FARMINGTON HILLS, MICH. — The concrete industry’s Strategic Development Council (SDC) held its regular fall meeting in early October with focus on Building Information Modeling (BIM), among other topics. During the meeting, BIM was discussed at length, and SDC secured a total of $75,000 from the Charles Pankow Foundation and the RMC Research Education Foundation. SDC will use these funds for strategic planning and development of roadmaps, with an immediate goal to provide interoperability standards, whose absence is an obstacle to wider use of BIM in the concrete industry.

This initiative to drive a more widespread use of BIM in the concrete industry will be coordinated with the American Concrete Institute’s (ACI) newly formed technical Committee 131, Building Information Modeling of Concrete Structures. Peter Carrato was a featured speaker on BIM during the SDC session, and will chair the ACI Committee 131’s first meeting at the ACI Fall 2009 Convention in New Orleans.