Mar 07 2014

Ecobuild encounters

ExCEL (top right) from Emirates Airline cable carEcobuild: where 4Projects talked about an Open API to share BIM data, and I got on the samepage with Kerio. 

The annual Ecobuild UK construction trade show marked its 10th anniversary this week (I’ve been to them all, I think) and now takes place at London’s ExCEL (giving me my annual – only – excuse to use the cable car at North Greenwich to cross the Thames). Client and meeting commitments meant I could only get along for half of the final day, but it was a useful trip nonetheless.

4Projects talking open APIs

4Projects stand at EcobuildPreviously 4Projects CTO, recently crowned global enterprise architect (post), Andy Ward tapped me on the shoulder and we had a brief chat, including talk of an open API (application programming interface). This was also mentioned more than once by 4Projects’ Ross McLaren who gave a lunchtime talk on BIM and collaboration in Ecobuild’s BIMTech theatre.

Ross described how the outputs of the Newcastle, UK-based collaboration vendor’s 4BIM research and product development project include an open API. In theory, this will allow easy integration and exchange of BIM-related data between 4Projects and other solutions used in the BIM ecosystem, but clearly (as he said to an audience questioner) its success will depend on the availability and willingness of other software vendors to offer similar APIs.

Samepage.io

samepage logoMarino Vigliotti, of Kerio (and samepage.io)Walking past a stand displaying Vectorworks and Open BIM logos, I fell into conversation with the engaging Marino Vigliotti who introduced me to Kerio Technologies Samepage.io web-based collaboration platform. Having been thinking a lot about simple collaboration recently, I immediately ‘got’ Samepage. As the name implies, it provides a single webpage where all the participants in a project can share a single view of what needs to be done, using a Facebook-type timeline approach that is immediately familiar and easy to use.

It is a generic collaboration product bringing together elements of social business, project management and content sharing, with secure version control. It incorporates task and calendar lists, and it’s file-sharing capabilities provide a ready alternative to emailing documents or sharing Google Maps, photographs, videos, etc around a group of internal and external collaborators. Instead of multiple copies locally stored, users can access the latest versions in one location holding the ‘single version of the truth’. Marino told me a mobile app is also available but doesn’t yet have the full capabilities of the desktop web-browser version.

Launched in early 2013, Samepage is Kerio’s first cloud-only offering (its core business is delivering internal network management, phone and email systems) and the California-based company runs all its internal business processes (finance, HR, marketing, sales, business development, engineering, etc.) on Samepage, improving productivity and reducing inbound email; customers include the University of Tokyo and Autodesk. There is a free version, allowing up to 10 users to share up to 250 pages with a total of 50GB storage; the paid-for business edition starts at $100/per user per year (or $10/user monthly), with 250GB storage plus 10GB per user.

Skanska, Stockholm and Sharepoint

Nick Tune chairing a BIM session at EcobuildEcobuild’s BIM seminars included one on asset operations, chaired by BRE and BuildingSmart’s Nick Tune, right, and which featured a presentation on the use of BIM in delivering the Nya Karolinska Solna university hospital in Stockholm by Skanska IT Nordic’s Adina Jägbeck.

The hospital is Sweden’s first public-private partnership hospital and, under the terms of the deal, Skanska will be responsible for maintaining it for 25 years, so the company is understandably ensuring a high quality of asset information is captured during the design and construction process to help future operation and maintenance.

Adina talked briefly about how the project had created a common data environment, similar to that envisaged in the the UK government’s recommendations for BIM implementation, and described how Microsoft’s Sharepoint was being deployed to help capture asset information, viewed using SharePointViewer. I think this surprised some people in the audience; I talked to two afterwards who both said they had avoided using Sharepoint due to the time and cost involved in configuring it for effective construction team use. Clearly, at least so far on this project, Skanska has been able to deploy it, though Adina did say it was still early days and they had only just started to export test data from the system to a Maximo CAFM system to see if that worked.

 

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/03/ecobuild-encounters/

Mar 07 2014

Real-time, mobile and social: FieldLens launches at ConExpo

Mobile-first collaboration provider Fieldlens offers a more mobile, open and real-time approach that reflects contemporary technology use.

While many UK construction folk have been visiting east London’s ExCEL and wandering around the Ecobuild exhibition halls this week (more about this later), in the US, it’s ConExpo-Con/Agg time in Las Vegas. Among the technology exhibitors at the latter (at booth 65180) is mobile field management vendor FieldLens.

