A recent Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) event about Design Management and Building Information Modelling (BIM) brought together experts from academia and industry to discuss the business case for Design Management and BIM, and to explore what is happening in practice and discover current research.

BIM offers a fundamentally different model for creating and sharing design information than its predecessor, technical drawing - whether hand or computer-aided.

Speakers included leading practitioners from the sharp end of UK current practice and internationally recognised academics drawing from the very latest research. The event was targeted at mainstream construction professionals who wish to keep up-to-date with rapidly evolving practice in design management.

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Issues that were covered during the event included: How can architectural, engineering and construction businesses metamorphose to best exploit the technology? How should design managers re-align the role of design team members and their expectations? A particular emphasis was provided on the need for the 'business case', and the dangers of falling behind by adhering to out-dated assumptions about the future dominant modes of working.

Professor Stuart Green, Member of the CIOB's Innovation and Research Panel and Chairman of the event said: "The key message from this event is that the challenges of BIM don't lie with the technologies, they lie with embedded professional demarcations in the industry. The important thing about BIM is that it has the capability to facilitate new patterns of interactions between professionals."

(CD/JM)