The faltering granddaddy of construction information technology shows, A/E/C Systems, revived Feb. 17-19 in Orlando, Fla., under new ownership with a familiar, if reduced, cast of characters.

MCCONNELL (Photo by Judy Schriener for ENR)

The show floor had 2,000 visitors, with 35% wandering in from the World of Concrete two levels below, says Rick McConnell, senior show director for Hanley Wood Exhibitions, Dallas, which now owns the event. The 66 conference sessions drew 550 people. Vendors had 170 booths. Notable drop-outs from previous years were the major CAD software companies. McGraw-Hill Construction, the parent unit of ENR, was a show sponsor.

Technical content got high marks from many who said the sessions and exchanges gave them a valued opportunity to compare notes, peer to peer. One track was a one-day executive forum. Its sessions addressed building a corporate culture of innovation, getting value out of IT investments already made, software vendor promises versus reality, and integrating disparate IT systems, a hot topic.

SPLIT Tech and concrete vendors were two floors apart. (Photo by Tom Sawyer)

Chief information officers for two large construction firms agreed at that session that "company solutions" are a higher priority for them than "project solutions." Dave Golden, chief information officer for Clark Construction Co., said a tool to integrate project management and financial functions so data need only be entered once would have an "immediate impact." Added Chris Stockley, CIO of Skanska USA Building, "We make money building buildings—that’s the business driver. The ‘company solution’ gives us the competitive advantage."

Integrating technology to increase operational efficiency was an abiding theme. One of the executive forum roundtables, entitled "You Bought It, Don't Waste It," turned into a lively discussion between software vendors and IT directors. They shared notes about middleware, enterprise systems, bandwidth, the virtues of paperless versus digital records and the challenge of designing systems to serve the users and the functions they need.

Tom Kobayashi, IT director at Blach Construction Co., Santa Clara, Calif., said he developed middleware for his firm after realizing that the reason the company has "a mish-mash of products and data," was because employees pick the software that best suits their needs. Rather than try and change the users, he decided he needed to serve them by helping them continue to use the tools they were accustomed to, but integrate them better with operations to increase efficiency. John Haymaker, from the Center for Integrated Facility Engineering at Stanford University agreed that although there is a need to get everyone to use a single data model, software developers still need to "stitch together" some of the specialty software engineers and designers prefer. "There are a lot of domain-specific applications out there. We need to allow the users to drive this, to say, 'This is the tool I need.'"

"It's up to the users to define how to set your processes and goals," added Chris E. Holm, director of the technology staff at Walt Disney Imagineering. "The vendors are there to make it possible."

Susan Dodd, director of competitive business services for corporate services at Intel had some cautionary words about technology and change, however. "We have a tendency to over-estimate the workers' changability," she said. Her office makes a practice of re-visiting areas about six months after new technology has been introduced into a process to evaluate how it has worked out, both in terms of changes in efficiency and in impact on people, as compared to the original projections. "I have never seen a projected return on investment that wasn't positive," she said. Actual results bear verification.

Other topics discussed included the pitfalls of e-mail, which can turn into an uncaptured aspect of a project's records, and the potential of instant messaging, if tied to a retrievable indexing system, to facilitate information exchange. "To me the most important thing is getting the people that know in touch with the people that don't know, at the right time," said Douglas Nies, vice president and CIO of Turner Corp. "We're getting there, slowly," he added.

The ease with which requests for information can be submitted and processed using Web-based collaboration tools also came up as a double-edged sword. "Some contractors find it easier to fire off an RFI when the information is already there in the document," noted Holm, who said Disney has begun referring to them as "requests for interpretation," since the information is usually already there.