FieldLens - logoFieldLens has been on my radar for about a year, and I wrote about the company in October 2013, when its mobile-first approach to construction collaboration grabbed my attention, along with its shift from email-type communication processes to mobile-friendly short-form status updates and messaging shared via news feeds similar to Facebook’s Timeline. Then the service was free for beta testers. ConExpo 2014 sees the official US launch of FieldLens (news release). CEO Doug Chambers has emailed beta users to say:

FieldLensAfter more than a year of building our product, testing, listening to our beta users, rebuilding and even more listening, FieldLens has officially launched to the construction industry.

… Our mission has always been to provide you the best field management tool possible, and we can’t wait to show you what we’ve built. Sign up for your free trial today to see for yourself.

And we’re just getting started – we’ve got a development pipeline full of new features that will blow your socks off in 2014. FieldLens is about to become the most important tool on your jobsite.

Now launched

After the free 30-day trial, users can sign up and pay US$15 per user per month (if paid annually; $20/user/mth if paid monthly). FieldLens is designed to help construction professionals document, assign, and manage site issues using any smartphone or tablet (well, so long as they are iOS or Android) or the Web. The news release says:

FieldLens is the first and only social media technology developed specifically for the construction industry that enables entire project teams to instantly connect and collaborate with one another. Everyone on the jobsite, from subcontractors and general contractors to designers and owners, can use FieldLens for streamlined communication and collaboration in the field.

Information is organized into project-specific newsfeeds that are filterable and contextually searchable, similar to popular social media platforms.

Users can coordinate tasks and communicate privately with their co-workers, assign and track jobsite issues with other companies, and easily export branded reports and live project feeds to both users and non-FieldLens users alike.

Chambers says:

Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter connect people using realtime newsfeeds that allow for instant photo sharing and news updates. FieldLens uses a similar process, but has made it more robust to match the real-world workflows and needs of construction projects.

A ‘mocial’ view

Photo from @RiversideDSLtd

At ThinkBIM, Graphisoft says the future is mobile

I included FieldLens in a presentation I did at a joint ThinkBIM/COMIT event in Leeds earlier this week (Storify stream). It is one of a host of AEC-oriented service businesses which have sought to capitalise upon social media or mobile (or both – I dubbed it ‘mocial‘) approaches to communicating and sharing information. The explosion in use of mobile technologies, particularly since the advent of smartphones and tablets (Apple’s iPad was first launched in October 2010), has, I think, also stimulated increased use of cloud-based services and growing demand for real-time communication.

This challenges existing vendors of what I now regard as increasingly conventional SaaS construction collaboration platforms. Established as centralised repositories for documents and drawings, and providing workflow management and other capabilities, they captured the traditional paper and email-based methodologies circa 2000 often with response and reporting timescales to match. Some have, of course, responded by creating their own mobile field applications, but their core systems still tend to reflect the one-to-one or one-to-few and asynchronous nature of most AEC project processes.

Companies like Fieldlens and Denmark-based Geniebelt (recent post) are aiming to challenge the incumbents, looking to offer a simpler, more intuitive, more mobile, open and real-time approach that reflects contemporary technology use. Their apps will also appeal to the new generations of ‘digital natives’ entering AEC professions who can be frustrated by the slow, closed and non-collaborative nature of the conventional platforms and processes. With BIM also providing some much-needed industry disruption (the ThinkBIM event included a demonstration of Graphisoft’s BIMx Docs – see post), we could yet see the dramatic improvements in the quality and speed of collaboration within the AEC industry demanded by Sir John Egan and others some 16 years ago.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/03/real-time-mobile-and-social-fieldlens-launches-at-conexpo/

Mar 03 2014

Take care with those AEC IT surveys

Case HP reportOn my PR blog, I’ve just been ranting about poorly executed market research surveys, perhaps ill-targeted, resulting in unrepresentative samples, and maybe asking leading or ambiguous questions. Unfortunately, the outcome of some research can be news releases, reports and white papers that are tailored to support a company’s public relations rather than to genuinely inform a market. So, each time I get sent a survey, I tend to take a deep breath and regard its findings with a healthy degree of scepticism….

Take a survey undertaken last year by US-based BIM consultancy CASE with HP, for example, which generated a white paper (news release; report downloadable here – registration required). This was recently forwarded to me and, at first glance, it looks perfect for me and my interests:

Learn how 429 leading architecture, engineering, and construction firms are using this technology in a 10 page whitepaper by CASE and HP.

