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This report summarizes a nine month CIFE seed research project that focused on A/E/C industry barriers to the increased use of electronic data exchange (EDE) far project related information. Three general areas are explored barriers to graphic data exchange, barriers to business data exchange and general legal barriers associated with electronic data exchange. An industry survey was conducted to gain a more accurate understanding of current A/E/C industry practice and to determine what the industry feels are the critical barriers to increased EDE. Based on the barriers selected by the survey, research was performed to investigate the scope of the barriers and possible methods for overcoming them. Conclusions and recommendations are made on what steps are needed to increase A/E/C industry use of EDE amongst project team members.

Recent advances in computer tools and increased use of these tools for design offer excellent means for transferring design experience between projects--it is possible to start with the electronic model of the last job. However, industry professionals are frustrated regarding the difficulty of capturing construction experience and transferring it to later projects. Advanced information technology offers assistance with this critical need for integration. The research project described in this report increased understanding of the types of information to share between projects and demonstrated that microcomputer database tools can capture this information and make it available for future projects. The research method involved developing a classification of possible types of knowledge, expanding and refining this classification based on documents concerning experience transfer in design and construction firms and interviews, developing a prototype computer application to capture this information and make it available for new project teams, and testing this approach on an active construction project. This research also resulted in conclusions regarding the content of construction experience, capturing and gaining access to this information, and the feasibility of using computer tools.