Feb 14 2009

A response to RICS on e-tendering

bldgricsIn a comment article on the Building website, RICS E-tendering champion defends underused system, Peter Sell, chairman of the RICS E-tendering working party, responds to assertions that the RICS should not have ventured into the electronic tendering market (see my recent post RICSe-tendering.com hardly used – not ‘baffling’ – I also commented on the original Building article). I have again responded to some of the points made.

I am not sure there was a “backdrop of apathy, naivety and confusion” when the RICS produced its report – at least not everywhere. Among several software development businesses, for example, there was a clear business opportunity and a strong sense of purpose that drove them to develop e-tendering solutions.

Foremost among these companies were vendors active in the construction collaboration technology space whose platforms were already becoming increasingly widely used for drawing, document and workflow management. While such platforms may not be suitable for every project – particularly schemes of low capital value, short duration and with small teams – they do offer an immediate benefit as a location for e-tendering insofar as existing project documentation will already be held on the system and can be quickly incorporated into the tender issue and management processes.

Moreover, such integrated e-tendering systems do more than simply “passing documents between parties”. Relevant documents, drawings, spreadsheets, photographs, etc can be associated with a particular tender package and systems such as BIW’s also securely manage all queries and addendums, and provide a complete audit trail of all user interactions.

Clients quickly identify the benefits of using an integrated e-tendering system as the costs of traditional tendering processes are dramatically reduced, and tenderers and tenderees do not have to pay to access the online system as, typically, vendors charge clients (directly or indirectly) for their systems on a per-project basis (not “on a by tender basis”).

There is perhaps a place for the RICS to provide a system for those projects where sophisticated construction collaboration platforms are not deployed (and any secure electronic system has to be better than reliance on distributing and/or printing out hundreds of sheets of paper), but, where they are in use, it is naive to expect teams to switch to a separate stand-alone system and thus destroy the completeness of the project record that is enabled by such systems.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2009/02/a-response-to-rics-on-e-tendering/

Feb 13 2009

McGraw-Hill and Meridian to collaborate

Yet another AECcafe story (also carried by Cadalyst). McGraw-Hill Construction has formed a partnership with construction project management software vendor Meridian Systems to provide “more streamlined tools for managing digital program and project controls, project documents, and construction information”.

The relationship will see Meridian’s software, including Prolog and Proliance, integrated with McGraw-Hill’s Construction Network and its Project Document Manager system (developed jointly with ReproMAX – see June 2006 post). I believe ReproMAX was the result of a previous collaboration between Meridian and Adenium Systems (see 27 April 2006 post).

Such a relationship between a publishing house and a software vendor reminds me of the UK association between Reed’s Contract Journal and 4Projects, launched in late 2005 and which hasn’t exactly revolutionised the fortunes of either business.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2009/02/mcgraw-hill-and-meridian-to-collaborate/

Feb 13 2009

Who needs Auto-PDF?

AECcafe.com has details of a new application that automatically converts online construction data such as RFIs and submittals to downloadable PDF files, “increasing convenience and enhancing security for architects, contractors, owners and developers” (or so claims US-based software vendor Construction Communicator). The news release says the PDF file format “is particularly valuable when traveling, when an Internet connection is not available or when it is more convenient to send an attachment by e-mail than to go online.”

I wonder how popular such a feature will be. Internet access is increasingly widely available (in the UK, for example, 2008 Ofcom figures show two thirds of households have internet access, most of it broadband – while the US figure is apparently even higher); the time taken to log into an online system will probably be about the same as it would be to find the relevant PDF on a laptop; and sending a PDF by email kind of defeats the object of having a centrally-held audit trail detailing all project communications, doesn’t it? I am also not clear how issuing forms as PDFs “enhances security”; it seems to suggest that there is something about the existing online issue process that isn’t secure.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2009/02/who-needs-auto-pdf/

Feb 13 2009

Is the recession hurting AEC IT?

Has the global financial crisis and the knock-on effect it’s had on the construction industry begun to hurt ICT providers? It looks like it. Looking this morning at AECCafe.com, for example, I saw results announcements from Tekla and Deltek.

