Dec 14 2010

NEC3 Licensed Content partners announced

Two UK-based SaaS collaboration vendors have been officially licensed by NEC to deliver NEC3 construction contract information.

By coincidence on the same day that I wrote about contrasting approaches to NEC construction contract management (post), it has been announced that two UK construction collaboration technology providers have been appointed as NEC3 Licensed Content Partners by NEC (see NEC news release). Officially endorsed by UK government for its more collaborative approach, the NEC3 is increasingly widely used on both public and private sector projects, and 4Projects and BIW Technologies will now both be seeking to capitalise upon their ability to deliver NEC content through their respective Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) contract administration solutions.

NEC

The NEC, originally the New Engineering Contract, was developed during the early 1990s and earned the approval of Sir Michael Latham (author of the influential 1994 Latham Report) as a more enlightened, non-adversarial alternative to conventional construction contracts. The second edition, NEC2, was published in 1995 and the latest generation of contracts, the NEC3 suite, was developed as a result of feedback from numerous industry users keen on promoting more collaborative approaches to projects across the whole supply chain. This family of standard contracts share key characteristics:

  • they stimulate good management of the relationship between the two parties to the contract and, hence, of the work included in the contract
  • they can be used in a variety of commercial situations, for a wide variety of types of work and in any location, and
  • they are clear and simple documents using language and structures which are straightforward and easily understood.

The contracts are important in the UK, not least because the NEC3 has been endorsed by the Office of Government Commerce, which recommends NEC3 for use on all public sector construction projects (the NEC is also one of the officially forms of contract recommended by the South African government). Its growing use also coincided with the emergence of web-based collaboration platforms and it was perhaps inevitable, as vendors sought to differentiate their platforms and expand functionality beyond SaaS document collaboration, that contract management would become a feature.

BIW NEC3 Contracts Management

BIW was the first of the construction collaboration technology vendors to develop a NEC-based solution that could be delivered through its core platform – immediately competing with solutions such as MPS‘s CCM which only managed contract-related workflows, not wider information. BIW’s pre-configured contract packs were initially launched in 2005 (release), but the NEC support was continuously improved through use by leading adherents such as Davis Langdon (see Triangle case study [PDF]).

In the NEC news release, BIW CEO Colin Smith says:

“A number of years ago we identified a requirement to provide a robust application designed specifically to help companies effectively implement the NEC3 contract. We have had great success with the initiative and have deployed our NEC3 Contract Management application on projects for over 50 clients. … We are obviously delighted to have been selected as one of NEC’s preferred licence content partners. The enhancements we will roll out as a result of the partnership will greatly benefit current and future clients.”

4Projects NEC3 Manager

Fast closing on BIW’s position as UK market leader (by turnover), 4Projects hinted at the imminent launch of their new contract management feature at a London event in late October (post), but it has taken another six weeks before the company could officially announce the key detail (quickly trumpeted in a news release, via Twitter, and via new website home page graphics and other collateral): an official partnership with NEC that allows them to deliver “NEC3 Manager”. According to the company, NEC3 Manager is completely integrated with its existing collaboration platform, and will facilitate the swift and simple creation and management of NEC3 contracts, automating the issue, storage, tracking and searching of key contracts forms and tasks including instructions, Early Warning notices and Compensation Events.

In the NEC news release, Richard Vertigan, 4Projects’ CEO comments:

“Having worked closely with the construction industry for the last 22 years I have seen the problems that can arise from contracts being disputed and ultimately unfulfilled. … Although clients have used our management process in conjunction with NEC contracts for many years, we have now developed a tool that allows users to deploy, monitor and control contracts in a more efficient and effective way.”

In the 4Projects release, he adds:

“NEC has done a fantastic job of standardising construction contracts on the basis of quality, performance, cost and time to ensure a fair deal for all. To be licensed to use NEC3 content is a fantastic achievement and my congratulations go to all involved at 4Projects.”

