Enhancing Control of Built Assets through Computer Aided Design - Past, Present and Emerging Trends

Abstract

This paper presents the trends in Computer aided drafting and design within the Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Operations (AECO) industry by examining past, present and emerging technologies, standards, deliverables and stakeholders involved. The use of Computer Aided Design (CAD) has evolved from the drawing board in the pre 1970s, through two dimensional CAD in the 1980s to three dimensional CAD in the 1990s. In the year 2000 Building Information Modelling (BIM) became increasingly popular but there have been significant barriers to its adoption, few of them being interoperability and the lack of involvement of key stakeholders. To overcome these and progress to an Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) ecosystem, it is recommended that the industry should engage property owners and policy makers who can influence the sustained use of interoperable products and processes in the built environment. The acronym CAD has been widely used in the industry as Computer aided- design but in this essay, CAD has been used to reflect the use of computers for drafting, design, analysis, simulation and collaboration.