Mar 23 2007

Aconex get Bilfinger Berger project

The latest Aconex news release talks about an Australian power station project. Nothing particularly remarkable about it, but I did notice the contractor is Bilfinger Berger – once a shareholder in rival construction collaboration vendor BuildOnline (today CTSpace) following the BO merger with myBau in 2002.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/03/aconex_get_bilf/

Mar 22 2007

2006: OK for StoreData

In the year ending 31 December 2006, Styles & Woods’ StoreData division did not achieve the “penetration of new customers” that it planned but it apparently still achieved its annual targets, according its preliminary results released to the Stock Exchange today.

Engaged in bespoke development of the Union Square Workspace product (see last year’s posts Styles & Wood flotation and Styles&Wood – an update), StoreData competes in the UK construction collaboration market, focusing particularly on retail customers (the core market to which S&W targets most of its other services, dominated by its retail fit-out operations) to whom it offers:

“technology based property information solutions that store and communicate critical data relating to their store portfolio and associated property activity. This data can include design models, standards and specifications, asset registers as well as project specific data.”

In 2006, StoreData turnover reached £1.594m (£1.150m in 2005 – 38% growth), and generating an operating profit of £0.425m (£0.181m in 2005). These figures place it some distance behind established UK-based vendors such as my employer BIW, 4Projects and Business Collaborator (results published earlier this week – see: Business Collaborator grows in 2006).

On the division’s performance, S&W chief executive Neil Davies writes:

StoreData outperformed its Plan in 2006 although its penetration of new customers was slower than expected.

We extended the Tesco property data system known as My Property to over 6,000 licensed users to make this the largest system of its kind in the UK. During the year we added new functionality to the system and extended the range of properties we manage. We also implemented the system into Ireland with the prospect of wider international coverage now emerging. StoreData secured a new framework arrangement with Nationwide to develop and support a new Property Information System and for Barclays we created ‘Barclays on a Page’ which helps in the coordination of activities throughout their 1,600 branch network.

We anticipate continued progress for this business in 2007 as we are now confident in securing new customers who see the benefits, particularly cost related, that can be gained from efficient storage and management of property data.

It seems StoreData is persisting with its claim to have “the largest system of its kind in the UK”. Such claims require some knowledge of the extent to which systems have been deployed in other organisations’ supply chains – in the retail sector, for example, I know my employer BIW has large and mature communities of users within Sainsbury’s and Marks & Spencer, while Sarcophagus has also been working with Asda for some years. The BIW M&S system has over 8,000 registered users, comfortably eclipsing the StoreData/Tesco claim.

Incidentally, I wonder if the new StoreData framework arrangement with Nationwide involves the latter migrating away from Business Collaborator? Just a year ago (see: Harvard conference, March 2006 (4)), I saw a joint BC/Nationwide presentation (and met up with Nationwide’s Stephen Head and BC’s Tim Blower) in Boston.

Related post: Leading, largest, global – how do you measure it? (17 February 2007)

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/03/2006_ok_for_sto/

Mar 20 2007

Trust and the team

Last week, I touched on the issue of trust in sharing digital design information. It crops up again in an interesting article, BIM and Risk, by Richard Lowe in the US-based “Constructor” magazine (found, by the way, via the CADwire Insights weekly newsletter). He opens with a simple analogy:

“The argument in favor of using virtual 3D modeling as a way to reduce risk for the construction community seems as simple as the reasons to use seat belts. When seat belts became popular in the 1960s, insurance companies offered discounts to encourage their use to reduce the cost of losses in a crash.

“Today, a similar technological leap presents itself in the construction arena. With the advent of 3D modeling and virtual “clash detection,” the project team can catch potential conflicts sooner and cheaper, with more cooperation from subcontractors. A 3D model offers more specific design information than 2D drawings. Given that the world is 3D and not 2D, how can that additional specificity be a bad thing for project liability?”

