CAD and Management of Construction Projects

The increasing interest in computer‐aided design (CAD) has prompted research that is aimed at identifying the opportunities for construction managers and building contractors. It has been found that the use of CAD systems in the U.K. is mainly confined to the production of detailed drawings. Indeed, most of the systems used are 2‐D drafting tools and incapable of supporting the integration of even modest amounts of nongraphical (construction) data. On the other hand, many 3‐D modeling systems have the potential to integrate construction data, although they appear to be almost ignored. The use of 3‐D modeling systems is considered to be the most suitable vehicle for successfully integrating these data. However, this is likely to necessitate the introduction of separate databases, preferably of the relational type. The use of 3‐D modeling systems in assessing the construction implications of outline designs also presents interesting possibilities and is discussed.