In 1947, General Electric Company employees Larry Miles, Jerry Leftow and Harry Erlicher were tasked with exploring ways the company could overcome its post-war shortages of materials and skilled labor. From their research was born the concept of value engineering, a systematic analysis of work processes that has since been adopted by the federal government, as well as the defense, construction, transportation and other heavy industries. Fast forward a half century and one could logically make the argument that GE paved the way for Building Information Modeling. Like the idea of value engineering, which gained widespread acceptance in less than 15 years, BIM is quickly catching on. During a recent webinar hosted by WPL Publishing, 40 percent of the participants reported that they already had some project-related experience with BIM implementation. That number is growing, especially as federal and state governments embrace mandatory BIM implementation on their projects.

This month, BIM specialist John Jurewicz looks at the advances two construction firms have made in the BIM arena. Also this month, Larry True tells engineers and accountants to walk a mile in each other's shoes to better understand the big picture on the construction site. And, Gordon Aronson and Doug Findley give voice to growing concerns about the direction of Oracle|Primavera. Will Primavera have answers at the upcoming Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco? Time will tell.