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What we learnt at Digital Construction Week 2017
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What we learnt at Digital Construction Week 2017

Oct 18, 2017 |Richard McPartland

After a VIP reception on Wednesday evening, the show proper got underway on Thursday with a 'state of the nation' address from Digital Built Britain's Mark Bew.

Digital technologies combined with more integrated processes are rapidly changing the way we plan, build, maintain and use our social and economic infrastructure and built assets.

Over the next decade this technology will combine with the internet of things (providing sensors and other real time performance information), advanced data analytics and the digital economy to enable better outcomes and enable citizens to make better use of the buildings and infrastructure we already have, this is Digital Built Britain.

As Mark was quick to point out, the built environment as part of a smart networked world creates many new opportunities and business models, and engagement with industry and wider built environment stakeholders will be essential in the creation of new technical solutions, new behaviours and new smarter ways of constructing and manufacturing.

Mark's slides showed the potential savings to be realised from this kind of approach and brought delegates up to date on how British BIM standards are now rippling around the world, making it easier for UK companies to operate on the world stage.

Following Mark onto the stage Terry Stocks sent out a rallying call for the industry to get behind BIM Level 2 to the extent that it simply becomes 'business as usual'. Terry was quick to point out that to succeed clients must be encouraged to procure well-structured data and not just a physical asset. Terry promoted a suite of documentation from the Ministry of Justice and the government's guide 'Creating a Digital Built Britain: what you need to know'.

Outside of the UK's transformation programme there were some clear themes in evidence - data as the new currency, smart cities (and the suite of standards that now support their development) and the enormous potential augmented reality.

ExCeL was also the place to be to see robots playing jenga and competitive drone racing.

The show on social

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Keep following the conversation using #DCW2017 or via the official account @DigiConWeek.

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