Tekla’s 2008 results show the business achieved 2008 sales at broadly the same level as 2007, while the final quarter was about 4% down on the corresponding quarter last year. President and CEO Ari Kohonen says:

“Sales in our main business area, Building & Construction, developed with some difficulty after the favorable first quarters. … Of B&C’s main markets, development was negative in the Nordic countries and the United Kingdom due to the recession in the construction industry. …

“The economic recession will continue for the time being, and its duration is unknown. Operating result will be clearly lower in 2009 than 2008. The beginning of the year is challenging in particular….”

Deltek had a record year in 2008, achieving total revenues of $289m, but the revenues in the final quarter were also down on the previous year’s, reflecting what Kevin Parker, Deltek president and CEO, described as “increasing economic uncertainty“.

I will monitor the results of other AEC IT firms with interest over the coming weeks.

Update (18 February 2009): Avatech (according to AECcafe.com) was “negatively affected by the downturn of the national economy” in the final quarter of 2008, reported revenues of $9.5 million, compared to $12.9 million in the prior-year quarter.

Information Age reports a TechMarket view that the combined revenues of the UK’s software and IT services companies will shrink by 3% in 2009, and that the sector will continue to shrink until 2011.

 

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2009/02/is-the-recession-hurting-aec-it/

Feb 10 2009

Show Us a Better Way: update

I wrote several times last year about, Show Us a Better Way, the UK Cabinet Office’s competition to make more information publicly available (see 07 November 2008 post). The SUABW blog now has an update about progress on the shortlisted finalists – some of which are directly related to the built environment, including a Roadworks API (“We are again looking at the data issues”). The related Power of Information Task Force has also compiled a beta report to submit to government.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2009/02/show-us-a-better-way-update/

Feb 09 2009

Deeper recession: SaaS and AEC

Since my post last month on the likely impact of the global financial crisis on the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market and on SaaS (and other ICT) providers in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) sector in particular, I have seen one or two other SaaS bloggers echo my thinking. The latest is Jeff Kaplan.

In Is the Bloom Off the SaaS Rose? he writes:

“Now that the economy has sunken into a deeper economic decline than almost anyone anticipated, the SaaS industry is feeling the same pain that has afflicted every other major sector. … Despite the compelling business benefits of SaaS, corporate and IT decision-makers are holding back on purchases. And, corporate layoffs are cutting into the subscription levels of current contracts.”

He discusses the difficulties at Salesforce.com, suggesting that its problems are compounded as most of its growth has come from large-scale enterprises, especially in the financial services sector. Jeff reckons Salesforce.com will survive, saying it is “still the biggest and among the most influential players in the SaaS and cloud computing market,” before adding: “I’d much rather be in the on-demand services sector than the housing or automotive industries” (my emphasis).

Of course, it’s not just the housing sector that is struggling. Great swathes of the rest of the AEC sector are also under great pressure, not least the commercial building sector, suffering through the withdrawal of projects from financial services clients, private residential developments and leisure schemes, among others. And this is not just a localised phenomenon.

As well as the downturn we’ve experienced in the UK, several overseas markets have been affected – most notably Dubai, but also elsewhere in the Middle East. Once a magnet for UK construction businesses, hundreds of expatriate workers are now being hurriedly laid off as some of the Emirates biggest developers scale down their property programmes. Nakheel, a client of [my employer] BIW Technologies has postponed work on several flagship developments, including Nakheel Harbour & Tower, although work continues on some of its less glamourous schemes, such as Jumeirah Village (which I visited last November) – see Construction Week article. Similarly, Construction Week has reported that Aldar Laing O’Rourke, a joint venture between Abu Dhabi’s largest property developer and the well-known UK construction company (and minor shareholder in Asite), is cutting a further 320 jobs, focused on its Al Raha beach project – a scheme managed using Aconex, I believe (see 20 June 2008 post).

As projects are mothballed or discontinued, and as staff are laid off, there will inevitably be fewer projects to be managed using SaaS-based construction collaboration software. This in turn makes it almost inevitable that the vendors working in this market will see turnover drop and will – just like Salesforce.com – have to make some difficult decisions in the months ahead if they are to remain financially viable. Private equity-backed SaaS firms may come increasingly under the spotlight as the challenges of servicing their debt grow, as may those still reliant upon loans from their principal investors.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2009/02/deeper-recession-saas-and-aec/

Feb 03 2009

Let’s make construction more ‘social’

[This is a re-post of a blog article I wrote for Building Sustainable Design, which launched this week.]

