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In May, the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC), The American Institute of Architects (AIA), and the Construction Users Roundtable (CURT)—a research program sponsored by large clients—conducted a construction industry summit to, as stated in a news release, “address and solve problems caused by industry fragmentation, lack of clear communications across professions, and old business models.” The event brought in other stakeholders, including engineers, insurers, and construction-industry attorneys. Lorna Parsons, managing director of Schinnerer’s construction industry group insurance programs, participated.
The summit and subsequent meetings were planned to look at the reorganization of the design and construction process. The focus of the continuing effort was described as, “tackling the theoretical and strategic challenges to design and construction industry transformation by working across traditional stakeholder boundaries.” It is clear that the effort is client-driven, targeting inefficiencies that exist in the traditional design-bid-build system. Although the effort will look at changing current behaviors through the reorganization of projects and teams, it is focused on client expectations that project teams will use new technologies, such as building information modeling, to the fullest.
The organizations confirmed that two existing CURT productivity studies would form the basis for their joint study of possible industry changes. The studies on optimizing construction and productivity can be downloaded from the AIA website at www.aia.org/SiteObjects/files/ip_optimizingconstructionprocess.pdf and www.aia.org/SiteObjects/
files/ip_%20productivity.pdf".
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