B2 - (Group B) Matthew Zabiega

                As defined by himms.org (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society), Interoperability is “the ability of health information systems to work together within and across organizational boundaries in order to advance the effective delivery of healthcare for individuals and communities”. Interoperability, although typically for health information, can be used by other fields of expertise.  There are three levels of interoperability: Foundational, structural and semantic.

                Foundational interoperability allows one information technology system to exchange data to another information technology system which can receive but does not have to interpret it. Structural interoperability allows for uniform movement of data from one system to another such that the data is preserved, unaltered and can be interpreted at the data field level. Semantic interoperability allows two or more systems to exchange and use the information that has been exchanged.

                The use of electronically transmitting data has a very basic, yet valuable aspect. It eliminates the need to manually copy data which can be time consuming.  This ensures that the data that is transmitted is more exact and pure than anything that can be manually copied due to human error.  If copied wrong by human error, it can prove disastrous as it can lead to repeat previously wrong work or have multiple copies of the same work with minute changes.

                Moving on to the BIM world, Revit is what I believe to be the program that utilizes interoperability the most (from experience at my last co-op).  Revit can hold vast information and very detailed models that include every system of a building or structure. This information does not have to come from one source, multiples models can be opened on different computers and the model will update via information exchange. The new data is uploaded and transmitted to all other computers with that model opened. This greatly improves that speed at which projects can be completed because multiple people, from different fields, can work in the same model. The electrical engineer can work on his system in the model when the mechanical engineer is working on his system in the model and they can both see one another’s work (if they choose to). Unlike AutoCad, all of the systems of a building can be viewed in one coherent model that can be scanned to see of any probable errors that could arise when construction begins. This can save a huge cost percentage because plans would have to be redone much less because the error was caught early on.

                Although Revit uses interoperability in its infancy (it’s still one model uploaded on a server), the communication aspect is still present. Communication can be slowed by large models (typically over 300MB) and can present problems while sharing data. One personal story while using Revit at my last co-op was when a project was at its 90% completion and was on its way out of the door. Our company had just gotten the model back from a sister company in another country, so one of our lead designers was going through and reviewing the work. It turns out that the work was incomplete and over-all bad. In the following few days, we had over 20 engineers and designers in the live file at the same time. For a while it was working well, but as more and more people began saving and reloading the current model, the system lagged and some data was not uploaded to some computers which in turn caused clashes in the model which had to be fixed. This problem is belittled compared to the advantages that interoperability can give a program.

Sources:
1) http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/ebookviewer/ebook/bmxlYmtfXzM2NDIzOV9fQU41?sid=da4563e0-e15d-4cf3-8b8a-eee24671dc73@sessionmgr113&vid=0&format=EB&lpid=lp_99&rid=0
2) http://www.himss.org/library/interoperability-standards/what-is-interoperability

Comments:
http://ae-510-ay15-16.blogspot.com/2016/01/b2-group-b-kai-waechter.html?showComment=1453231772828#c4535368355876116387
http://ae-510-ay15-16.blogspot.com/2016/01/b2-group-b-yasmina-shields.html?showComment=1453241697511#c1802465014986591942