Oct 05 2011

ProjectCentre.net and its “anti-email” approach

ProjectCentre-logoSome people love email, others hate it; most us, I suspect, are somewhere in the middle, perhaps wearily accepting its necessity, but wishing they got less of it. And yet we often work with applications that add to our email burden, showering us with numerous notifications and demanding rapid responses. I have blogged several times about the issues of using email to manage a construction project (starting with The email argument, February 2006). In my opinion, a better option is an online platform through which messages can be routed and captured, and where there are no attachments, just associated documents, drawings and other files viewable via the central repository. This was the philosophy behind BIW’s platform when I worked for them, and it is also the philosophy behind Australian construction collaboration technology business ProjectCentre.net.

It’s about collaboration, not email

I first wrote about ProjectCentre about three years ago, and felt in need of an update, so last week I talked to ProjectCentre’s IT director Paul Hemmings (right) and sales director Tim Clare (below right). Paul started with his view of the shortcomings of email:

Paul_H_01“With email we could make paperwork move a hell of a lot faster. Instead of snail-mailing a paper form, we could send an email. That was much faster! But the downside was that we now had multiple copies of emails floating around, especially if the item ever got CC’d. When the replies came back, we had multiple emails all regarding the same issue.

“You can have dozens of items all about the same topic, all commenting on the part of the conversation that was known at the time that version of the email was replied to. None have the whole  story; it is up to you to compile all the replies together into a single statement of the ‘truth’.

“That’s when collaboration stepped in. Obviously we needed a better email management system – right? We called it ‘collaboration’ (although I don’t know why; it’s still just email management isn’t it?). This is where ProjectCentre is fundamentally different to most other collaboration systems. It’s more like a secure blog than an email system. Instead of sending something through email, we invite people to look at the only-single-source-of-truth on ProjectCentre. You don’t need to read through multiple emails, because all the comments are on the same document (blog). You can’t possibly be looking at an out of date copy – this is the only copy. It’s a lot like Facebook where we can all see each other’s comments on our ‘wall’. That is ‘Collaboration’.”

Incidentally, mention of the ‘wall’ immediately reminded me of Australian start-up Ennova and its Envision product (post) and of another Australian development: the innovative but soon discontinued Incite Toolbox product (post) which incorporated the social media concept of ‘the stream’ or ‘feed’. US-based start-up Kalexo also developed a similar approach (post).

Forms, issue registers and checklists

ProjectCentre’s ‘form-based system’ is markedly different from its main Australian competitor, Aconex, which in Tim’s view still has a very email-type approach, with its use of Project Mails, plus separate email notifications that users have Project Mails awaiting their attention; “Aconex helps you manage your mails – ProjectCentre helps you manage the project,” he declared. ProjectCentre’s platform also issues email notifications of course, but once users have logged into ProjectCentre, their activities are focused on managing time, cost and quality performance issues through use of forms, issue registers and checklists. Paul explained:

Tim_C_03“Having a register of ‘Requests For Information’ or the like is much easier to manage. You can also easily track who the item is ‘for the action of’ (and for how long) to monitor who is holding up the process. You can even add a Due Date to track overdue items. Centralised checklists are also easy to monitor.

“And now that we have all these forms and checklists, another possibility is to ‘associate’ them. This is hard to do with email, but easy with a blog. We can simply add a hyperlink from one blog to another, such as from a Variation to a Site Instruction to an RFI. The ability to ‘drill down’ into an issue with these links is a huge benefit.

“We have now moved well away from email, and into the world of linked Forms (blogs) that each record the process of dealing with a particular issue.”

Contract and financial management

contractThere are clear similarities here with online construction contract management modules, such as the NEC3 platforms delivered by 4Projects, BIW, and Sypro, among others (post). Interactions about a particular issue are recorded and tracked in ProjectCentre, and their financial and programme impacts can also be easily monitored. Paul described how ProjectCentre was deployed during a $4.5bn schools programme in New South Wales, part of the Australian government’s fiscal stimulus programme. Here, the government client initially expected the system to be used solely for design and construction management, but once they realised ProjectCentre could also be used to track financial changes, they began to use it to monitor the performance of their seven managing contractors. The client could drill down to analyse data by firm, by project, by variation, etc.

