TLA’s or Three Letter Acronyms and Mnemonics

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During work and particularly in the construction industry we are surrounded by TLA’s. Computers have use TLA for the file extension for years up to the new crop that can have FLA (you guessed it Four Letter Acronym extensions. Autodesk have spent years’ taking people to court and arguing about who owns the rights to the term dwg for DraWinG!

With texting on mobile phone, my 18 and 16 years old daughters seem to talk a completely different language to the Queens English I learnt at school, my youngest daughter Kelly exclaiming “O.M.G.” in a posh voice, when she saw that I had actually finally got a round to spring cleaning and tidying up my study this weekend.

At work we spend an awful lot of time completing PQQ’s (Pre-Qualifying Questionnaires) these days just to get on the possible selection list for schemes. Recently a Partner completing a PQQ emailed me and asked could we produce drawings in IFC and what was it?

So I promptly informed him that IFC standard was developed by the IAI (International Alliance for Interoperability) to handle 3D file data. Major CAD (Computer Aided Design or Drafting) vendors helped to develop the standard and the tools to support it.

The IAI is a division of the ISO (International Standards Organization), the body that controls the IGES and STEP data standards. The IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) standard is being used in leading construction projects in Europe and beyond. IFC is used as a basis for the Building Information Modelling (BIM), a 3D model of the building project and a rich source of information shared by all the project participants.

Then I proudly informed him that Revit can export IFC files of three varieties, and it is all about the “I” for Information in BIM. I asked him to find out what information they actually wanted to capture and how they were intending to try and use this file format and the data.

He sent me an email for the originator of the PQQ which simply said “Sorry – I mean ISSUED FOR CONSTRUCTION. (IFC) “

So take care and don’t ASSUME or it may make an ASS out of U and Me
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