Thursday, June 23, 2011

Is it going to be CME or CME?


I like maxCME.

Just like I seem to be the only one bothered by the two, easily confused meanings of IFC within the AEC, it is unlikely that anyone will get overly excited about the two distinctively different explanations that could be behind another BIM related acronym: CME.

For some BIM practitioners CME stands for Common Model Environment, a place where integrated teams collaborate in a managed, digital environment. A platform, where multiD electronic data is (freely?) exchanged.
A virtual collaborative sandpit. Managed. As in the kindergarten sandpit.

I prefer the word ‘controlled’. My version of the environment is the: CME, Controlled Model Environment or even maxCME.
This may not be very PC to state, but I believe is much more likely to work.
If there is control, there are responsibilities. No control, no responsibilities.
No meaningful data either, due to the disclaimers that will likely accompany models playing in the friendly sandpit.

Going back to IFCs, that problem may disappear soon, document sets referred to as IFC (‘issues for construction’) are harder and harder to squeeze out of consultants, the fluffy ‘design intent’ tends to replace them.
Legally words like ‘intent’, and ‘for information only’ are more palatable then ‘for construction’, so, no wonder they are terminologies of choice.

Easy: No IFC (drawings) no confusion.
I am still left with the two CMEs.


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