ProjectCentre continues to work with developers and contractors such as Westfield, McConnel Dowell and Baulderstone, plus government clients such as the Department of Defence. It has also been deployed to support the rebuilding of earthquake ravaged Christchurch in New Zealand, and has also been adopted by clients delivering infrastructure projects and on mining and natural resource projects (dams, pipelines, mines, etc). The service is currently managing about 5000 logins a day.

This has occasionally called for a some ingenuity in maintaining ProjectCentre’s usual Software-as-a-Service approach. “When you have a mining project in a remote location 2000km from the nearest big town, internet access isn’t easy,” Paul explained. “For low bandwidth situations, we provide the ability to generate a local cache for project documents replicating the online structure. Users will access documents from the local cache rather than the online servers while using the normal browser interface.”

My view

I have made no secret of my preference for construction collaboration systems that try to reduce the volume of email and which centralise the resolution of project issues. While ProjectCentre plainly have Aconex in mind when they seek to differentiate their platform, the potential drawbacks of over-reliance on email could easily be applied to other systems (I know some providers discourage new users from reliance on email, but too many people have become a slave to their inboxes and almost don’t want to work any other way). The ‘blog’, ‘wall’, ‘stream’ or ‘feed’ approach to capturing project “conversations” may also become more accepted – many project participants will be familiar with similar discussion formats applied in social networks such as Facebook. And, as Web 2.0 approaches become more pervasive, old Web 1.0 concepts such as email might be superseded.

ProjectCentre also has a surprising level of financial management capability within its platform. Like some UK and US counterparts, it has seen how document collaboration has become an easily replicated, commoditised product, and has therefore focused on delivering detailed business-critical functionality to its customers – to the point that it was apparently seen by one client as a more cost-effective alternative to implementing a high-end enterprise resource planning (ERP) system from SAP. Accelerating and improving the accuracy of reporting from live projects will be attractive to many organisations, particularly when budgets are tighter and project directors are under ever greater pressure to manage increasingly limited contingency allowances.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2011/10/projectcentre-net-and-its-anti-email-approach/

Oct 04 2011

StickyWorld: From specification to collaboration

StickyWorld opens up further potential channels for construction products people to engage with specifiers, and extend collaboration down the supply chain.

I have done occasional consultancy work over the past couple of years for east London-based Slider Studio, some of it relating to its StickyWorld platform – a collaborative ‘virtual room’ platform that allows richer levels of interaction through use of 360-degree panoramic photography, video and other tools (see ExtranetEvolution blog post, March 2011).

INSITE11

This technology, delivered on a Software-as-a-Service basis and accessible to users through a standard web browser, is this week being used to help extend the reach of exhibitors at BRE’s INSITE11 event in Watford. This two-day event (4-5 October) is showcasing products and services relating to refurbishment and retrofitting, but – as with any event – only a relatively small number of people will be able to spare the time to travel to Hertfordshire to actually see the exhibition. Therefore StickyWorld is being used to capture key information from each exhibitor and make it available online – and not just for the duration of INSITE11, but for weeks and months after the event too.

As a practising architect, Slider Studio’s Michael Kohn has long experience of dealing with product manufacturers and suppliers, and believes StickyWorld can readily be used to carry out conversations in the context of product sales brochures, or project specifications. Dialogue can take place in dedicated ‘Sticky Rooms’, and these can now be embedded in the supplier’s own website, as a professionally focused social media channel. “Using secure private rooms and marking up the documents under discussion with familiar redlining tools, technical sales staff can help the decision-making customer understand their products more fully,” Michael says.

I wandered around INSITE11/StickyWorld.com this afternoon without leaving my desk in southeast London. To date, 19 different rooms have been populated, ranging from virtual tours of permanent BRE exhibits such as the newly completed Prince’s House and the Victorian Terrace, to product showcases for – so far – 11 firms in the Innovation Zone (Slider Studio people are taking photographs and collating further information for other exhibitors throughout the show), with some of this work funded by the Technology Strategy Board’s Modern Built Environment Knowledge Transfer Network.