I have spent more than half my career in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) and property industry looking at issues relating to collaboration, and since 2000 have been focused on how to use internet-based technologies to support collaboration. ‘Support’ is the operative word: people collaborate, not systems. Successful collaboration is only 20% technology, the other 80% is all about people and processes (the balance may even be more extreme: 10/90, perhaps).

So with this focus on ‘people’ it was perhaps inevitable that I got involved with ‘social media’ or ‘Web 2.0’. Broadly speaking, this relates to the use of web technologies and design to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. Tools range from blogs, RSS feeds, iGoogle and social tagging to extranets, wikis and Second Life, to name but a few, running on PCs and, increasingly, mobile devices.

But what does all this have to do with creating a more sustainable built environment? For me and a growing number of others, quite a lot.

The climate change agenda is forcing major changes upon our industry. And it’s not just about more efficient energy use, reducing waste or safeguarding habitats. It’s about the ‘three Ps’; truly sustainable approaches strike a balance between environmental, social and economic factors, between Planet, People and Profit. As an industry we need to be thinking more holistically about how we can deliver a better, more sustainable built environment, from planning and design, through construction, to facilities management and beyond. Collaboration is the key.

Conventional, often insular and adversarial approaches to delivering building projects have proved very wasteful. More integrated, collaborative approaches hold out the possibility of creating long-term efficiencies gained by working together, in teams, through supply chains and across sectors, and by sharing information, ideas and experiences. Web 2.0 will help support such collaboration.

The Be2camp project

During the summer of 2008, a small group of construction bloggers and other enthusiasts organised a not-for-profit conference about Web 2.0 and the built environment. Held at the Building Centre in London in October, Be2camp featured live presentations alongside contributions from speakers in Australia and the USA, plus, most importantly, lots of debate and discussion – both face-to-face and online (in the spirit of open collaboration, the presentations, event recordings and some of the online discussions before, during and after Be2camp 2008 are all viewable here).

Public data, mapping, email overload, community networks, charrettes, carbon footprints, real-time building energy use, architecture in Second Life, and cloud computing all featured as topics – often with strong sustainability 3Ps messages.

Is construction anti-‘social’?

Since the event, the Be2camp website has supported an online network of AEC people interested in using Web 2.0 more widely. However, while that community continues to grow, there remains relatively little take-up of Web 2.0 among the wider construction industry. Compared to other sectors, there aren’t many construction blogs; few AEC professionals use Twitter; many remain ignorant of RSS feeds; and online discussion forums can end up dominated by cranks. Why such under-use?

  • First, while innovative in its use of some technologies, I think the industry is still quite conservative when it comes to new ICT tools.
  • Second, it is an age thing: according to surveys, the take-up of social networking tools is high among early career professionals but older age groups are less inclined to use them.
  • Third,  collaborative attitudes are often passively or even actively discouraged within construction businesses and project teams. In 2009 – the 15th anniversary of the Latham Report advocating ‘partnering’ – only a minority of projects (possibly less than a quarter) are created by integrated teams working collaboratively.

How do we change things?

  • Well, first, some change is inevitable. Blogging is increasingly common (Twitter even featured on the BBC news), many websites now feature RSS feeds; learning materials (eg: Pam Broviak’s guide) are starting to appear; and some AEC institutions are experimenting – the Institution of Civil Engineers is building networks using Ning and the RIBA has a wiki, for example.
  • Second, notwithstanding the current downturn, the industry still faces a skills shortage and web-savvy youngsters will be recruited and bring their collaborative attitudes and behaviours into the workplace. As when email became mainstream, managers and organisations will need to learn and to adapt their processes to meet the challenges and opportunities.
  • Finally, industry organisations such as Constructing Excellence, the Strategic Forum for Construction and professional bodies should be promoting collaboration – and Web 2.0 as part of its support mechanism – as a key component of truly environmentally, socially and economically sustainable construction.

Technology on its own won’t help us build a more sustainable construction industry, but it may offer 10% of the answer.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2009/02/lets-make-construction-more-social/

Feb 03 2009

Building Sustainable Design

The first issue of Building Sustainable Design is now out, accompanied by a website, blog, multiple RSS feeds, Twitterfeed, and other features we have grown to associate with publications in the UBM (Building magazine) stable (I liked the short video welcome from editor Andy Pearson – a nice touch).

