The DaratechPLANT conference and trade show is one of the main venues for exploring current and new information technology developments and for discussing trends and insights on matters related to process and power engineering design. Since these disciplines are among the most complex and technically-challenging within the AEC industry, they also serve as an excellent proving-ground for pioneering technologies, methodologies and data warehousing models that may eventually lend their innovations well to other AEC disciplines that are presently less reliant on complex integrated systems.

These innovations notwithstanding, revenue growth in the process and power industries are easily keeping up with overall AEC industry growth. Daratech, Inc., the market research and technology assessment firm underwriting the show, announced a projected growth rate in software and services of 8.5% in the Plant Design market, which is expected to top $440 million in 2001, keeping pace with the overall AEC market growth rate projections of 8.6% to a high of $1.8 billion for the year. Yet Daratech's projections do not include revenues from EDM/PDM/PPM or Process Simulation products or services, which offer great value to the AEC industry, and which are gaining ground most rapidly in the process and power markets. Laser scanning and other data collection tools also appear to be gaining critical mass as important drivers of systems sales in the plant and process industries, although they have clear applications in many other types of AEC retrofit and rework projects as well.

In its growth projections, Daratech attributes primary credit for plant design market leadership to Intergraph, Bentley, Cadcentre, Autodesk and Rebis.

DaratechPLANT2001 is relatively small as far as trade shows go, but very exclusive, well-organized, and heavy with value for plant designers, owners and operators scouting out better methods of managing the complexities of plant system design, maintenance and operation.

This year's show was held in Houston at the palatial Wyndham-Greenspoint Hotel, in whose relaxed and refined atmosphere over 20 plant lifecycle strategy workshops delivered value to the 950-odd engineers, owner/operators, contractors and vendors in attendance. Topics ranged from lifecycle knowledge management, and industry standards and best practices, to applications for laser scanning technology and other data collection systems. Dozens of distinguished industry executives addressed these topics and more in keynote sessions and panel discussions that went on throughout the first two days of the show. An abundance of case studies were presented that illustrated the proven merits of the many new solutions being offered.

Also discussed were ASP business and service models, the Open Systems Initiative, lifecycle information flow, supply chain management, ERP, PI and SAP integration and application, and the merits and caveats of outsourcing IT.