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/12/nec3-licensed-content-partners-announced/

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/12/sypro-management/

Dec 04 2010

Design by Many

One of those interesting coincidences….

Yesterday, the Institution of Civil Engineers, with the Advanced Institute of Management, hosted an event, “Engineering Management in a Digital Economy” in London which, despite the wintry weather and the associated transport difficulties, still drew around 40 people from both industry and academia. They assembled to discuss issues such as building information management, whole-life cost and construction industry research needs (I used Twitter to share my notes of the event – #hashtag transcript here), and also heard a presentation from UK chief construction advisor Paul Morrell.

For me, the most thought-provoking and wide-ranging presentation was delivered by AIM Research‘s Andy Neely. He highlighted some of the ways in which technology was fostering innovation and enabling new collaborative approaches to product development (he talked about GPS-controlled ploughs, mobile phones, and about Threadless tee-shirts, among other things) and data-sharing and re-use. During his talk, Andy also mentioned the opportunity for businesses to pose challenges to industry and invite collaborators to propose ideas in response to that challenge (an ‘ideagora’ technique discussed in Tapscott & Williams’ Wikinomics).

And by pure coincidence, I almost simultaneously received an email from Hewlett Packard telling me about an international design challenge, DesignByMany, that it is sponsoring.

“Users post challenges to the community along with their design source files. The community can then post responses with their own source files to solve the challenge. They can also comment on the challenge and interact with other designers throughout the process.”

This approach is, of course, similar to that of BIMstorm events such as the (Asite-sponsored) BuildLondonLive held in 2008 (post) and 2009; these events were mentioned at my table during our roundtable discussions.

The first HP-sponsored DesignByMany challenge is to a model a parametric version of Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion House, with responses to be judged by designers from Grimshaw Architects, Snøhetta and Skidmore, Ownings & Merrill LLP (winners get a HP DesignJet 111 printer).

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/12/design-by-many/

Dec 01 2010

Two recent UK vendor news releases

Asite, SaaS North America and ReproMAX sign Strategic Relationship

A 30 November 2010 release from Asite, says US-based reprographics firm ReproMAX has signed a “major contract” with Asite’s distributor in North America (SaaS North America) to supply and host its “web-based collaborative Software as a Service (cSaaS)”. Let’s just dissect the announcement a little bit….

ReproMAX has featured previously in Extranet Evolution. In April 2006, the company appeared to be a beneficiary of tie-up between Meridian Systems and Adenium, delivering a solution branded ReproMAX DFS (June 2006), and in February 2009 I noted that McGraw-Hill Construction had formed a partnership with Meridian to support this system.

SaaS North America, registered in Delaware but operating from an office in Ontario, Canada, is a new name on the construction collaboration SaaS circuit (its website domain name was registered just six months ago), with Al Douglas, a former print company executive with extensive experience of Documentum, named as its CEO.

The release is significant insofar as it shows Asite is following Aconex, 4Projects and BIW Technologies in targeting the north American market. While Aconex and 4Projects are establishing their own offices in the US (4Projects’ sales director Jason Warde recently relocated to the Washington DC area), BIW and Asite appear to be more reliant upon local partners and are trying different routes to market (BIW is working with Sage CRE – post – to build on its existing AEC financial software reseller network, while Asite is apparently now tackling it from a reprographics angle). The release might also suggest a change in the relationship between ReproMAX and Meridian; is Asite now its favoured SaaS collaboration technology partner?