Visitors can learn about the technical specification of the buildings from the comfort of their own computers, leave comments or questions using virtual ‘sticky notes’, and review technical information about products featured in the buildings. StickyWorld will create a permanent online archive of information and provide a platform for those unable to attend the live event, either in person or virtually, to follow-up after the event.

On my marcoms blog, I bemoan the lack of discussion of StickyWorld among marketing people in the construction sector, but I think StickyWorld opens up further potential channels for construction products people to engage with designers and specifiers during project delivery. For example:

  • Potentially, StickyWorld’s embeddable nature makes it possible for private discussions about project-specific implementation of products and/or materials to be included via, say, a module within a conventional SaaS construction collaboration platform.
  • These conversations might also be ‘richer’ due to StickyWorld’s multi-media capabilities, and, as StickyWorld is quite intuitive to use, supplier users may not need to be trained up to use the functionality of the main platform (useful if their company’s only contribution will be supply of a relatively small quantity of building components or equipment).
  • Moreover, Slider Studio’s philosophy of ‘democratic design’ means StickyWorld might also be used as a consultative tool during public consultation or research about the project, and/or for consultation with end-users of the built asset.

[This is an edited version of a blog post first published on my PR/marcoms blog.]

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2011/10/stickyworld-from-specification-to-collaboration/

Oct 04 2011

Docia sets up in India

Denmark-based construction collaboration technology provider Docia (‘Byggeweb’ in the Nordic market) has started to operate in India through a newly established partnership with Chennai-based software provider Ram Caddsys Pvt Ltd. This announcement follows August’s news of a new project in New Delhi for the Danish Embassy, with VV Architects from Chennai, local contractors and WSP Group.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2011/10/docia-sets-up-in-india/

Sep 29 2011

Unit4 Collaboration launches BC Assure

BCAssure-logoYesterday, I dashed from BIW’s breakfast briefing in London to Reading to catch the second half of Unit4 Collaboration’s seminar on BC Assure. Described as “progressive quality assurance for projects and programmes” BC Assure provides a secure cloud-based platform to manage and audit quality and process compliance.

Launched at Project Challenge in London last week, it has been developed in collaboration with water utility company Thames Water, and Thames’ Paul Meredith was one of the speakers at both its launch and the Reading seminar. The system has also been deployed within Unit4 to help people monitor use of its Plan4 process used in software development and deployment projects.

BCAssure-screengrabAt the core of the system is a ‘grid view’ depicting the process that a project will follow, and what steps are needed to complete the project. Project managers can use the system to monitor progress and identify any bottlenecks, while compliance and quality managers can see what steps have proof of assurance. Reaction from seminar attendees suggested that the system’s use of Red/Amber/Green traffic light indicators was a big factor in encouraging adoption; dashboards help managers get a high-level view of project progress, and they can, if necessary, drill down into supporting documentation. The product was developed to support efficient production of Thames’ project-related Health and Safety, Operation and Maintenance and QA manuals, but – as ideas flowed in the seminar – might easily be applied to other collaborative processes such as bid management, recruitment, etc.

Talk of Health and Safety Files took me back almost a decade to 2002 and BIW’s then ground-breaking development of an electronic, web-based Health and Safety File for Sainsbury’s (functionality soon made available to all BIW customers); I also, much more recently, looked at Aconex’s partnership with Grazer to accelerate the production and handover of post-construction operation and maintenance manuals to clients in Australasia.

But BC Assure is a different type of product. While BIW’s system helps the gradual collation of a library of documentation, BC Assure seems to be more focused on managing, monitoring and reporting entire processes. It helps individual users (and their managers and/or, in distributed multi-company projects, external project partners) identify their ownership and management responsibilities for various documents and activities, and the extent to which they had fulfilled those requirements. The real-time compliance reporting means compliance and QA managers can get an at-a-glance view of how far project stages have been correctly and consistently documented. For a business like Thames Water, working in the highly regulated water industry, achieving and maintaining legislative compliance with standard procedures is a critical issue, and a cloud-based compliance solution meant many responsibilities could quickly and easily be devolved to individuals among its project delivery partners, while maintaining visibility and transparency of the overall process.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2011/09/unit4-collaboration-launches-bc-assure/

