Last week we attended COMIT member Speedy's Integrated Services Show in Telford. This is the largest private hire and services show in Europe and had over 200 exhibitors.
Our stand was in the Technology and Innovation section opposite the Microsoft Futures Theatre and right next to Codegate who are also COMIT members - so we were in good company. Iain Miskimmin (technology chairman), managed to borrow a "pod" from the BIM Academy (courtesy of Bentley) and this added bit of hi-tech flair to the booth.
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| Iain Miskimmin in front of the Bentley BIM Academy "pod" |
It was a busy event and luckily most of the COMIT team managed to attend at one time or other over the two days. I set up on the Monday and Iain and myself manned the stand for the first part of Tuesday morning. At 11.00 Iain gave the first of COMIT's presentations at the event about construction opportunities for mobile IT.
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| L to R: Neill Pawsey & Stephen Smith |
At lunchtime Neill Pawsey (COMIT director) and Stephen Smith (construction chairman) arrived having been delayed in traffic. Later in the afternoon they gave a presentation on BIM on behalf of the Crossrail Mobility Task Group.
Mark Collier from Costain also arrived in the afternoon. Costain are members of COMIT and Mark is involved with the MobiCloud project which featured on the COMIT stand. One of the early outputs from this project is the Site Diary app which Mark was demonstrating to an interested audience. Appropriately Mark and Iain were also on the expert panel for an afternoon leadership session on Mobilising the Workforce in Construction and Industry.
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| Iain speaking and Mark on left of panel |
After an exhausting first day we then had the pleasure of attending the Speedy Supplier Awards 2014 in the evening. This event was co-hosted by Pollyanna Woodward (of The Gadget Show fame) and was a great mixture of food, entertainment and some very interesting innovations from Speedy's supply-chain.
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| Neill Pawsey & Stephen Smith with Pollyanna Woodward |
On day 2 of the event Mark Collier was brave enough to turn up in site PPE (personal protection equipement) to add some authenticity to his MobiCloud Site Diary demonstrations.
It was another busy day and in the afternoon Neill and Stephen were on the panel for a BIM thought leadership session. This session was very well attended and there was a noticeable drop in the number of people in the technology and innovation zone while it was on. This was interesting and very encouraging. All of Speedy's suppliers and partners are involved in construction in one form or another but to date the engagement of construction suppliers with BIM has been patchy.
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| The BIM though leadership session was very well attended |
Speedy's Integrated Services show was a great success and we managed to speak to a lot of people about the role of mobile IT in construction and we came away with a number of useful contacts. The whole COMIT team would like to thank Speedy for the opportunity to take part. In particular we would like to thank Glyn Mathews of Speedy who played a key role in organizing the event and arranging COMIT's participation.