BIW and ISG sign new deal

And talking of BIW, a friend alerted me to a news release yesterday from Woking, Surrey-based construction collaboration technology or (as it increasingly styles itself) “project control” provider, announcing an enterprise agreement with UK contracting and services business ISG. A little surprisingly, the release doesn’t mention that this continues a relationship between BIW and ISG that dates back to 2001 with the most recent renewal in May 2008. “Not sure whether was an oversight or them wanting to position this as new business,” commented my contact.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/12/two-recent-uk-vendor-news-releases/

Dec 01 2010

BuildItLive.com targets iPad collaborators

Over the past year or so, I’ve talked several times about iPhone applications and collaboration in the architecture, engineering and construction, AEC, space. I have seen prototype stand-alone products developed purely for the iPhone (eg: Smartbuilder – post), but most tools have been developed by existing construction collaboration technology providers and extend their platforms to iPhone users, either via a downloadable application or by enabling mobile web access via a smartphone’s browser – for example (in alphabetical order):

And there are apparently more in the pipeline, including one from Aconex. But, apart from suggestions that the iPhone apps will quickly be extended to support iPad users, I hadn’t heard of any iPad-specific apps. That is, until today, when I came across a link to California-based Construction Connect Inc (a start-up established in 2008 by former electrical contractor Chris Ross).

CCI launched its Software-as-a-Service platform, Build It Live, earlier this year (background) and it appears to replicate most of the functions and repeat most of the potential benefits of existing SaaS products in the market. The associated iPad app, MobilePlanRoom, was launched in June 2010 (release), allowing iPad users to access Build It Live from their tablets.

Build It Live is said to be easy-to-use and affordable (just US$35/month per project), and targeted at smaller construction companies, construction project managers, engineers and architects. As the AEC industry is dominated by small- to medium-sized enterprises, the pricing will be attractive to this SME market, and – as far as the iPad market is concerned – SMEs may also have fewer reservations about this application than larger businesses with substantial, centralised ICT departments.

I have had several interesting conversations about iPhone (and by implication, iPad) applications for construction collaboration. Some of the construction people I talk to think they are doomed to failure as many corporates haven’t accepted iPhones as professional tools within their businesses – preferring to support smartphone platforms such as Blackberry or Windows, or holding out for Android to become a dominant platform. But there are also many iPhone-fans who are keen to get Apple-approved tools to support their day-to-day work (I have also talked previously about Woobius Eye, a beta iPhone app developed by architects for architects and others, for example), and this enthusiasm is extending to AEC iPad users too (sometimes they are seen as such desirable tools that people buy them themselves and use them for work even they are not officially approved). And there is recognition that we can’t always rely on using web-based interfaces, particularly in remote locations or in enclosed spaces, etc where mobile telecommunication is impossible.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/12/builditlivecom-targets-ipad-collaborators/

Nov 26 2010

ICT4Construction conference, March 2011 on document and knowledge management

After attending and live-blogging from the first of Recep Saffet’s series of ICT4Construction conferences last month (post), he has invited me to be one of the speakers at his next event, on document and knowledge management technology, at Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, London on 25 March 2011 (just over a month later than previously noted).

I will be talking from an independent perspective on the The state of collaboration (and where do we go from here), amid a line-up that already includes:

As before (post), this event is very competitively priced (again just £79.95), and is intended to help delegates learn about different solutions in the market place. As I mentioned after the last event, I hope the event doesn’t become a series of sales pitches and product demonstrations – let’s see some presentations that are focused on end-users’ needs, and let’s also have some debate! (And if you book as a result of this post – please say you heard about it via LinkedIn :-))

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/11/ict4construction-conference-march-2011-on-document-and-knowledge-management/

Nov 23 2010

Risk reduction or scare-mongering?

New guidance from Wren Insurance on “cloud technology” seems pessimistic and even outdated. In this post, I take a detailed look at how construction collaboration technology vendors have, since 2000, responded to similar objections.

Legal issues of collaboration

In 2004, David Whitton of Wren Insurance, one of the UK construction industry’s leading providers of professional indemnity insurance cover to architects and other professional practices, helped me with some guidance on an outline clause for a firm’s conditions of appointment. As one might expect from an insurance business, the clause limited the liabilities of a consultant in the event that a third party-hosted collaboration system mandated by the client malfunctioned; it also insisted on the client maintaining free access to the system during the project, and for at least 15 years after practical completion.