Sep 29 2011

COMIT–where BIM meets augmented reality, point clouds and QR Codes (among other things)

Two weeks ago, I mentioned COMIT, Construction Opportunities for Mobile IT, and its forthcoming conference on how smart mobile devices can be used to add value to BIM. Since then (last week), I have attended the COMIT community day and AGM (held at BSRIA, Bracknell) and, from the round-table discussions, it was clear that some organisations already active in the mobile arena have yet to appreciate the implications of Building Information Modelling (BIM) for their business. This November’s conference at UCL in London, though, should help such people understand the challenges – and opportunities – that BIM presents. From the programme (PDF), talks and demonstrations include:

  • Building Information Modelling on an iPad
  • Getting BIM to the field – a surveyor’s role
  • Linking BIM through QR codes
  • Mobile BIM – managing the access and security challenges
  • Capturing 3D Geometry for BIM
  • Augmenting BIM with Reality
  • Using BIM to deliver project excellence in safety, quality and production

Speakers from the Institution of Civil Engineers, BT, Bentley, Halcrow, Costain, Timico, COMIT, Korec and Objective Computing will be taking part, and I will talking briefly on AEC industry use of social media (so there is therefore, of course, a hashtag – #MobiBIM). To book, click here (and tell them I sent you!).

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2011/09/comitwhere-bim-meets-augmented-reality-point-clouds-and-qr-codes-among-other-things/

Sep 29 2011

BIW talks contract administration over breakfast

Yesterday, I attended a breakfast briefing at London’s Building Centre organised by BIW Technologies. The Woking, UK-based construction collaboration technology vendor has been holding a series of early morning meetings to tell existing and prospective customers about its NEC3 contract management capabilities (echoing the efforts of its rival NEC Licensed Content Provider, 4Projects, in August). This event, focused on the NEC Engineering and Construction Contract, attracted 20 people (including me).

Senior account manager Duncan Kneller (disclosure: a colleague from my time at BIW, 2000-2009) delivered the presentation, which started with a brief overview of the company acquired by German provider conject last December (the combined group now claims annual revenues of €17m, employs 170 people and invests €1m in R&D per annum) and background on its commercial and contract management capabilities, which have been in continuous development since the mid-2000s. This is therefore a more mature solution than 4Projects’, and it showed occasionally during the presentation.

Customer use

BIW’s NEC management platform can be delivered as a stand-alone Software-as-a-Service solution (with risk management, change control and reporting now augmented by official NEC guidance notes and flowcharts), or can be integrated with the core BIW collaboration platform so that “works information” can be presented to provide documents and drawings giving context to the various issues raised during contract management. Duncan showed how users can complete proformas and issue them to other parties under the contract; we then saw through the reporting tools how changes might have an impact on the contract sum and forecast final costs, and how project managers could monitor contract compliance.

The BIW NEC3 solution has been deployed on numerous projects (Duncan showed two slides each with about 20 organisation; I did notice many familiar names associated with other collaboration vendors, but – of course – many consultants and contractors work with multiple vendors), and we heard anecdotes from several projects, some dating back to BIW’s first NEC implementations such as St John’s College, Cambridge, others more recent or ongoing, such as Cambridgeshire County Council, Connect Plus, ISG or South West Water. The all-important return on investment question included a Cambridgeshire County Council saving of  £150,000 per year, while Parsons Brinckerhoff had estimated a saving of over £140,000 on administration costs, from using the BIW system.

Set-up of the system depended on the extent to which the standard NEC contract had been amended customised, but rarely took longer than 2-3 weeks; ISG’s system for delivery of the 2012 Olympic velodrome was apparently deployed in just eight days. Costs vary depending on whether customers require the stand-alone NEC solution or NEC plus works information, and the type of project (renovation of a historical building, we were told, is likely to stimulate far more notices than delivery of a highway project).