Aimed at readers in the low-energy building design community, I understand this publication supersedes the joint venture project with CIBSE, Building Services Journal, thus maintaining UBM’s presence in this sector. CIBSE, meanwhile, is launching its own membership publication, CIBSE Journal, this month.

Related post: Media and Web 2.0, Tweet and print (28 January 2009)

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2009/02/building-sustainable-design/

Feb 02 2009

Tackling ‘the interweb thingy’

Over the weekend, I enjoyed reading a BBC Business article by Tim Weber from last week’s economic summit in Davos. In How companies tackle the interweb thingy, he points out that while every company worth its salt has a website, many “are still struggling to move beyond having a colourful website towards really using the internet to their advantage”.

“And to make things worse, hardly any company knows how to cope with the rise of social media – the Facebooks, Twitters, blogs and YouTubes of the digital world.”

Digital confidence

Tim goes on to say that companies must tackle the “killers of digital confidence”: not just the standard ‘techie’ things such as spam, privacy, fraud prevention and network security, but also the ethical aspects such as “being honest and upfront with your customers“.

The internet is proving a challenging environment for traditional media, turning what used to be a tightly controlled “walled garden” into a vast digital universe with multiple sources of news and comment, much of it – of course – of variable quality and accuracy. Drawing on debate at a Davos seminar last week, Tim picks out ‘social media’ as one of the most disruptive developments. Behind “human interaction in a virtual world“, is a “teeming jungle of social networks that allows people instant communication with hundreds or thousands of ‘followers’, ‘friends’ or plain old readers.”

Yet most companies have not got a clue about social media, he says (“for example, they run sanitised and boring corporate blogs, from which critical customer comments are purged”). This is risky: “failing to engage with social media … could potentially lead to the destruction of a company’s brand“. However, he continues:

“… used the right way, companies can turn customers into partners, through instant feedback that allows constant product development. Even better, done the right way (and with the right product or service), you can gently persuade happy customers to commend you using social media. That is advertising that no money can buy.

The AEC challenge

I know I may sound like a stuck record, but I believe this lack of appreciation of the potential impact of social media is even more marked in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) markets. As I suggested last week, the AEC media are realising that the print ‘walled garden’ has been breached, and – particularly with recruitment and other advertising revenues under severe pressure due to the severe recession affecting the whole construction sector – they are looking to diversify into the ‘interwebs’, but many of their existing and potential readers (or ‘friends’ or ‘followers’) have yet to follow them in embracing and interacting with social media (see my follow-up Few architects Tweet… post).

One example: just this morning, my friend Brian Green, of the Contract Journal-endorsed Brickonomics blog, was bemoaning to me the lack of feedback from readers to his posts, some of which he had written to be as provocative or gloomy as possible simply to evoke a reaction. I suggested that it was perhaps a symptom of low awareness and/or of industry professionals’ conservative approach to ICT. Another indicator of this might be the relatively low levels of traffic through AEC-focused discussion forums (the CJ Construction Space forum now has 115 users, while Building‘s slightly older community has grown to 555 users).

Update (03 February 2009): I meant to add a further question that Brian and I discussed: are the commercial teams of traditional media businesses comfortable with e-media ? I won’t labour the point as this Econsultancy blog article, Publishers must adapt to economic and digital trends, makes some valid points.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2009/02/tackling-the-interweb-thingy/

Jan 30 2009

RICSe-tendering.com hardly used – not ‘baffling’

Building today reports that the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors‘ e-tendering system has been used only 50 times in the 15 months since its launch. The institution is said to be ‘baffled’; its executive director Joe Martin remarks: “never underestimate the power of inertia.”

Drivers Jonas partner Mike Cuthbert is scornful of the RICS becoming a tender provider: “There are lots of well used e-tendering services. Why would anyone go to the RICS? I can’t believe that’s the main purpose of a professional institution.”

I hate to say “I told you so”, but … I told you so. When it was launched in October 2007, I said ricsetendering.com would struggle against existing e-tendering services offered by several of the established vendors of construction collaboration technologies (eg: 4Projects, Asite, BIW [my employer] and Sarcophagus). These, unlike the RICS system, allow tendering to be fully integrated with other electronic project information exchanges, and many project team staff use them routinely so don’t need additional training to use an external system.

Permanent link to this article: https://extranetevolution.com/2009/01/ricse-tenderingcom-hardly-used-not-baffling/

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