FARMINGTON HILLS, MI - The concrete industry's Strategic Development Council (SDC) met in Irving, Texas on April 22-23 to discuss several issues and initiatives facing the concrete industry.

SDC membership consists of concrete industry leaders and exists to identify industry critical technologies and issues which are or will affect the industry. The organization creates and implements various strategies that facilitate an efficient and effective transition into these more progressive concrete technologies.

Bob Risser, SDC member and president of the Concrete Reinforcing Steel Institute (CRSI), agreed to serve as an industry champion on the issue of Building Information Modeling (BIM), identified at the meeting as an Industry Critical Technology. SDC recognizes the need for the concrete industry to work with engineers, contractors, fabricators, BIM software developers, and code developers to identify and remove barriers to the increased use of such technology.

"SDC recognizes BIM as a prominent issue in the construction industry today," said Douglas J. Sordyl, managing director of SDC. "We are committed to begin work on this initiative to ensure the concrete industry has a smooth transition toward this emerging technology and we plan to work with software developers to assure an effective integration of concrete options in the technology."

In addition, an update on SDC's concrete sustainability initiative, which is championed by JC Roumain of Holcim, was presented at the meeting. SDC has been revising its Concrete Sustainability Vision & Roadmap since spring 2007, and the sixth draft was reviewed by the group last month.