Topics covered include
– the rise of cloud based project management
– whether knowledge management systems are actually used
– the portion of firms using enterprise resource planning

However, upon reading the document, it became clear that some findings’ value are diminished due to methodological issues. To their credit, CASE/HP are honest about their survey approach and its limitations:

Our methodology is similar to the NBS National BIM Report and the Design Intelligence 2012 Technology & Innovation Survey …

This report is based on a survey of 429 AEC industry professionals undertaken between June 3 and June 13, 2013. The survey was conducted online and respondents were primarily recruited through invitations in the CASE email newsletter, a post on the Archdaily website, and links in social media.

Considering that respondents were recruited through digital media, it is unsurprising that they tend to self-identify as technological market leaders. This report should therefore be read with the understanding that it is not a representative survey of the entire AEC industry, but rather a glimpse at how leading firms are using technology. While the survey was answered by respondents in thirty-seven countries, the majority (69%) were from the United States of America. Despite increasing globalization in the AEC industry, there are still regional preferences towards particular software. …  in general this report offers American perspective of the AEC industry.

So, in short, it was a self-selected sample, mainly US-based (hardly surprising for a New York-based consultancy), and heavily focused on CASE’s target market – architects and other designers (69% of respondents said their firms offered architecture services, 46% BIM services and 41% interior design). It could not be described as a cross-section of the AEC sector (only 20% offering construction services; no mention of specialist subcontractors or suppliers or manufacturers). If I interpret the numbers correctly, US respondents made up 296 of the sample and non-US respondents 133, from 36 other countries.

‘Project management’

Newforma-logoLooking at the project management findings, the survey found larger firms were more likely to use project management platforms: 54% of respondents said they did, while some smaller firms were starting to use cloud-based storage tools like Dropbox. Of the project management tools used, Newforma was the most popular – deployed by 56%, or 240 respondents, of the sample, followed by Autodesk 360 (27%), ProjectWise (18%) and Aconex (9%). Prolog (5%), GTeam (4%), and 4Projects (4%) ranked just ahead of a group of also-rans (Asite, CMiC, Conject, Enovia “below margin of error” – really, the narrow distinctions after the top three are almost meaningless: the margin of error here is +/- 5%).

The report, unsurprisingly, noted:

“There are regional biases towards particular project management software. The survey’s Australian respondents were more likely to use Aconex, while those in the United Kingdom were more likely to use Asite, Conject, and 4Projects (the sample size was not large enough in other countries to identify differences with any statistical significance).”

However, these so-called project management solutions vary widely in their capabilities. Newforma is a very different type of product to Aconex or 4Projects – it was largely an on-premise, intranet-type solution (though it is becoming more ‘hybrid’ – post) and is popular with large AEC design firms, while the latter are pure Software-as-a-Service tools aimed at supporting geographically dispersed, multi-company project-focused teams, and are more commonly deployed by clients and contractors than design consultants. Some respondents apparently also noted that “document management is not the same as project management”.

The survey also looked at future software intentions and identified growing interest in GTeam – 19% mentioned it, “which makes it the third most considered [behind Newforma and Autodesk360]”. Meanwhile, it also found:

Cloud based storage has seen new arrivals take significant marketshare from incumbents. Firms should look closely at the new range of provider options and be aware that the offerings are likely to change significantly in the coming years.

KM and ERP

If you’re interested, the knowledge management functionality was dominated by Microsoft’s Sharepoint, according to the survey’s respondents: 59% were using some form of KM solution, with Sharepoint used by 65% – even though “SharePoint isn’t targeted at the AEC industry and requires significant customization”. On ERP, used by 67% of the sample, respondents mentioned over 20 different ERP solutions, with Deltek commanding 49% share, ahead of Quickbooks on 17%.

Take care out there

Well done to CASE/HP for stressing the methodological constraints affecting their survey, and for sharing some insights into the current state of IT within a selection of largely US-based and largely design-focused firms. Maybe it gave the NYC-based firm CASE some US-oriented information it needed, but its value to some of the vendor firms discussed is limited. Newforma might be heading its project management listings but there are clearly sampling reasons why they feature prominently and other vendors do not. Take such results with a huge pinch of salt.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/03/take-care-with-those-aec-it-surveys/

Feb 28 2014

Aconex (UK) Limited: steady

aconexThe London-based UK operation of Australian-founded Software-as-a-Service construction collaboration provider Aconex increased its revenues by 13% to £1.766m in the year to 30 June 2013, according to documents filed at Companies House. However, the previous year‘s slight profit wasn’t repeated – a small pre-tax loss of £2,289 was recorded.

