CIFE Bulletin March 2013

In this issue:

Message from the Directors
CIFE Welcomes New Members
CIFE Summer Program
CIFE Seed Awards
Recent CIFE Graduates
CIFE/SPS VDC Certificate Program
New CIFE Publications
CIFE Calendar

Message from the Directors

CIFE turns 25! CIFE was founded in 1988 – 25 years ago! We look back with enormous appreciation of the dedicated spirit and superb efforts over so many years of so many members of the CIFE community, from practitioners, students, visitors, investigators, staff, to faculty.

With its middle name of Integration, the name of CIFE was an inspired choice by the founders as it continues to motivate and guide our work. Just this week in the CIFE lab, we watched and participated in serious efforts to integrate disciplines – architecture, engineering, construction and operations and monitoring. We saw and participated in integration efforts that included desktop and hand-held computer devices, SmartBoards, large and small databases located locally and in the cloud, and sensors. The work we do embodies the original vision of the founding faculty and sponsoring organizations -- that CIFE will integrate theory, computer and engineering technology, methods, processes and people. The founders had great aspirations, and they surely could be gratified that there is an active global CIFE community and widespread use of the methods of “virtual design and construction” developed and pioneered in the CIFE community. They might not have imagined that we would do this work with remarkably inexpensive computers, many of which we hold in our hands and also serve as communication devices, use the World Wide Web and “cloud-based” services, generating and doing analysis of thousands of design options in minutes, and monitoring project and facility performance continuously, and with an effort to be “sustainable.”

It is difficult to imagine the next twenty-five years of the construction industry and, we hope, an evolving CIFE. With some temerity, we look to the next few years and suggest that a major theme has become, and will increasingly be, complexity. The construction business has become vastly more complex as owners and society ask that facilities have extraordinary new capabilities, that they use resources, materials and space “sustainably,” that they flexibility adapt to changes, and that the development, construction, operation and repurposing phases all integrate in clear and efficient ways with the business and lives of owners, occupants and neighbors who are both local and global. In addition, there is great growth in the complexity of the methods or the “tool kit” that AECO (Architecture/ Engineering/ Construction/ Operation) practitioners need and will be able to bring to the development and operation of their facilities. Finally, the university must integrate great complexity in a multi-disciplinary way as it educates new generations of AECO leaders. A generation ago, some mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering science and practice sufficed as the core of a Civil Engineering curriculum. Today, in addition to all of these traditional disciplines, we try to expose students to perspectives that include written, oral and computational fluency, business and economics, law, sociology, process design and management, environmental monitoring and mitigation, governance, and behavior of project professionals and facility users.

When we first introduced the 2015 CIFE breakthrough objectives to the Industry Advisory Board in 2002, participants did not rise up in frustration or disbelief. However, one young engineer remarked that his vice president hardly knew that he existed, let alone what he might be able to do for him. Today, members tell us that CIFE methods reach operational project management, and also senior executive and technical leadership in CIFE member organizations. We see a specific opportunity in the work with our members to facilitate the interaction among these levels of organizations so that each has a good operating understanding of the other and how each can help the other.

Cheers to all CIFE community members to a successful and inspiring next 25 years!

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CIFE Welcomes New Members

We are pleased to welcome several new members to the CIFE community.

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CIFE Summer Program 2013

Building on the immensely inspiring Summer Program last year with many accounts of amazing breakthrough performance by owners, designers, and builders (see the blog of ENR’s Tom Sawyer and an ENR report), this year’s CIFE Summer Program presents how companies and project teams leverage VDC (Virtual Design and Construction) to achieve high-performing projects. Speakers will discuss performance metrics, outline current and aspirational target values, explain their recipes to use VDC methods, and establish target dates to implement new practices and sunset old methods. Join us at CIFE on June 11 and 12. Detailed information about the program is available here.

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CIFE Seed Awards

The CIFE Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) selected the following research projects for 2012/13. These projects are now underway.

Research Team	Project
Fischer, Lepech, Morkos	Space Constraint Method
Fischer, Steinert, Senescu, Head	Seeding Scalable Workflow Productivity Improvements
Fischer, Levitt, Garcia-Lopez	Power to the Edge: A Work Tracking System for Construction
Levitt, Fischer, Smith, Algiers, Hall, Padachuri	Assessing the Impact of IPD on Adoption of Innovations Related to Energy Efficiency
Law, Latombe, Chu	A Computational Framework for Egress Analysis with Realistic Human Behaviors
Lepech, Fischer, Flager, Basbagill	Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of Buildings for Life-Cycle Cost and Environmental Impact Performance

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Recent CIFE Graduates

Three CIFE students received their doctoral degrees at the commencement ceremony last June: Tony Dong, Forest Flager, and Ben Welle. Tony developed a Method to Quickly Generate near-optimum Look-Ahead Schedules (LAS) for the Finishing Phase. He now works at CIFE Member DPR Construction. Forest applied Process Integration and Design Optimization (PIDO) methods from mechanical engineering to do structural engineering member sizing and started working for a start-up immediately after receiving his Ph.D. degree. Ben developed a multidisciplinary optimization (MDO) methodology for BIM-based passive thermal design of buildings that, as with the work of Forest, generates and analyzes thousands of design options extremely rapidly. He now works at Aditazz, a startup that is developing innovative methods for the design of healthcare facilities. We are happy that they all work in the current and emerging CIFE communities.

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CIFE/SPS VDC Certificate Program

We started to teach the methods of Virtual Design and Construction for the Stanford students in an integrated way a little more than a decade ago. Based on the generally favorable response of the CIFE member organizations that sponsored VDC class projects and their desire to support the professional development of their key personnel, we started to offer a VDC class for professionals in 2008. In 2012, we offered seven programs for professionals, two on campus, and five at client sites in the US, Sweden, Peru, and the Netherlands. Each session had twenty or more participants. One program was for individuals and small teams; most were for individual companies, and one was for an integrated team working on a large signature project. Participants in each were enthusiastic about the experience, and we are gratified that several of the sponsoring clients asked for additional programs. In 2013, we have held a company-focused introductory course in Norway and just completed a public introductory session at CIFE. Contact us if you would like to set up a VDC Certificate Program for your company or project.

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