Issue link: https://geospatial.trimble.com/en/resources/i/1415426
MAY 2019 csengineermag.com 23 going to embrace big data and the means to manage it, for themselves and for their clients. Harley Ellis Devereaux, a 400-plus person engineering firm with of- fices in Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, and Sacramento, just merged with Integrated Design Group, an architec- ture, engineering, and planning firm with an established reputation in the field of data center design. In the media surrounding the merger, HED leadership recognized the emerging importance of data center design and its relationship to mission-critical sectors like healthcare and higher education. In Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam recently announced that M.C. Dean, an electrical design-build and systems integration firm for mission-crit- ical organizations, will invest $25.1 million to incorporate a new prod- uct line at its fabrication and distribution facility in Caroline County. The expansion, which opens this summer, will double the company's manufacturing capacity to support high-growth, mission-critical cus- tomers such as airports, healthcare facilities, and data centers. In 2017, McKinsey & Company, in its report, "The new age of engi- neering and construction technology," announced that the engineering and construction industry "is at the cusp of a new era, with technology start-ups creating new applications and tools that are changing how companies design, plan, and execute projects." The report cited applications of cutting-edge technologies across the full gamut of the AEC cycle, from design to preconstruction, and from construction to operations and management. In a subsequent report, however, McKinsey & Company concluded that "adoption of AI solu- tions is quite low in E&C [Engineering & Construction], particularly compared with other industries." Last year, in "State of AI in the Enterprise, 2nd Edition," Deloitte reported that the global market in cognitive technologies has already passed the $19 billion mark. Cybersecurity, according to the Deloitte study, remains a prime concern, as does the skills gap, among those employing cognitive systems. The study was based on the results of a survey of 1,100 IT and line-of-business executives from US-based companies in Q3 2018. Deloitte's conclusion, while general to all industries, could apply to any AEC firm that branches out into AI and machine learning. "Our survey results clearly show that growing numbers of companies are becoming more sophisticated in their usage of AI technologies. Now is the time for organizations to start selecting the business use cases that can deliver measurable value through AI-powered capabili- ties." The Partnership The partnership between Ortenzi and Orlando has stood the test of time, 18 years to be exact. Their tactic is fairly simple – divide and conquer. Ortenzi mans the "back of the house" with research and development, design and engineering, while Orlando works the "front of the house" with business development, sales, and marketing. Together, the two Chris Orlando, center left, with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, center right, standing in front of a ScaleMatrix cabinet at the NVIDIA GTC conference in San Jose in March. Photo: NVIDIA