Comit/Fiatech Conference 2014

This years COMIT mobile IT conference was held in partnership with Fiatech at the Crystal in London with a theme of Efficiency Through Digital Projects. The conference was held on the 30^th and 31^st of October and 150 delegates registered for the two-day event.

Stuart Young introduced the conference and gave an overview of the work that Fiatech do and the reason for the close collaboration with COMIT. Fiatech are a U.S. based organisation with a similar aims to COMIT but a much wider remit. COMIT have maintained strong links with Fiatech for a number of years now and the two organisations continue to work together to find ways of creating mutual benefit for their members.

Phil Jackson of the ICE chaired the conference and described some of the technological change that he has seen in the construction industry during the last 40 years of his career. When Phil started he was using a slide-rule and went on to see the introduction of electronic calculators, telex and fax machines, early computers and the first "Apps". Phil noted that Cloud computing is a return to the old Mainframe centralized computing model.


In all there were 21 presentations over the two days plus a couple of panel discussions and plenty of opportunity for networking. Links to the presentations can be found on the COMIT website and they were all of a very high standard. Some of the highlights on Day 1 were:

Richard Lane from HM Government UK BIM Task Group talking about the future of innovation and the way in which innovation can be driven, information management and what might possibly be in store with level 3 BIM.

Francis Rabuck continuing the future-gazing theme with a look at today's technologies and the direction in which they are currently heading - with the potential impact on construction. Fran returned on Day 2 with a roundup of technological stocking-fillers with his ever popular Toys for Techies presentation.

Sarah Dorey and Oli Morgan from the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers described their part in the Bloodhound SSC Project and the engineering problems of creating a car capable of 1,000 mph. Despite the extreme nature of the examples the parallels with the issues faced in all areas of engineering, including construction, were not lost on the audience.



Other presentations on Day 1 included Gary McDonald from Ordnance Survey talking about Resilience Direct, Christian Reilly of Becktel on the use RFID and Harrison O'Hara of Costain giving early results of a survey on the use of IT in construction. We also heard about Class of Your Own from Andy Clifton, Asset Information from Sandeep Jain (Mobibiz) and Iain Miskimmin (Bentley/COMIT), Advanced Work Packaging from Ray Topping (Fiatech) and Digital Processing at the workface from Firas Hijazi (Consolidated Contractors Company).

After a packed day there was even more to come with the MobiCloud Showcase after free drinks and nibbles. This was presented by Martin Wilson and Otis Burris of Appear. MobiCloud is an EU supported project that COMIT are a partner in and which comes to a close in December 2014. Martin gave an update on the progress and introduced the MobiCloud Construction App Challenge. This is being run to promote the development of new mobile applications for construction. It includes a cash prize for the most innovative idea and the chance to develop a prototype that might be trialled on site by a construction sponsor.

Day 2 of the conference was nearly as busy with a further seven presentation and an open discussion about the effectiveness of Integrated Environments for EPC Projects hosted by Steven Convens. Presentations on Day 2 included:

Heba Bevan from the University of Cambridge and founder of Utterberry, described the use of miniature wireless sensors that she developed for monitoring tunnel movements and conditions at locations such as Crossrail's C360. The sensors automatically establish a a network with each other and transfer highly accurate positional data back to an access point.

Professor Tim Broyd of University College London gave a wide ranging and fascinating presentation on the changing environment that construction faces, both within the UK and globally. The effects of climate change, the rise of BIM, smart transport, new business models, 3D printing and smart houses all featured in his presentation.

Ben Feltham from Skanska UK Civil Engineering described how interactive design boards have been used at Paddington on the Crossrail project. He explained their value and how they formed part of the wide range of benefits deriving from an integrated BIM approach to design and engineering.



Other presentations on Day 2 included "Inside a digital asset" by Vas Vernikos (CH2M), the use of iBeacons at Crossrail by Neill Pawsey (Crossrail) and Tim Jones (3Squared) and Modularisation by John Roberts of Lang O'Rourke.  The final presentation of the day was by Francis Rabuck who probably also provided the most memorable photo opportunity at the conference with his flashing high-tech glasses.

Thank you to everyone who attended the conference and to our sponsors and presenters for making it a successful event. All of the presentations as well as photographs from the two days can be found on the COMIT website.