BARCELONA, Spain, Apr 18, 2017 – Newforma chief executive officer Ian Howell has been named a buildingSMART Fellow at the organization’s International Summit in Barcelona. The organization awarded Fellowship honors for the first time in its 21-year history.
Howell has long been an advocate for improving communication across silos of project information among competing technologies. In 1995, as a director of Autodesk, Howell convened the first meetings of forward-looking companies to discuss the need for interoperability and to create a standard method for sharing building information model data. In 1996, as a vice president of Citadon, Howell was a founding member of the IAI (International Alliance for Interoperability) that was subsequently to become buildingSMART International. He served on the board of the North American chapter for the next 10 years.
Since 2004, Howell has been the CEO of Newforma, a developer of software for managing project information for buildings and infrastructure. Like buildingSMART, Newforma is focused on standardizing processes and workflows that are based upon industry best practice that improve information sharing and collaboration for every team member on a project. Howell is committed to the same core objective today, to provide better interoperability to the fragmented construction industry to save time, avoid design errors, stop rework and eliminate material waste.
buildingSMART International chair Patrick MacLeamy, FAIA, LEED AP, HOK’s chairman and a member of the executive committee, said the buildingSMART Fellows are people whose contributions extend beyond their companies. “These buildingSMART Fellows are our industry’s equivalent of baseball’s most valuable players: the high performers who make everyone around them search for new and better answers,” MacLeamy said. “Ian Howell is among those who have contributed countless hours finding ways for architects, engineers, contractors, and owners to work together more productively.”
“It’s of course a great honor to be recognized by my peers,” Howell said. “And it’s been a privilege to have contributed to the formation of this organization. Our industry is powered by collaboration, and buildingSMART has taken on the vital work of making collaboration simpler and more powerful. I commend every buildingSMART volunteer and every sponsoring company in their ongoing efforts to provide the innovation and interoperability standards that will support the global construction industry of the future.”
About buildingSMART
buildingSMART is the worldwide authority driving the digital transformation of the built asset economy through the creation and adoption of open, international digital standards. The organization provides members with technology know-how, process expertise, an international perspective, and global best practices to reduce risks, save time, and lower costs. buildingSMART took its name in 2008, after operating for 12 years as the International Alliance for Interoperability.
About Newforma
To date, more than 1,350 architecture, engineering, and construction companies have used Newforma software to manage information on more than 2.4 million building and infrastructure projects around the world. Newforma apps and desktop software save countless hours on administrative tasks. As a result, Newforma’s customers report improved quality, more fruitful collaborations, less rework, and faster responses. Among other tasks, Newforma users:
- File emails with drag-and-drop ease.
- Respond to RFIs, approve submittals, and manage action items 40 percent faster, automatically capturing audit trails along the way.
- Quickly search and find critical items buried in large volumes of project information, regardless of where the information is stored.
- Share models and other large files easily, with the software automatically logging who downloaded what, when.
For more information, visit newforma.com.