Notes in the accounts apparently confirm a view I hear from some of its SaaS competitors: that Aconex has very little share of the UK collaboration market; of its reported 2013 sales, it says 69% were non-UK sales (70% in 2012). (I says “apparently” as Aconex accounts statements can vary from year to year – in the June 2012 accounts, the non-UK sales figure for that year was given as 2%, not 70%.)

Aconex’s UK sales team is smaller than its UK-based rivals such as 4Projects, Asite and Conject, and the company has only occasionally issued news releases on its UK deals. In February it announced a project for Cambridge University; last year it highlighted two wins (in September 2013 regarding London’s Battersea Power Station project, and in April London’s Trocodero); there were no UK win announcements in 2012, and one each in 2011 and 2010.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/02/aconex-uk-limited-steady/

Feb 25 2014

Project Tango, Genie, Google Glass – converging?

Complementing Google Genie, Project Tango could revolutionise on-site real-time data capture, and Geniebelt sees such innovations as the future.

Project TangoProject Tango is Google’s latest project focused on mobile devices and interaction with the 3D physical world. Last November, there was a flurry of speculation about another Google project, Genie (see also Vannevar Technology), and its potential impact on the architecture, engineering and construction market. Project Tango could also have a direct bearing on how we use technology in the built environment.

From point clouds to real-time 3D scanning

Alongside the recent explosion of interest in building information modelling, laser scanning of existing buildings and other built assets has also been drawing attention, particularly when the resulting point clouds can be deployed to help create 3D models that can be imported into BIM authoring tools and other applications. For example:

  • Nick Blenkarn of Severn Partnership demonstrated this at the May 2013 RICS Building Conference, showing how BIMs of building interiors can be retrospectively linked to databases detailing assets contained in those building spaces and used for computer-aided FM (post); his company now has a technology business, SEEABLE, focused on exploiting this approach and delivering it to mobile devices.
  • 2013 also saw a successful Kickstarter campaign raise US$200,000 in R&D funding for Spike, a laser-based device that attaches to an iOS or Android smartphone and enables users to rapidly and accurately measure and model an object up to 200m away, with data managed using Sketchup.

Project Tango has clear similarities with the latter. Google has developed a prototype smartphone containing customized hardware and software designed to track the full 3D motion of the Android device, while simultaneously creating a map of the surrounding environment:

These sensors allow the phone to make over a quarter million 3D measurements every second, updating its position and orientation in real-time, combining that data into a single 3D model of the space around you.

The project has involved Google working universities, research labs, and industrial partners in nine countries, incorporating advances in robotics and computer vision into a unique mobile phone, which they are now making available to developers to create new tools.

AEC use

As befits any early stage research project, the potential uses of the technology have not been narrowed down, with navigation and gaming prominent opportunities:

What if you could capture the dimensions of your home simply by walking around with your phone before you went furniture shopping? What if directions to a new location didn’t stop at the street address? What if you never again found yourself lost in a new building? What if the visually-impaired could navigate unassisted in unfamiliar indoor places? What if you could search for a product and see where the exact shelf is located in a super-store?

Imagine playing hide-and-seek in your house with your favorite game character, or transforming the hallways into a tree-lined path. Imagine competing against a friend for control over territories in your home with your own miniature army, or hiding secret virtual treasures in physical places around the world?

I can immediately see how the technology might be used for on-site data capture – for use in site inspections for quality control or health and safety management, for example – with 3D as-built data captured to augment the outputs of the designers and constructors involved, in much the same way as laser-scanning is already being used to detail completed structures. Or, taking the super-store search analogy into construction, users could search a BIM for a particular product and the mobile device would help you find where it was installed (repair and maintenance opportunities abound here).

Bob LeungAnd it may not stop with the mobile device alone. Paired with wearable technologies such as Google Glass, you could have a powerful way for the user to view context and situation-specific information from a building information model and relate that to his/her physical surroundings, and then perhaps hold real-time conversations with colleagues. Woobius Eye (prototyped in 2010 but never developed into a fully-fledged mobile product) showed signs of how mobile collaboration technology might develop – and with Woobius founder Bob Leung now part of the Geniebelt team, such “see what I mean” capabilities could yet be realised.

