Several factors are contributing to increased productivity in the United Kingdom's construction industry, an official with London-based Construction Products Association (CPA) told CPC/BIM earlier this month. "The movement from wet trades, such as plasters, toward dry trades such as drylining, the improvement in cladding systems, the increase offsite construction, and the movement toward timber-frame construction are all likely to have made construction more productive," CPA Economics Director Noble Francis said. More details about the U.K.'s success with construction productivity, along with recent productivity developments in Singapore and Australia, are included in this edition of CPC/BIM.

Also in this issue, concerns about integrated project delivery are documented in a new ZweigWhite survey, John Jurewicz examines the technical requirements for hosting building information models, Tammy McCuen addresses efforts to define standard information exchange requirements from the design model to the cost estimator for a project in building information modeling, Gordon Aronson stresses the importance of keeping non-critical activities from becoming a link in the current critical path, and don't forget Industry Updates.

John Jurewicz reports on the technical challenges with and his experiences relating to tests for uploading multiple models with Web services.

Tammy McCuen's article presents the collaborative effort between professional estimating associations to develop the Information Delivery Manual (IDM), defining the information exchange about a facility from the design model to the cost estimator.

"Good proactive managers will use their experience to keep non-critical activities from ever becoming a link in the current critical path": Gordon Aronson.