Regarding that trust issue – the designers’ fears that someone other than project leaders can change the model without their knowledge or approval – Richard writes:

“That issue can easily be addressed by adopting a protocol where all changes to the model must come from the designated team leaders. They need to establish tight access controls and an audit trail of additions to the model that clearly identifies the source and date of all changes.”

The article also goes on to look at liability protection issues. In Richard’s view, reliance on BIM is no different from reliance on 2D plans:

“That analysis should be no different whether the 2D plans are copied and distributed to someone on the project than if a 3D model is made available to the same person.”

He concludes:

“… the perceived legal risks in using 3D modeling melt away and are outweighed by the obvious benefits of clash detection and greater project collaboration. It should be only a matter of time before insurers offer discounts to encourage clients to wear the clash-detection “seat belts” of 3D modeling. Ultimately, the question will morph into whether team leaders actually increase risks by not using 3D modeling, much like not using seat belts.”

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/03/trust_and_the_t/

Mar 15 2007

Business Collaborator grows in 2006

According to the latest annual report (see Stock Exchange notice) from Coda plc, its subsidiary UK collaboration vendor Business Collaborator continued to grow in the year ending 31 December 2006:

“We are delighted that the strong performance in 2005 has continued again in 2006. The membership of the SEDEX program (Supplier Ethical Data Exchange) has continued to grow. This, together with significant new customers gained during the year has resulted in operating profits (before goodwill amortisation) of £0.5m (2005: £0.3m) and an operating profit of £0.1m (2005: £nil). Operating profit margins (before goodwill amortisation) reached 19.9% for the year. Operating profit margin 5.9% (2005: 0.1%)”

Business Collaborator turnover grew from £1.923m in 2005 to £2.350m last year (up 22 per cent). Operating profit in 2006 was £139,000, up from £4,000 in 2005. BC’s deferred income (presumably fees in respect of licences yet to be invoiced) at the year-end was £0.4m.

To put this into some kind of context, UK market leader (and my employer) BIW Technologies turned over £4.66m in the year to 30 September 2006, has been trading profitably since May 2006, and made a profit of £170,000 in the last three months of 2006 alone – see BIW news release. While BC appears to account for most of its licence fees up-front, software-as-a-service provider BIW only accounts for fees actually invoiced during the year and its deferred income is now over £8m.

Related post: BIW’s growth continues – but what about the others? (08 November 2006)

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/03/business_collab/

Mar 14 2007

SaaS boom to continue

 

“According to Gartner, the market for SaaS applications grew by 26 percent last year, from $5 billion in 2005 to $6.3 billion in 2006. The consulting firm expects demand for SaaS to continue growing at a 25 percent compound annual rate over the next five years, to $19.3 billion by 2011. Most of those dollars are going to new entrants rather than established software vendors like Oracle, SAP and Microsoft.”

Read the full ASPnews article: Vendors Missing the SaaS Wave.

A similar positive view comes from research by Saugatuck Technology, reported by Phil Wainewright: SaaS hits the hockey stick reports “a huge jump from 18% last year to 49% this year of companies planning to use SaaS for mission-critical applications.”

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/03/saas_boom_to_co/

Mar 14 2007

UK CAD managers survey 2007

Last March, I wrote about Evolve Consultancy‘s UK CAD Managers Survey 2006 (see Email used to issue 65% of CAD information). The 2007 edition has just been published, but as I can’t afford £199 for the full results, I will have to make do with the main headline findings summarised in the news release. No mention here at least of ‘project extranets’, but, if the same questions were asked, I would be interested to know what the results were and if the upward trend continues.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/03/uk_cad_managers/

Mar 14 2007

DWF v PDF v other formats

In my book, I devote a short section to discussion of the file formats commonly used in construction collaboration. A more comprehensive overview of the subject is given in David Harrison’s Stress-free blog, in an article entitled Why Autodesk should ‘Open’ DWF. David extends the analysis beyond my basic comparison of DWF and PDF formats; he covers the benefits and limitations of:

  • bitmap images
  • vector-based images
  • Office productivity documents
  • traditional 2D PDF
  • Flash animation
  • proprietary 2D/3D CAD format
  • Standard 2D/3D CAD format (DXF, OpenDWG, OpenDGN)
  • Proprietary Building Information (BIM) Model
  • Standard Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) Model

David points out the key requirements of AEC information exchange: consistency and protection of intellectual property.

