ABSTRACT
Product models are concerned with facilitating the unambiguous transfer of engineering information between computer systems, and thus between the users of those systems. Standards for realizing product model-based information exchange and information sharing are being developed progressively within the framework provided by ISO/STEP (Mason, 1992). To date the construction industry has provided little input into STEP. Consequently, the particular needs of construction are not (as yet) well addressed by these standards. The aim of the standards is, however, to enable engineering information to be passed between incompatible computer systems, between different engineering disciplines and across divides imposed by geography or time. As such, STEP offers the construction industry the basis of a strategy to evolve into an industry that is centred on digital information.