A subsequent session on software promises versus reality was equally lively with discussion about software development and marketing exaggerations, but also about the customers' need to make their own commitments to training and implementations. Vendors said they try not to give customers false expectations or hype products before they are available, but noted that they do need to talk to users about planned improvements so they can find out what they want and need

Dean Kershaw, president of Titan Facilities Inc., said buyers need to validate products before purchase anyway. "If you can demonstrate that it will do what you say it will, I'm a believer," he said. He also believes in running pilots before wholesale adoption. But buying has become somewhat easier than it was at the height of the dot-com bubble, he added. "It's still a young industry, only 30 years old, but now you can look at the track record of the company and perform due diligence."

Tom Garrett, CIO of Brasfield & Gorrie General Contractors, said he pays close attention to the people who are behind the software products. "I want a long-term relationship with people I can trust, who will be there." He says he always "looks for the top guy" at trade shows and gets wary if he can't make contact. Scott Unger, CEO of Constructware, agreed that building relationships with the clients is key to successful implementations and that the vendor has to first establish credibility and understand the customers and their needs. "You don’t sell to customers it won't serve well. It only leads to bad relationships," he said.

Bradley Workman, vice president of Bentley Building, Bentley Systems Inc., spoke of the need to start with a relationship based on reasonable expectations, benchmark current practices and conduct pilot implementations. "We need purchasers who can articulate their issues," he added, saying that the process can take work. "It's lengthy. It costs money on both sides of the table," he said.

"The vendor has obligations in the implementing, but so does senior management," agreed Ken Hirshey, CEO of Cyntergy Technology. "The owners have to be coaches and communicators about the key value propositions for the company. The software itself is not going to do a thing for you. It's the implementation. The whole week here is indicative of that–everyone getting together and understanding where the industry needs to go. It's not just about going down to the store and buying software," Hirshey said.

One exhibitor's racecar simulator is tough competition for software companies on the show floor. (Photo by Judy Schriener for ENR)

Meanwhile, on the show floor, many vendors said the show worked well for them. "It’s a great show for us," said Bassem Hamdy, director of marketing for Computer Methods International Corp., Toronto, Canada, which sells business software for AEC firms. He said he spent significant time with serious shoppers during the event. "There is definitely a need for a show about construction technology. You need a gathering," he said.

Some of the customers expressed similar satisfaction. "Now the companies are fewer, but they know how to solve problems," said Alejandro Santos, director of construction at Obras and Acabados, a commercial construction firm in Mexico City.

Others used the show to economize on client visits. "We’ve finally learned how to do this right," said John Bodrozic, president and co-founder of exhibitor Meridian Project Systems. Meridian arranged to meet with customers at A/E/C Systems "instead of three of our people going to three different cities." Bodrozic said he was pleased with the quality of exhibition visitors, if not the quantity.

One software maker, Intuit, which now makes the Master Builder financial software for contractors with annual revenues in the $3 million to $25 million range, opted to exhibit only at WOC and not A/E/C Systems this go-round. However, they were way back on a half-aisle at WOC, out of the mainstream. "I’d love to be in the same neighborhood as the other tech stuff," said Robert Intersimone, "sales ambassador" for the Construction Business Solutions unit of Intuit. People would know where to find all of the tech-related booths if they were together, he suggested.

As Intersimone passed by a couple of bright yellow racecar simulators in one booth, he noted that financial software had a hard time competing at WOC. "Would you rather do this or look at software?" he asked.

But the show was good for Master Builder, he said. "We’re talking to customers and refining our understanding of them. Even if they don’t buy, it’s worth it to us."

The 24-year-old A/E/C Systems show peaked in 1989 at 28,000 visitors and 1,200 booths, says co-founder Michael Hough, who sold it to Penton Media, Cleveland, in 1997. It sold again two years ago to Hanley Wood, which cancelled last year’s event and combined the spring event aimed more at designers with the annual fall show, Computers for Construction. Hanley Wood has now relaunched A/E/C Systems as a companion to the huge World of Concrete show and pledges to continue next year in Las Vegas. "We are encouraged and hopeful," says McConnell. "We’re dedicated to making it work."