I included David’s guidance in my book (p.113) in a section on legal issues of collaboration where I urged both customers and end-users to look carefully at the conditions contained in Master Licence Agreements, End User Licence Agreements and Service Level Agreements with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) construction collaboration technology providers.

Wren guidance on ‘cloud technology’

A friend has just passed me some new guidance issued by Wren to its customers on “cloud technology”. Most of the potential risks are discussed in my book, but there are some notes that – to me, at least – seem unduly pessimistic (but maybe, if I was in insurance, I would always tend to think the worst?) or outdated. Of course, they may also relate to other cloud-based services that Wren’s customers might use (eg: cloud-based customer relationship management, HR tools, web conferencing, invoicing, email, etc), but I thought it worth providing a commentary on the points made – at least from the perspective of SaaS-based collaboration for architects, engineers and other construction (AEC) professionals.

  • Your relationship with the provider will be governed by a Service Level Agreement (SLA) which is often on onerous terms. – Of course, it will be onerous, but that cuts both ways. The customer should look carefully at what is specified in the SLA; the vendor must be able to deliver reassurances on key requirements: security, back-up, functionality, audit trail, speed of access, system availability, software upgrades, customer support, training, etc. If the balance of responsibilities is wrong, then the customer should seek to vary the SLA or find an alternative vendor whose SLA is more appropriate.
  • The level of data security is dependent on that set by the provider. – But end-users will also need to remember their own data security obligations, like not sharing passwords or logins, and virus-checking files, etc.
  • The storage is likely to be shared with a number of users so its performance can be adversely affected by peaks in demand caused by others. – This will depend on the hosting regime. Where vendors are sharing servers, then the performance of their service can be impacted, but the more sophisticated vendors provide services accessed from dedicated servers that are carefully monitored 24/7, with hardware upgrades programmed to anticipate any future load issues.
  • Data held on such sites may not meet the requirements for legal admissibility. – This has been a recurring theme since the earliest days of construction collaboration software, and vendors such as BIW and Cadweb have made PR capital out of their hosting compliance with information management security standards, eg: ITIL, ISO/IEC27001, which would be persuasive to a court of law in considering admissibility.
  • Personal data may not be held in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act…. – As far as construction collaboration platforms are concerned, only limited information about individuals is retained (normally just that required to identify an individual and to help other authorised team members make contact). Vendors should be registered under the DPA and ensure any collection and use of personal information is lawful and fair.
  • You would be totally reliant on your internet connections to the provider. – With email and other internet-based services in constant use, there are few construction businesses today where communications are not reliant upon an internet connection. In most cases, SaaS providers will have significantly more resilient and faster internet connections (and often multiple connections) than those used by end-user companies – often grumbles about slow or intermittent access to a SaaS service can be traced to issues related to the end-user’s (single) connection to the internet or the local area network (inadequate bandwidth, high contention ratio, traffic slowed by fire-wall tools, etc).
  • You could be subject to providers temporarily curtailing access to your data or closing their operations for financial or legal reasons, possibly without warning. – It pays to be diligent in making initial enquiries and then to monitor the circumstances of vendors; technical prowess will still need to be backed by sound finances and stable management systems (including insurance). Responsible vendors will also provide reassurance through detailed provisions regarding system back-up in case of interruption, plus undertakings on data export, software escrow agreements, and contingency arrangements whereby hosting providers will maintain the service for a minimum period even if the software vendor goes bust, allowing customers to find an alternative provider without loss of service.
  • The provider could suspend your service because one of your employees has breached the terms and conditions of operation stated in the SLA, e.g. through inappropriate internet usage. – Not just a reason to be wary of SaaS, but also a reason to ensure staff are well trained and are aware of company guidelines regarding appropriate use of the firm’s IT.
  • The provider may be operating under another legal jurisdiction. – This was a particular factor in the early days of UK construction collaboration, with several US-hosted systems seeking to claim a share of the European market. However, the main UK provider all hosted their software and associated data in UK-based data centres, though as they have expanded operations overseas, several have opened new hosting facilities in other locations to serve those markets.

