Abel R. Vera

As a Civil Engineer rooted in Construction Management, I believe in the transformation of construction operations to make our industry more digital, competitive and productive. From feasibility to operation and maintenance, all life-cycle stage of either building and infrastructure projects require the implementation of computer-aided, digital and cloud-based tools to optimize their efficiency and workflows. I founded this perspective after 8 years working on design and construction of diverse civil infrastructure and 2 years within Virtual Design and Construction roles. This insight strengthened my interest in project management, so I pursued higher education studies for managing the economic and financial workflows for either public and private infrastructure projects.

The experience above helped me to understand tremendously the big picture of projects under economic and financial approach. This learning process was applied through my involvement in several projects for operation and maintenance during the facility management phase for public infrastructure. The challenges faced plus the cumbersome process for delivering D-B-B projects as a Project Engineer were the motivation for seeking studies of MS in Construction Engineering and Management. After two-years of relevant course load and research at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois, I am truly convinced that the era of transformation of the construction industry is yet, beginning. It requires everyone’s efforts: clients, general contractors, subs, manufacturers and all-related stakeholders involved in the supply chain of the AEC and the infrastructure sector.

After completing Construction Management studies, I focused my experience on enhancing BIM workflows for heavy industrial infrastructure projects for the mining sector in Peru and participated as a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Civil Engineering at Universidad Nacional de Moquegua, in Peru.

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Therefore, my professional values are focused in enhancing the delivery of building and infrastructure projects by integrating design and construction in more efficient ways. This will benefit construction projects enormously. By achieving this goal, specific tasks and workflows for planning and cost estimating, project controls, safety and quality control and assurance, construction data analytics, digital management, as-built documentation, etc., will become more productive and meaningful to our industry.