Harmonization of standards and e-business technology for the AEC industrial sector

The Architecture, Engineering and Construction sector - AEC - in Europe is one of the most important worldwide, with 26 million workers in the EU depending directly or indirectly on it. However, within AEC there is no single actor able to set the “rules of the game” for data exchange, though the largest companies that could be found within either national market in the EU have a maximum of 5% market share. Therefore, due to the small size of most of the companies operating in this sector, together with the short-term perspective of business partnerships and sector’s high fragmentation, it is difficult to harmonize long-term inter-enterprise solutions. This paper presents the strategic objectives and technological requests to stimulate and accelerate the industrial AEC sector, and the SMEs in general, to harmonize and adopt technologies and practices in the emerging digital economy regarding standard-based product data exchange, e-work and e-business. It illustrates the European 1ST project prodAEC’s methodology to prepare industry and researchers to advance on the state of the art, identifying requirements to move beyond and reach the future vision of AEC and related business. The paper concludes anticipating the strategic results that prodAEC will deliver for the coming 6th Framework Program.