Top building product manufacturer exploits new marketing tactics to make products more easily available to architects and engineers

BALTIMORE — (BUSINESS WIRE) — May 19, 2010 — Avatech Solutions, Inc. (OTCBB: AVSO), America’s leading professional services company for design and engineering technologies, announces that their professional services group is working with the Building Technologies Division of Siemens Industry, Inc. in designing BIM content and developing a building product model publishing strategy.

Siemens Building Technologies Division is a prominent supplier of building automation, security and fire/life safety systems, and HVAC control products. For the past several months, Avatech has been providing BIM consulting services and creating BIM content for Siemens. These models, covering hundreds of Siemens’ products, are in the process of being published and made available to the building design industry for download and inclusion directly into building information models. To date, the joint Siemens / Avatech team has identified product model standards, documented Siemens’ internal best practices, and created an initial group of models from existing manufacturing drawings. Plans call for expanding product coverage to suit market demand once the success of the first group of models is established.

“Our vision is, in essence, to make our customers’ jobs easier by supplying product models that fit seamlessly into building projects,” says Joe Studzinski, senior director of Product Development, Siemens Industry, Inc. “With federal and state governments, as well as leading developers mandating BIM, we are confident that a BIM content strategy will make us more competitive and win more contracts simply because of the efficiencies the models bring to the engineering and specifying process.”

“We’ve worked with Avatech since 2000 on automation projects, so we were familiar with their expertise in both manufacturing and AEC [architecture, engineering, and construction]. We invited them to help us create our BIM strategy because they were the obvious choice to guide us through the creation of product models from concept through publishing,” adds James Head, Manager, Tools Development, Siemens.

“World-renowned for their research and development, the Building Technologies team is now applying that same innovative drive to their product marketing,” says Scott Hale, Vice President of Professional Services, Avatech Solutions. “With thousands of products sold through over 100 offices across the country, the potential for Siemens products to end up in final building projects increases exponentially as they move to BIM. This will help Siemens better serve its customers as the competitive building product manufacturing industry moves to BIM publishing as a primary means of marketing,” Hale concludes.

About Avatech Solutions

Avatech Solutions, Inc. (OTCBB: AVSO) is America’s leading professional services company for design and engineering technologies. Avatech is a longstanding member of the Autodesk Developers Network and an Authorized Autodesk Content Network Service Provider. Avatech advances the way organizations design, develop, and manage building, infrastructure, and manufacturing projects. Fortune 500 and Engineering News Record's Top 100 companies work with Avatech to gain a competitive advantage through technology consulting, implementation, training, and support services. One of the world’s largest integrators of Autodesk software, Avatech designs systems that accelerate innovation while improving quality and profitability. For more information, please visit http://www.avatech.com.

Autodesk is a registered trademark or trademark of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries.

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