I'm sitting in my hotel room overlooking a beautiful gothic scene of snow falling on the castle district in Budapest where the reigning Queen of Hungary had her Hungarian residence but she also (I've recently learned) had so much more as a key member of the Austria Hungary Empire which united the Austrian Empire with the Kingdom of Hungary. You can read more of this history by looking up the Habsburg dynasty which was descended from the Holy Roman Empire. Wow, that's kind of an impressive family!

I've just been to meetings and seminars in Finland, Sweden, Hungary and tomorrow I am meeting a Construction Management firm from the Middle East. What is truly fascinating is how important Virtual Construction has become to so many companies.  At a meeting in Gothemborg, Sweden there were over 40 members of middle management of Skanska who participated in a 2 hour discussion of Flowline Scheduling, Model based Estimating and BIM usage in general. In Finland there are departments which are responsible for moving the BIM use from the planning office to the construction trailer. They are also quite interested in what companies in North America are doing so we are beginning to investigate a way to have a "global forum" on Virtual Construction. Obviously this is something that could initially be done over the web and could grow into local chapters and meetings, it is my feeling that this could help spur partnership, cooperation and of course innovation. After all, these are all countries with very talented engineers who have produced many of the innovations that our industry already has. 

Virtual Construction is a rising tide that promises to float all boats, everyone stands to benefit, from the owner and designer down to every last subcontractor when buildings can be truly planned in great detail and less time spent fixing problems in the field. By the way, for those who read my last post this is another important element of the "Toyota Way" and is known as KAI ZEN "kai" which means "change" or "the action to correct" and "zen" which means good. More information can easily be found on these topics by performing a search on "The Toyota Way."  The Toyota Way is at the core of many things at Vico, we have a continuous learning culture and our Services Project Teams all work to Six Sigma documented processes and we have put a system in place that is internet based called Nexus that allows us to measure our productivity when modeling, estimating, coordination or scheduling and also requires others to review and approve the work. This injects quality measurement into our process and of course both Vico and our customers benefit from this. For our sales team we have created an online training system with a consultant that reinforces our process, our strengths, and how customers can benefit from working with Vico. We also continually coach them (on a bi-weekly basis) so that their learning will continue and the process of continuing to improve will not get stop. 

Well, I've got to go now, have a dinner at the Four Seasons tonight, as you can see life is tough here out on the road!

:)

Don H