Contract proformas

Duncan presented the BIW system ‘live’ with information being uploaded and downloaded to the net via the Building Centre’s wifi. The BIW NEC landing page he showed included a handful of standard widgets: a project information box, a task overview (traffic light-style red, amber and green reporting icons are used to denote the action status of tasks), project calendar, and photographs. Showing the set-up configured for a main contractor, he then navigated between tabs for home, works information, main contract ECC, and sub-contract.

Completing pro-formas was straightforward, with mandatory sub-fields changing according to the data entered in main fields, and – in case of doubt – there were links to the relevant contract clauses and to the flow-charts (if required). Standard forms, such as Early Warning Notices, are automatically numbered by the system to avoid any future ambiguity among users, and there were numerous reporting tools to record and track the status of different workflow processes.

Given that many project teams have tended to use Excel spreadsheets for contract administration purposes, Duncan showed how data could be quickly generated and automatically exported to Excel, with some fields colour-coded according to the impacts of project events on, say, the contract cost or the programme. Someone asked if all the programme impacts were aggregated to extend the contract period, but Duncan said that would depend on whether the issue was on the critical path (as with most SaaS construction collaboration platforms, there was no dynamic link to scheduling tools such as Primavera or Asta PowerProject).

Future development

Contract performance could also be monitored by way of pie-charts and bar-charts. As with 4Projects, I didn’t think these were as well presented as in Sypro Management’s interface (see Sypro updates NEC3 interface), but Duncan said ongoing product development would see improvements to the reporting functionality, more dashboard-type views (including ones for mobile devices), and better integration between the application and the supporting flowcharts.

Alongside its contract management functionality, BIW has a more wide-ranging and detailed project Financial Control module, and Duncan briefly showed how users of the latter would be able to see the cost impacts of NEC changes (he also, I think, hinted at imminent release of BIW commercial management module).

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2011/09/biw-talks-contract-administration-over-breakfast/

Sep 27 2011

Autodesk to shift design tools to the cloud?

Both The Register and The Cloud Circle (among others) have reported that Autodesk is to move more of its existing client/server designer applications to run as cloud-based solutions, Amazon Cloud [update: 27 September news release], deployed via Amazon EC2. Both cite the example of SaaS-based construction collaboration platform Buzzsaw as an example of Autodesk’s experience in this space and also mention AutoCAD WS (though there is no mention of the lack of significant development of another cloud-based construction management service, Constructware, acquired by Autodesk for $46m in 2006).

The Register says “Autodesk is planning to take the bulk of its software onto cloud services in the next three years” [my emphasis], starting with tools such as AutoCAD WS, and will be:

“… buying compute time from Amazon EC2 to run a design and visualization suite aimed at small and medium sized companies who are looking to run collaborative design sessions. … The pricing model will be subscription based, with a basic offering for small jobs and then data maintenance pricing if a company needs more computing cycles or fine-grained management of who accesses its data.”

BIM in the cloudThis is a major step for a software business which has grown to industry dominance by selling on-premise applications. While there is growing acceptance of mobile tools and of cloud-based solutions in some areas of architecture, engineering and construction, there will still be many companies and individual professionals who will be sceptical about the security, reliability and responsiveness of externally-hosted applications and data, particularly when it comes to the increasingly data-hungry field of building information modelling (BIM – see my previous posts on BIMaaS) – and the UK, of course, is set on a route to wide-scale adoption of BIM by 2015 (post). There will also be firms whose work (defence-related work for governments, for example) will necessarily have to remain offline and internal for security reasons.

[This is a reconstruction of a blog post originally published on Saturday 24 September 2011. Unfortunately, a database failure at the web-host erased it yesterday – and my website and blogs were down for 12 hours. Apologies to anyone inconvenienced by this.]

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2011/09/autodesk-to-shift-design-tools-to-the-cloud/

Sep 21 2011

Former CTSpace MD now at CadacOrganice

Over the past few years, I have seen numerous employees move from one construction collaboration technology vendor to another. This ‘musical chairs’ process has been common among sales people – I’m still in contact with some individuals who have worked for three or more providers – but it also occasionally extends to directors.