Wren still suggests that its members should provide back-up archives on systems under their own control. In my experience, many design firms already maintain good offline systems to manage their project inputs, though they may also take advantage of the archive services delivered by collaboration vendors (eg: from periodic ‘snapshots’ to full end-of-project archives, delivering all the information that the firm had access to, along with the tools needed to access it, via standard hard disk drives). Mind you, if these same businesses are also using cloud-based tools for other purposes, do their vendors offer the same kind of back-up regimes? And having in-house back-up systems is no guarantee either; IT equipment can be stolen in burglaries, and software and hardware can quickly become outdated.

Progress

I regularly talk to university graduates about adoption of collaboration technologies (I lectured to MSc groups at Loughborough and Nottingham Trent universities so far this autumn, for example), and a recurring theme is how construction people who are resistant to the idea of collaboration have used legal or technological issues as a reason to avoid SaaS-based technologies – and Wren’s risk-averse stance regarding cloud computing seems to be along similar lines. It doesn’t seem to recognise that over the past decade there has been great progress in tackling some of the actual and perceived risks of online services.

As I’ve tried to make clear above, since 2000 construction collaboration technology vendors have accumulated considerable knowledge and expertise in meeting such objections – often focused more on people and processes than on the technologies. In short, effective commercial use of SaaS-based collaboration is not about the Software, it’s much more about the Service. Providers, customers, end-users, and their insurers, need to engage in an open and honest dialogue recognising their respective roles and responsibilities, and to understand and incorporate the latest thinking on SaaS delivery.

Updates (26 November, 1 December 2010, 8 June 2011): To be fair to Wren, some vendors also like to play what one commenter dubbed the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) card. BIW did it earlier this autumn (see BIW pushes its low-risk message) with an article in ABC&D, and it has repeated the message in a similar piece, bylined to CEO Colin Smith, in Construction Industry News (not, I have to confess, a publication I have ever seen), with similar sentiments expressed online in a Construction Digital article, and on the BCS website.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/11/risk-reduction-or-scare-mongering/

Nov 22 2010

Notes on attending a Microsoft-hosted construction ICT event

“Ooh, a free conference on construction ICT! And it’s at Microsoft’s London office!” – probably the reaction of more than a few people when emails dropped into their inboxes earlier this year. I attended last year’s event, having heard of the event through friends at COMIT (Construction Opportunities for Mobile IT), so I was clearly on the mailing list for this year’s version (held last week), again organised by Microsoft reseller and COMIT member ObjectiveIT.

Of course, such a free event was likely to have a strong Microsoft flavour, and so it proved, with several sessions plainly devoted to extolling the virtues of the latest Microsoft software.

Former Stent/Balfour Beatty technology leader John Findlay did a good job in talking about the industry’s need for innovation and collaboration, though I was disappointed (but not surprised) that only eight people out of 50-60 had even heard of, let alone read Andrew Wolstenholme’s Never Waste a Good Crisis report (published by Constructing Excellence over a year ago). John also mentioned the National Platform ICT & Automation report that I helped produce a couple of years ago.

Then we were into the ICT stuff, with Simon Kalp of ObjectiveIT talking about leveraging the Microsoft platform. It seems like ObjectiveIT is targeting the construction market with the Microsoft solution stack (lots of discussion by him, and later by Microsoft’s Tony Cocks, of unified communications, Lync, SharePoint, of Generation Y and “presence”, etc). Had to smile when they talked about architects sharing drawings online and doing mark-ups as though this was something new – the construction industry has been doing this for 10 years and more by adopting Software-as-a-Service, which Microsoft resisted for so long!

