Each subset of the AECO community -- architects/engineers, constructors and owner/operators -- operates with its own software tools on its own data sets, information flows and life cycles. As these design, construction and operation workflows each become better integrated internally, the information hand-offs from one to the other grow ever more critical and problematic. Strategies such as interoperability or the "PLM for buildings" metaphor do not effectively address the realities of these hand-offs. Wishful thinking alone cannot make an A/E design model trustworthy to a contractor; nor make them automatically suitable for facility management (as has been recently implied). Will the industry allow design, construction, and operation to drift onto vendor-driven, higher-level islands of automation? Or, can we start a new conversation now about a truly integrated information lifecycle for buildings?

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