Located on more than 10,000 acres, George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) in Houston, Texas, is Houston's largest airport, the fourth largest multi-airport system in the United States, and the ninth busiest commercial airport in the United States. It offers non-stop service to 152 cities worldwide and served 35 million passengers in 2001. There are a number of improvements currently in construction or in the planning stages that promise to keep IAH as the South Central United States' international passenger gateway of choice and further enhance Houston's prominent position as a world trade center.

This project required a fast track design and construction schedule to serve the new Terminal "E" and FIS building. Since IAN+A engineers were also going to be working in a tight space, they decided to integrate a 3D design program into their solution. After researching many possibilities, the firm chose Bentley AutoPLANT. IAN+A engineering graduates Clayton Bankson and Vance Shofner introduced themselves slowly to the AutoPLANT program. They began with simple models and grew very quickly to modeling larger components of the project. They ended up using AutoPLANT to design the entire project down to the nuts and bolts, including documenting the building, structural beam members, and existing utilities.

"By modeling in AutoPLANT 3D, we were able to save significant time on the project, which allowed us to meet the accelerated design and construction schedule," said Clayton Bankson, engineering graduate, IAN+A.