The award for most-contrived research acronym goes to ORFEUS for “Optimised Radar to Find Every Utility in the Street“. Orpheus features in Greek mythology as someone who ventured into the underworld, so this was a fitting name, perhaps, for projects on ground-penetrating radar. Howard Scott from Osys re-awakened the latent civil engineer in me with his talk about radar and horizontal directional drilling for trenchless installation of pipes and cables (using a “Grundodrill” – good name!).

As seems usual at COMIT events, we heard presentations on real-time location-based services (a joint presentation by Costain’s Tim Embley and John Mills from Masternaut) and on remote site ICT system set-up (Speedy Canopy, described by Jason Maddison). I think I preferred these practical examples of applied ICT to the more abstract Microsoft-focused sessions.

The final speaker was David Neve from Balfour Beatty’s Mansell division who gave a very elegant presentation about the challenges faced by IT directors such as himself in incorporating rapidly changing hardware and software and new end-user demands into an enterprise ICT environment.

Pointers for next year:

  • How about a bit of social media marketing to extend awareness of the event? (en route, I tweeted about the event, and got replies from at least two people saying they’d wished they heard about it earlier).
  • No wifi was a big downer. Despite being in the swanky London office of an ICT superpower, there was no wifi for guests attending the conference. I got round this omission by using a 3G dongle, but the signal was very weak, which restricted my efforts to share highlights from the event.
  • Agreeing an event Twitter hashtag for the event would have been useful (though, of course, this pre-supposes that any Tweeters even had connectivity – at least three of us did).
  • And what about a post-conference Tweet-up next year? Identifying a nearby pub for a bit of informal networking would have meant a less abrupt finish to the event.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/11/notes-on-attending-a-microsoft-hosted-construction-ict-event/

Nov 19 2010

First StoreData, then iSite, now S&W Intelligence

The UK-based collaboration technology subsidiary of property services firm Styles & Wood is set to take on its third brand-name in under a year, reports Building.

Previously known as StoreData, the business (a reseller of Union Square’s Workspace platform, with some good retail and banking customers) was rebadged as iSite in April 2010 (post). Now the parent company has announced it is to transform its corporate identity to become known as S&W, with the company’s divisions – StorePlanning, StoreFit, StoreCare and iSite set to become Design, Construct, Care and Intelligence, respectively.

The technology business delivered a turnover of £0.582m in the six months to 30 June 2010 (post).

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/11/first-storedata-then-isite-now-sw-intelligence/

Nov 11 2010

HP and Autodesk collaboration – ignores Autodesk’s collaboration products

After last month’s Hewlett Packard event in Copenhagen which saw the launch of its ePrint & Share ‘cloud’ service (post), I have been watching out for further announcements. The latest concerns a new video about an Autodesk plug-in for HP ePrint & Share (the plug-in was demonstrated at HP’s event).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya3ZzgSEQJY

It’s a polished presentation, but having now watched the video three times, even freeze-framing details and re-playing the voice-over, I still didn’t spot or hear any references to Autodesk’s Software-as-a-Service construction collaboration products, Buzzsaw and Constructware – just an early mention of the “Autodesk suite”, flashes of AutoCAD, etc – despite repeated talk of the collaboration challenges (distributed teams, version control, etc) that SaaS solutions help overcome.

This may not be surprising as both are well-established Autodesk ‘cloud’ offerings that potentially might compete with HP ePrint & Share, so – at least from a marketing point of view – perhaps HP didn’t want to cloud [sic] the issue? Or maybe HP and Autodesk are planning further joint announcements concerning development of HP interfaces with these collaboration platforms? Certainly, when the question was raised in Copenhagen, HP’s people said they envisaged third party vendors and other planroom providers being able to provide an interface accessible to mobile users of ePrint & Share and to HP printer users so that they could upload, scan and share print-ready drawings direct to the SaaS platform preferred for their project or company.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2010/11/hp-and-autodesk-collaboration-ignores-autodesks-collaboration-products/

Load more