COMIT Community Day

On Thursday 6 June, the Department of Real Estate and Construction hosted a COMIT Community Day (one of four held each year). 

So who are COMIT and what do they do? 

COMIT stands for: Construction Opportunities for Mobile IT and it began as a two-year research and development project part-funded by the Department of Trade and Industry. The COMIT project was a resounding success and just before the initial project finished, COMIT began as a self funded organisation in September 2005. A steering group was elected and there are now 40 paying members.

COMIT's early aim was to establish a project community to facilitate the realisation of business benefits from the adoption of mobile information and communication technologies. In other words to, 'learn from experience to deliver measurable business benefits'. Following its success, COMIT aims now extend to becoming a Centre of Excellence for the implementation of Mobile IT in the UK Construction Industry.

The COMIT website has become the key 'information hub' for the organisation. You can also follow them on Twitter if you want to keep up with the latest news.

COMIT continues to share its experiences and knowledge with the wider world through conferences, exhibitions, press events and a university lecture programme. They also organise Community Days four times a year - these are networking opportunities for members to find out about the latest project developments, propose new projects that they would like to drive forward under the COMIT banner, and get to know the other community members.

So what happened at the Community Day on 6 June?

COMIT members got the opportunity to learn more about the following:

• the current use of radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags in different sectors including construction - find out more about how they are being used in the construction industry here. 
• the initiative to use Building Information Modelling (BIM) to manage information and encourage collaboration at Crossrail - find out more about BIM and its development in the UK here.
• the MobiCloud project - an EU funded project to develop a European Corporate Appstore. 

Members also took part in a workshop (led by the Department of Real Estate and Construction) to identify potential research topics in the area of using mobile technology for BIM applications.

Thanks to Esra Kurul and the COMIT website for providing the information upon which this blog post is based. Photos by the Ed.