There is a long list of issues associated with formal requests for information (RFI), but leveraging technology to shorten that list has proved to be difficult. In early August, a diverse group of contractors, owners, designers, technology providers, virtual construction specialists and other stakeholders met in Denver to tackle what they have dubbed the “RFI dilemma.”

Billed as “one of the first-ever open-integration summits” by leaders of the nonprofit Construction Progress Coalition (CPC), the Aug. 2 meeting in Denver sought consensus for identifying standards and collaborative solutions to RFI issues.

“The history of RFIs has been more of a ‘gotcha’ scenario, rather than a productive tool,” explains CPC President Nathan C. Wood, the founder of technology consultant SpectrumAEC. “We want to understand how complex the [RFI] process is and how to create a road map for the technological folks to follow. But that means we also need to align the contract and data standards [so we can] articulate those to the tech world.”

任务首先确定应该产生RFI的问题的类型，然后将可以非正式处理的问题与需要正式书面交流的问题分开。目标是减少RFI的数量并减少请求的响应时间。伍德说，达到需要在技术方面进行更多的开源协作，以产生真正的互操作性。他说：“这个想法不是在这里拥有一个赢家，而是要创建一个框架来建立。”CPC小组认为，与多学科团队一起解决问题是实现问题的一种方法。

电气承包商Dynlectric Colorado运营经理Jason Barber观察到：“发行的设计水平变得更糟。”“向合适的人获取信息需要更长的时间，因此我们确实需要完成这项信息。”

CPC计划在9月初从会议上提出一份报告，并建议该行业应如何进行。