On the first, he believes that design information formats (as opposed to data oriented formats) and their associated reader applications employ measures to ensure that information exchanged with team members is displayed in a consistent manner across all platforms.

However, the intellectual property issue is perhaps harder to crack. David writes:

“Increasingly for many AEC professionals the digital model is the lifeblood of the design process and the source of most chargeable activities. Literally giving this model to untrusted members of the design team could compromise future income streams, devalue their role in the design process, or raise legal liability issues if the model was used inappropriately in such activities as simulation and engineering studies. Formats for design information exchange protect intellectual property by enabling the author to communicate a limited subset of the entire digital model in a manner that cannot be reutilised for anything other than its intended purpose.”

This sums up the traditional view of projects in which designers are loathe to trust any other member of the project team. And yet, in the UK construction industry, at least, some teams are being encouraged to embrace collaborative working. My previous post, for example, was about the new JCT contract, and the news release twice uses the word “trust” in its description of the contract’s underlying principles:

“The new contract is based on trust and fairness: the overriding principle, which is stated early in the contract, is ‘collaboration’. The purchaser and the supplier – the terms used in the contract – should have the intention to work together with each other and with all other project participants in a co-operative and collaborative manner in good faith and in the spirit of mutual trust and respect.”

I am looking forward to seeing how the new JCT contract works in practice. As an advocate of collaborative working and promoting transparency within project teams, I will be particularly interested to learn how far designers embrace the principle of trust in sharing design data.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/03/dwf_v_pdf_v_oth/

Mar 14 2007

JCT collaborative contract

I’ve been very busy recently so had to miss the launch of the new JCT/Constructing Excellence contract at the House of Commons in London on 1 March (see news release).

It is claimed the new contract form “has been developed by JCT in collaboration with Constructing Excellence”. This is not my understanding. The contract began as an initiative within BE (the BE collaborative contract), now the Building & Estates Forum of Constructing Excellence, and only recently was it decided to team up with JCT in order to tap into their expertise in marketing construction contracts.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/03/jct_collaborati/

Mar 05 2007

Photo library

In a footnote to an article last year, I noted that two separate collaboration vendors (Dochosting Data Management and Business Collaborator) were both using very similar photographs. I hope the photographer is keeping track of his royalty payments – I have just seen the DDM image used in an e-newsletter from Dubai-based Construction Week (see article here).

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/03/photo_library/

Mar 02 2007

Viewing design visuals (2)

Having looked at collaboration for viewing marketing collateral, etc, I have just read a fascinating AECbyte by Lachmi Khemlani. In Exploring Second Life and its Potential in Real Life AEC, she describes her (or her avatar’s) first steps into Second Life – the online virtual reality “alternate” world.

She describes how one US architectural firm, Crescendo Design, created a virtual model of one of its design concepts in Second Life:

“It then lets its client access this virtual model in Second Life and spend as much time in it as they want, get a sense of the design, and provide their feedback. It conducts meetings in virtual “real time” where both the architect and client meet in the form of their respective avatars at the virtual site and tour it together.”

This is a fascinating, and collaborative, alternative to walk-throughs in 3D models, but as an industry we are still a long way from fully embracing 3D CAD let alone BIM or virtual worlds such as Second Life. As Lachmi says:

“virtual worlds can be a powerful and exciting new medium for design review as well as for collaboration. It would be terrific if the vendors of modeling tools used in AEC can work with the creators of virtual worlds like Second Life to ensure that building models created in professional practice can be seamlessly published in the virtual world, complete with all details and textures. When that happens, Second Life can really take off in AEC.”

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2007/03/viewing_design__1/

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