CAD standards and the institutions of higher education

This paper focuses on the need, development and implementation of CAD standards for institutions of higher education. To efficiently communicate planning, design, construction, and management information among the internal and external parties involved, thousands of these highly complex organizations worldwide are in need of CAD standards. These standards are instrumental in consolidating information; originating from operational and academic units of a university, they constitute the backbone of the Facility Management Information System (FMIS) and eliminate necessary conversions and duplication of efforts. This paper highlights the theoretical underpinnings for standardization and illustrates the strength and weaknesses of various standards and implementations in CAD and their uses in the Design Information Management component of a university FMIS. Although the paper concentrates on design information management, the very same standards are useful both in construction and in management information activities.