I joined the CITE User Group meeting last Friday. The focus was DOTs and the slow shift toward open standards in digital delivery. It was a straightforward conversation with people who deal with these constraints every day, which is why it was useful.
Bob Mueser shared a great update. He is now the Infrastructure Owner at Autodesk, and before that he spent almost 14 years at Bentley, plus time with Intergraph and Oracle. He has seen every side of this space. His point was simple. The hard resistance DOTs showed in 2019 is fading, and the pace of change in the past year has picked up.
A big part of the discussion centered on IFC. IFC, or Industry Foundation Classes, is an open, vendor neutral data standard used across architecture, engineering, construction, and civil infrastructure. It is governed by buildingSMART International, a non profit group that works with industry, agencies, and software vendors to build and maintain the specification. IFC keeps evolving fast. Many vendors support it today, and it is becoming the common way to move 3D models and project data between different tools without locking everything to a single ecosystem.
More DOTs are preparing to accept IFC 4.3 or evaluating for deliverables instead of mandated DGN or DWG. More are realizing the downside of tying entire workflows to a single vendor platform. And more are thinking about long term data ownership instead of software allegiance. That shift matters. Most firms already work across both Autodesk and Bentley tools. Forcing delivery in only one stack adds friction and slows the digital delivery goals the DOTs themselves are asking for.
The same applies to CDE (Common Data Environment) mandates. When a DOT requires ProjectWise for everything, it limits choice and locks teams into workflows that may not fit the project. ProjectWise and Civil 3D do not play together nicely. Moving toward open formats and open pipelines gives DOTs more flexibility. It also strengthens competition and makes life easier for the consultants doing the work.
The momentum around IFC is encouraging. Agencies are starting to see it as a real path to open, non proprietary delivery and a better way to protect their data for the long term. Allowing open formats and vendor flexibility would help everyone involved.
Good meeting. Clear signals. And more movement in the right direction.