ROCKVILLE, Md. — The Mechanical Contractors Association of America (MCAA) announced that it has signed a memorandum of agreement with the Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association (SMACNA), the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA), and the buildingSMART alliance (a council of the National Institute of Building Sciences) establishing needs and goals for the interoperability of building information modeling (BIM) software.

According to MCAA, this development is critical to the mechanical, sheet metal, and electrical industries’ (MEP) adoption and use of BIM technologies and their ability to realize the cost and quality benefits derived from utilizing BIM processes. This includes software products from different software vendors working seamlessly together, substantial cost reductions from not having to enter data multiple times in different software products, fewer problems sending information between various software packages, and reducing the risk of other entities establishing BIM standards and processes for MEP contractors.

Publication date: 08/10/2009