Last month I had the pleasure of attending the Global Infrastructure Leadership Forum for construction owners in New York City. This forum was a showcase for many of the largest and most important infrastructure projects in the world. One of the most memorable aspects of the forum was the sheer size and impact that infrastructure projects have on society. There is a tremendous am... Read more.

Last week a group from the Trimble Buildings division headed to San Francisco to hear about the latest trends in construction technology. The ENR FutureTech conferences in the past have been good indicators of the “what’s next” in construction and this year was no different. The combination of subs, general contractors and owners was a great place for Trimble to d... Read more.

Contractors and Owners alike, seemingly for eons, have pursued “the right number” with regard to feasibility studies, courtesy estimates and preliminary budgets. All of these are designed to provide both sides of the table with a single and very significant bottom-line number: how much will it cost? And it’s important that that number be as “right” as possible, ... Read more.

When beginning your search for a Construction Project Management software solution, consider these seven reasons to make sure your next project is successful: Bring your entire project team together, in a real-time, online construction project management environment. This means no software to install across your project. What could be better than to be up and running quickly by using j... Read more.

It was a busy October with the many trade shows Meridian attended.  We exhibited at the BIMForum in Tacoma, CMAA in Chicago and the COAA in Orlando. Each of these events had one significant topic in common; Building Information Modeling (BIM).  After reviewing all of the content and listening to many presentations, I see several important trends emerging. The first trend I will c... Read more.

I expected "big" when I attended Trimble Dimensions 2012 -- my first Dimensions event -- but that word didn't quite cover it. It was big, to be sure, in every dimension: sights, sounds, people, things, technology, ideas, applications, implementations, scale, conversations, integration and collaboration. But it was more than big – it was Disneyland meets construction me... Read more.

The Construction Owner's Association of America (COAA) held its fall leadership conference this past week in sunny Orlando, FL; at the south pacific island themed Loews Royal Pacific hotel. Besides enjoying a visit to the town I lived in for 8 years and the weather (away from Sandy), I came to thoroughly appreciate the mission of COAA while soaking up a wide range of insight through... Read more.

Each year CMAA's flagship event, the National Conference & Trade show, provides construction management professionals from owner and service organizations, as well as the vendor community serving them, networking and an in-depth education on the latest industry developments through its many sessions, presentations and panels. Personally, the CMAA National Conference is one of my favo... Read more.

Last week I had the pleasure of attending the BIM Forum in Tacoma WA. This event was particularly relevant as it was focused on construction owners use of BIM.  The attendance of the forum was roughly split 2/3 Contractors / Architects and 1/3 Owners – clearly the service providers are keenly interested to hear from the Owners and how better to meet their needs. The even... Read more.

Experienced construction contractors and owners continue to simultaneously engage in multiple, complex projects and are being recognized for their forward-thinking approach to construction’s rapidly changing technologies. As the industry evolves, project owners and contractors require more insight into all aspects of the building-infrastructure lifecycle. These trends include: fu... Read more.

Meridian recently hosted our 15th Annual Customer Summit in Sacramento, California. This year marked an evolution for the event as Meridian shifted focus from a “User Conference” to a “Summit” in order to provide a forum for strategic dialog on the rapidly changing technologies that are converging in the construction industry. The Summit is our opportunity to talk wit... Read more.

When I started my career in project management in the 1990’s, construction was a craft. We worked on large projects, usually one at a time and technology wasn’t at the forefront of our operations. For decades, we saw our productivity declining as projects became more complex and fractured. The old project management models couldn’t provide the flexibility to meet the changi... Read more.