate that model on a 60-in. screen on a table or on a wall.

"It's just a matter of time," Fish predicts. "The ones to pick it up first will be the GIS people working on big land maps. Once they're in the $2,000 to $3,000 price range, everybody will have one."

Other New Tech Needs

Further, readers are already pleased with mobile-device apps, but they are expecting a host of advanced, construction-specific apps for field operations to appear soon.

One respondent calls for a cell phone or iPad app that would allow users to compare what has been planned for construction to what has been put in place so as to immediately reveal any deviations.

"The convergence of the once separate engineering and IT worlds is happening now and will collectively benefit both," wrote engineer Justin Redmond, a project manager at Power Concepts, located in New York City.

In a follow-up call, he spoke of how engineers, needing to take so much data to the field, are leading the creation of many apps to support their needs. They are allying with software and app developers in a new, productive way.

"They have been advancing pretty quickly," Redmond says. He offers the example of a daily-report forms that used to be filled out on paper by hand. Then the forms became computer images that could be filled out electronically; however, currently in the mobile data world, forms can be a dynamic file type feeding directly into a database. "You can interact with it at a much more advanced level," Redmond says. "And there is still a lot of room for development there. We will see a lot more advances for other uses in our sector."

Whatever happens in the next few years, perhaps one respondent's comment about the iPhone sums up the goal all should strive for: "It's so versatile, works flawlessly and can be tailored to specific needs." Let's make that a goal.