Geniebelt

Gari NicksonGeniebelt - we love constructionCoincidentally, I met up with Bob (chief UX and strategy) and three of his new Geniebelt colleagues, CEO Gari Nickson (left), CTO Nikolaj Berntsen and product marketing head Francisco Fernandez, when they were in London last week, and over a couple of beers we talked again about the core ideas. Like Bob’s Woobius simple SaaS collaboration product (post), Geniebelt is envisaged as simple and intuitive to use without training and consultancy support, but it is also intended to be optimised for mobile devices and for real-time change communication (I saw how when a task was changed on a tablet app, its status was immediately updated on a smartphone with barely a flicker of latency).

The Copenhagen, Denmark-based start-up already has a similar name to the secretive Google AEC project, is already tinkering with Google Glass, and, assuming it successfully completes its next funding round, it could also be riding the Project Tango Zeitgeist.

(But will you know when you’ve been tango’ed?)

Update (4 November 2019) – Although Tango was replaced by ARCore, its story is still interesting: What Happened to Google’s Tango?

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/02/project-tango-genie-google-glass-converging/

Feb 24 2014

e-Builder grows through focus on owner/operators and pure SaaS

SaaS veterans Ron and Jon Antevy are helping e-Builder grow steadily by focusing on the detailed needs of major owner/operator customers.

e-Builder-logoFlorida, US-based SaaS construction collaboration pioneer e-Builder will be 19 years old this year, and its founders, Ron and Jon Antevy, appear fully committed to growing through its 20th anniversary and beyond. I spoke to the brothers last week and they updated on the how the business has moved on since we last talked in August 2011.

Growing at 40%

Ron AntevyDespite the global financial crisis, e-Builder continued to grow its revenues steadily at around 40% per annum, and it expects to do the same this year. To support its growth, it has been expanding its workforce which now stands at just over 100 people, and will reach around 135 people by the end of 2014, with the additional personnel roughly equally split across software development, implementation and sales and marketing. President and CEO Ron Antevy attributed the sustained growth to their strategy of focusing on owner/operator customers rather than contractors: “The majority of our customers are in healthcare, education and government owners with ongoing capital programmes. Some survived the recession partly due to the stimulus funding put into the economy.”

These customers, managing some US$100bn of projects on e-builder, are predominantly focused on the North American market, but a handful also have operations in other countries, and if these, as Ron expects, make a big push into other markets, then e-Builder will expand with them…

In addition to the needs of its current customers, e-Builder is looking at two other factors in prioritizing its expansion:  (1) the general desire for owner/operators to bring increased transparency and accountability (especially around project costs) to their projects; and (2) the degree of product internationalisation required.

Ease of use and new functionality

e-builder’s growth has not just been fuelled by increased customer adoption. The company has also invested heavily in making its platform more user-friendly, more mobile (“owners have been taking to this in a big way”) and adding new functionality – particularly to meet the needs of some of its long-standing owner/operator customers. Ron highlighted recent developments including:

  • electronic signature using an integration with Docusign
  • funding source management
  • time-tracking
  • earned value management (EVM is also now offered by European vendor Conject – post), and
  • enhanced analytics and reporting – business intelligence, linking to “big data”

On this final item, Ron said “Some e-builder customers are now back-filling the platform with 10-15 years of back data so that they have all their information in one place and can run detailed analyses across all their assets, not just the ones initially developed using e-builder.”

e-Builder likes apps

Mobile-native access to e-Builder has long been a feature. It launched a Blackberry-based service in 2006 and was one of the first vendors I know to launch iPad-specific apps in 2011. Ron said Apple’s iOS remains a popular choice for operating systems, as does Android, but “Blackberry is dead”. There is no appetite yet for Microsoft Windows-based mobile applications and “we won’t develop any until the market starts pushing for it, and at the moment customers are not asking about it”, he said before wondering if Microsoft’s new CEO might hasten its embrace of cloud-based tools. Meanwhile, he is scathing of rivals who believe net-native web-browser access will offer adequate service: “that doesn’t work – it has to be apps”.

e-Builder’s apps now offered enhanced issue management, better reporting and a commissioning management module was coming soon, Ron said (the second time this month I’ve heard commissioning mentioned; London’s Dome – post – also specialises in this area).

