Improving the Steel Industry by Enabling Designers and Suppliers to Share Information

This class will present a new software platform that facilitates information sharing between structural designers and steel material suppliers. The platform provides engineers with current information on material cost and availability in the context of the Building Information Modeling (BIM) in order to facilitate more-informed decisions early in the design process, which can significantly reduce cost and procurement time. In turn, material suppliers benefit from the project information shared by designers to better-forecast demand. We will present the platform architecture (developed collaboratively by Autodesk, Inc.; SteelCentral; and Stanford University) in the context of 2 industry case studies. Representatives from SSOE Group and Gerdau will describe their experiences using the platform from both a designer’s and a supplier’s perspective. Finally, we will engage the audience to discuss the potential of this technology to disrupt traditional workflows and promote innovation. This session features Revit Structure, Fusion 360, and Robot Structural Analysis. AIA Approved