The latest executive to re-surface in a new role is Gert-Jan de Kieviet, formerly managing director for central Europe at BuildOnline. He remained with that business through its 2006 merger with Citadon to form CTSpace, and its subsequent 2007 acquisition by Sword Group before leaving Sword-CTSpace about a year ago, in late 2010 (post). Today, his LinkedIn profile says he is managing director EMEA at Cadac Organice, which sells Microsoft SharePoint-based solutions for engineering document management.

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2011/09/former-ctspace-md-now-at-cadacorganice/

Sep 19 2011

Five PR updates from UK AEC collaboration vendors

More US repro tie-ups for Asite

London-based software-as-a-service construction collaboration technology vendor Asite has just announced a relationships with three more reprographic service providers in the United States. Following its earlier tie-up with the ReproMAX marketing network (see post), it is now reaching out to AEC professionals via LINK Document Services Group, Thomas Reprographics and NRI (the deals appear to be the latest work of Asite’s north American distributor SaaS North America).

BIW now offering super-secure project archives

I recently popped into BIW Technologies’ Woking offices and was given a copy of a leaflet about the vendor’s new archive hardware. BIW customers and supply chain members are now being supplied with their data archived to pocket-sized diskGenie encrypted portable drives from iStorage.  These provide Military Grade 128-bit or 256-bit AES Hardware Encryption, and can only be accessed using a personalised 6-16 digit PIN code similar to using a bank ATM.

iSite’s Cloud infrastructure goes live

iSite (formerly StoreData) has announced DIY chain B&Q as the first customer to migrate to its new iSite Cloud infrastructure. This went live earlier this month (a little later than the August date foreshadowed when the Cloud set-up was first announced), with hosting partner, UKFast of Manchester, providing a “flexible and resilient hosting architecture … to ensure high availability and no single point of failure.”

MPS on the road

Meanwhile, in Cambridge, UK, Management Process Systems says its Contract Change Management (CCM) system has been selected for a major road project in Lincolnshire by existing customer Lincolnshire County Council.  LCC chose CCM for Lincoln’s Teal Park project after using it on two previous schemes.

UNIT4 Collaboration to launch BC Assure

Reading, Berkshire, UK-based UNIT4 Collaboration is launching its new module, BC Assure at this week’s Project Challenge exhibition at London’s Olympia:

“Offering progressive quality assurance for projects and programmes, BC Assure makes it easy for project and programme managers to manage the quality and compliance of projects at every stage via a secure and fully-auditable platform in the Cloud.”

The launch will be at 10.30am on Wednesday 21 September, in the Planning Planet Zone (“Otherwise come to Stand 37 to have find out more”). BC Assure was developed in collaboration with and used by Thames Water, the UK’s largest water utility company (coincidentally, a neighbour of UNIT4, being headquartered just across the road in Reading).

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2011/09/five-pr-updates-from-uk-aec-collaboration-vendors/

Sep 15 2011

COMIT combining BIM and Mobile

For some years, my construction IT interests have brought me into regular contact with COMIT, Construction Opportunities for Mobile IT. My frequency of contact with this membership organisation has grown as construction collaboration vendors like BIW, Asite and Aconex (among others) have developed mobile applications to interface with their web-based services, and as professionals have started to look at smartphones and tablet devices as viable platforms for more than voice and text communication. As a result, COMIT is enjoying a resurgence of interest from industry organisations and from technology businesses looking to develop tools for use across the built environment.

COMIT is looking to capitalise upon the current UK buzz around Building Information Modelling (BIM), and its third annual conference, this year at University College London on 11 November 2011, will be focusing on how smart mobile devices can be used to add value to BIM.

I have attended both previous conferences (last year’s was at Microsoft’s London HQ) and learned a lot about cutting-edge deployment of mobile technologies, from use of RFID and GPS to track site deliveries to the deployment of private social networks and industry use of augmented reality. This year’s BIM-themed event promises to be just as fascinating and will feature speakers from the Institution of Civil Engineers, BT, Bentley, Halcrow, Costain, Timico, COMIT, Korec and Objective Computing. I will also be presenting briefly (on industry use of social media) – but don’t let that put you off! To book, click here (and tell them Paul sent you!).

Permanent link to this article: http://extranetevolution.com/2011/09/comit-combining-bim-and-mobile/

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