Competitors

Jon AntevySince I last talked to e-Builder, the north American AEC software space has seen some significant activity. Co-founder Jon Antevy highlighted Oracle’s addition of Skire to its portfolio alongside Primavera; we also talked about Trimble (adding Sketchup and Vico to a buildings suite already including Meridian Systems – post), the Textura IPO and about IBM, now owner of Tririga. “These deals have all helped raise the profile of construction software,” Jon said.

While e-Builder was aware that US ERP provider Viewpoint had acquired UK SaaS vendor 4Projects just over a year ago, Jon didn’t see this as a threat:

“First, they [Viewpoint] operate in a another space to us, mainly dealing with mid-range contractors, while our clients are multi-billion dollar owner organisations. Second, we think our focus on SaaS makes us stronger; companies that provide hybrid portfolios of both cloud and on-premise solutions cannot be as efficient as a pure SaaS business delivering a multi-tenant service.

Aconex, expanding its sales and marketing in the US, was bluntly dismissed: “They offer basic document management and have no construction cost module. We don’t come up against them.”

US appetite for BIM?

I had taken time out of the TSB’s BIM competition launch (see previous post) to talk to e-Builder, and Jon said they were watching the UK Government’s BIM programme with keen interest. However…

“US owner/operators, with a few exceptions like the GSA, are mainly interested in what BIM can offer in terms of improved visualisation, clash detection and coordination. They know a bit about COBie but they don’t yet see how BIM might help them improve the operational performance of their assets. It may change as we learn from the UK experience, but BIM is still at an early stage for many of our customers.”

 

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/02/e-builder-grows-through-focus-on-owneroperators-and-pure-saas/

Feb 21 2014

A BIM R&D funding opportunity for SaaS vendors

UK SaaS construction collaboration technology vendors may take advantage of collaborative funding opportunities opened by a new Technology Strategy Board competition for collaborative R&D funding called “Digitising the construction sector”.

TSB-digitisingThe call complements an existing competition to create a digital tool for building information modelling (brief), and also supports the UK’s current BIM initiative. It was launched at Coventry University’s Simulation Centre at an event featuring a keynote from Sir John Egan, whose 1998 “Rethinking Construction” report set the tone for greater use of collaborative technologies in construction (Egan was also chair of AEC SaaS vendor Asite, 2001-2004), and a presentation from David Philp of the UK BIM Task Group. (You can read more about the event via the tweets and photos captured in this Storify.)

The event attracted a wide cross-section of industry and academic representatives, including many smaller businesses interested in the research funding opportunities. I spotted several familiar names on the delegate list (though some were no-shows), including people from 4Projects, Daden (post), Solibri (a 4Projects partner, of course), Basestone (post), SpecifiedBy (post), SEEABLE (a 3D visualisation firm founded by Severn Partnership), Soluis (known to me through COMIT), and Slider Studio and Clicks & Links (both past consultancy clients of mine). The event was chaired by George Martin, a colleague back in the 1990s when we were both at Tarmac Professional Services.

Collaboration the key

A detailed look at the competition’s scope reveals several areas that may be of interest to SaaS collaboration vendors looking to get some funding to develop innovative digital products, processes or services to support achievement of the government’s 2016 BIM target. In addition to design and construction processes, the scope suggests mobile technologies, tools to support whole-life use of data, and adoption of cloud storage:

  • tools that industrialise the capture and processing of 3D data exchange and processing of rich and complex data to enable collaboration between stakeholders. This may include systems that filter and manage data and provide the appropriate level of information for each stakeholder throughout the life cycle of the asset   …
  • remote multi-user working with digital models, for example, on-site access and input to the model or updates on design or progress direct from the factory  …
  • transfer of construction-phase data to the operational phase in a consistent and structured way …
  • BIM and broader digital approaches offering one-stop shop solutions. Services might include secure cloud storage capacity, licensed software modules and integrated project insurance, and new payment methods between stakeholders
The two-stage competition’s scope goes on to say:
We encourage collaboration between the built environment, ICT and digital economy sectors to maximise the benefits and value of using digital solutions such as BIM. This could, for example, be through demonstrating increased client and supply chain collaboration. In particular, we will consider favourably those solutions that enable reductions in capital and whole-life costs, improvements in quality of  construction or reductions in delivery time.
The competition opens for applicants on 17 March, with deadlines for expressions of interest by 30 April 2014.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/02/a-bim-rd-funding-opportunity-for-saas-vendors/

Feb 21 2014

Corecon releases Android app

Corecon mobileCorecon logoCalifornia-based Corecon Technologies has released an Android app to support Corecon V7, its Software-as-a-Service construction estimating, project management and job cost suite.

Corecon released V7 in May 2010 and added some mobile capability later that year so that the software was accessible from standard mobile web browsers, extending it again in October 2012. The latest move allows Corecon to be used on Android-based smartphones and tablets where browser access via the internet is not possible. Corecon’s news release adds:

“This new version was completely rebuilt on the Android platform and tailored for jobsite functions. For example, field staff can take progress photos or sync Corecon contacts directly from their mobile device. Android’s Speech to Text can also be used with the new app to transcribe voice dictation into text whenever it may be inconvenient to text.”

The Corecon Mobile App for Android is free to subscribers of Corecon V7 and can be downloaded from the Google Play Store. Corecon president Norman Wendl says:

“The construction industry has a very mobile workforce, and although Corecon V7 online software is accessible anytime, anywhere from a netbook or laptop computer, it’s not always convenient to use those devices on a construction site. With the release of Corecon Mobile for Android, project team members can now use the full capabilities of their more portable smartphone and tablet devices, taking Corecon V7 users to a new level of real-time project management.”

 

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/02/corecon-releases-android-app/

Feb 17 2014

Dome enters SaaS collaboration battlefield

Dome Technology is looking to build on adoption of its Dome Connect portal and iSnag app and compete in the SaaS collaboration and asset management market.

Dome logoisnag logoJust over a year ago, I wrote about London-based commissioning management consultancy Dome and its iSnag app. Last week, Dome’s IT director Nick Hutchinson invited me to meet and learn more about the business and its expanding range of software.

Today based in a former school building, shared with BuroFour, near London’s Rosebery Avenue, Dome was established in 1995 by two engineers: Neil Miller and Steve Harvey, and specialises in commissioning management and validation, covering all aspects of as-built compliance, including operation and maintenance manuals, asset registers, health and safety files, etc. The company worked primarily for ultimate client organisations – for example, developers such as Hammerson, Stanhope, British Land, Standard Life and Land Securities – but has since expanded its consultancy offering to work for main contractors, helping with O&M documentation, technical authoring, etc.

Dome Connect

Nick told me the group’s Dome Connect software services grew somewhat incrementally out of frustrations often associated with traditional production of O&M information (its retrospective collation after practical completion of a project, concerns about completeness, documentation being kept up-to-date, etc).

Echoing the online compilation of Health and Safety File information developed by BIW Technologies in the early 2000s (post), and by Grazer (acquired by Aconex), Dome developed an O&M delivery tool that could also be used by clients for asset management. “As clients discovered the benefits of electronic delivery of O&M information, they also began to wonder about using the system for full project collaboration as a SaaS alternative to 4Projects or BIW,” Nick said. Adding Oracle’s AutoVue redlining tool to the service enabled it to be used for collaboration, and some clients (eg: British Land on the North-east Quadrant at Regent Place) have adopted it, encouraging Dome to develop more workflow functionality into the Dome Connect portal application.

iSnag

isnag-imageDome’s iSnag mobile defects management app was a logical extension of these capabilities to support its commissioning management, and was formally launched in mid-2012. The first iPhone version immediately attracted interest from UK main contractors including Mace (apparently frustrated by Conject’s by then dated BIW defects tool), Lend Lease, Sir Robert McAlpine, ISG, Overbury and Canary Wharf Contractors (it’s being used on 20 Fenchurch Street – the so-called Walkie-Talkie – for example), and the second major release (“iSnag2”, today also available for Android and Microsoft Windows 8) now forms part of a bigger suite of modular software tools that Dome is progressively rolling out during 2014.

Nick says Dome Connect (hosted by Navisite) is effectively being re-engineered to offer four core modules to cover the whole project life-cycle:

  • project collaboration – including support for BIM, augmenting authoring tools with asset/equipment databases
  • defects management (iSnag2) – available for single users, as well as those managing workflows and reporting via the Dome back-end
  • commissioning management – integrated with scheduling tools including MS Project, Primavera and Asta PowerProject – and
  • post-completion asset management and FM – including APIs to building management systems, and to FM tools such as Maximo

iSnag is licensed on either a per-project basis, or through an enterprise license (customers can buy ‘user bundles’ as their needs grow), and while the initial interest was from main contractors, small and medium-sized businesses have also shown considerable interest in iSnag2, so Dome has created license arrangements suitable for the SME market. The product is also attracting international interest, and opening opportunities for Dome Consulting in new markets – Nick said the business is now working on a $2bn Australian hospital project in Adelaide that grew out of initial interest in iSnag (we discussed different international definitions of defects, snagging, punchlists, quality, etc and common branding challenges – ‘snag’ is Australian slang for sausage!). Partly as a result, the group has established a separate specialist subsidiary, Dome Technology Ltd, to manage its software services.

My view

It is not unusual for a construction business, particularly in the consulting sector, to develop its own software expertise and turn it into a profit centre (Arup’s OAsys is a well-known example), but it can take time for products to become commercially viable (in addition to being useful differentiators and value-adding services to existing customers) and to be effectively marketed as distinct products. This has been Dome’s experience as it has incrementally developed its software services without, to date, really “hard selling” them (some website work, a little PR and two Construction Computing Awards apart).

The incorporation of a new company to develop and market the applications suggests the Dome group now feels it can make these profitable, while also wanting to protect/distance its core consultancy work from its software delivery. Dome Consulting will, of course, remain the spin-off’s major customer in the short-medium term, as the software will often previously have been bundled with the main consulting offering. However, over time Dome Technology will be looking to attract and, importantly, retain new customers who are purely interested in its software solutions.

This will be a tougher challenge, as it will be a new kid on the block – particularly for its project collaboration offering – facing experienced competition from vendors like 4Projects, Aconex, Asite, Conject, McLaren Software, etc. These companies’ existing customers include several of Dome’s – for instance: Mace and LendLease are long-time partners of Conject, Asite has an enterprise deal with Canary Wharf Contractors, and Sir Robert McAlpine and 4Projects go a long way back. And they are all looking to compete in the market for long-term SaaS asset management and facilities management revenues as well as design/construction collaboration. The commissioning management module, therefore, could be an interesting differentiator, built as it is on the consulting expertise of the Dome group.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/02/dome-enters-saas-collaboration-battlefield/

Feb 14 2014

BIMx Docs – some overlaps with BIM+

In her latest AEC Bytes product review, Lachmi Khemlani reviews Graphisoft’s recently launched BIMx Docs app for iOS devices, comparing it to the earlier free BIMx app.

Graphisoft is a Hungary-based international subsidiary of Nemetschek, and is best known for its ArchiCAD design software. Having yesterday looked at the parent company’s BIM+ offering, which includes iPad apps, I was interested to read what BIMx Docs offered, and was hoping to hear about any mobile red-lining or markup capabilities.

However, Lachmi initially focuses on the product’s apparently impressive navigation which allows “seamless” transitions between 3D views and associated 2D documents in ArchiCAD files (note: BIMx Docs only supports ArchiCAD – at least, currently), adding “the user experience of hyperlinks is actually better in BIMx Docs than in ArchiCAD itself”.

BIMx Docs section viewing - from AEC bytes

In her conclusion and analysis, though, Lachmi notes the app: “currently lacks mark-up capabilities, the ability to manipulate the visibility of elements, a search option, etc., that we have come to expect in design review applications”. She hopes future versions will offer such capabilities, urges on Android version (the earlier BIMx tool has been available on Android since July 2012), and highlights the performance advantage over PDF:

One of the other significant advantages of BIMx Docs is that it does not experience any performance issues with large and complex models, unlike, say PDF files, which do not work well for larger drawings. Also, while the PDF format supports 3D models, these haven’t really taken off in the AEC industry in a big way. (Adobe, itself, has stopped developing 3D PDF capability.)*

Given what is emerging with Nemetschek’s BIM+, it seems the group is developing viewing capabilities for models created by different BIM authoring tools, and is enabling mobile annotation capabilities – so, assuming the group’s software people are talking to each other, Lachmi may get at least two of her wishes. And following the October 2013 debut of BIMx Docs, the Graphisoft blog said the BIMx development team was working on an Android edition – so she may get her third one too.

Meanwhile, the Nemetschek BIM+ team tell me the web viewer for BIM+ is optimised for Android tablet, and “Android native is on roadmap but no dates set yet.”

(* – I wrote about Adobe Acrobat XI in October 2012.)

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2014/02/bimx-docs-some-overlaps-with-bim/

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