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2. FW: Interesting thing on the evolving online construction industry

• Posted by Greg Viger <gviger at AMEGORY.COM> Feb 22, 2000
• 583 views

Oops.. sent this to the Euphoria list by accident.. sorry about that..

-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Viger [mailto:gviger at amegory.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2000 4:32 PM
To: Euphoria List (E-mail)
Subject: FW: Interesting thing on the evolving online construction
industry




-----Original Message-----
From: Greg Viger [mailto:gviger at amegory.com]
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2000 6:35 PM
To: gviger at amegory.com; alex at amegory.com
Subject: Interesting thing on the evolving online construction industry


Team Up on the Internet
By Susan Smith
So phenomenal is the growth rate of Internet collaboration startups, the
industry language hasn’t had time to keep up. Terms such as hosted,
in-house, and application service provider clutter the playing field, yet
provide very little definition of real functionality. Because the industry
is growing at a blistering rate, we will try to steer clear of these vague
terms and instead describe the product offerings themselves. I interviewed
users of some Internet collaboration software to give you an idea of how
these products can make you more productive. See Table 1 <2inet.pdf> for a
list of these products and others. This isn’t a complete list of all
Internet collaboration tools, but a place to start your search for the right
on-line tool for you and your team. Many project management system vendors
have formed alliances with Internet tool providers or have developed their
own Internet tools to offer their customers enhanced and seamless
functionality to view and work with files over the Internet. Internet tools
are generally easier to use than project management systems, and are
accessible by every member of a project team. This has brought e-mail
notification and file sharing to everyone, whether in the office or out in
the field.
Security is a big issue because many firms rely on consultants, who may work
on competing projects for other firms. But despite suspicion about hosted
Web sites, the walls between the various hosted projects are impenetrable
and should not cause political strife. More corporations are moving toward
an out-of-house hosted Web site whether they have an IT department or not.
Most of today’s collaborative tool users are beyond e-mail and file sharing.
The challenge for many providers of Web-based tools is to provide software
that can handle a large workload, and make it possible for team members
scattered over diverse sites to share information simultaneously—while
maintaining a comfortable, easy-to-use interface.
Another shift is toward a total solution for the building and architectural
industries. Because a project is the basic unit of organization in the
building industry, this is not an unusual goal. Vendors form alliances with
regional directory providers of most major markets across the United States.
For example, Primavera’s alliance with PurchasePro has resulted in
PrimeContract.com, designed to reduce time and costs of procurement for
buyers and sellers of construction products.
Internet tools range in price according to what they offer—a common project
account can cost around $1,500 per month per project, with a user account at
$150 per month. In-house server and software licenses may differ in price
according to how many seats will use the license, but can range as high as
$100,000.
So what’s the real value of these tools? How will they save you money and
time, and increase productivity on your projects? Why not just use e-mail
and an FTP site to post drawings?
Team Up on the Internet
Page 2: Web collaboration
Those organizations that work with smaller or less complicated documents can
use an FTP or a project-specific Web site. However, an FTP site has
limitations.
The price of hosted services is initally arranged on a monthly basis. The
hosted services usually have a limit on the number of users who can access a
given project. Generally speaking, users can log on with a password and
post, view, review, and mark up files. Most hosted offerings include a
history of the various changes just in case they must recall previous
iterations. Managers can limit access to those who are qualified to view the
project drawings, and you can add others as needed.
With C-Talk Design Review from Advanced Collaboration Solutions, you
         and
other users can simultaneously review and markup CAD drawings.
For small firms, this approach usually works just fine. But for companies
with multiple projects, it can become more costly. At that point some larger
companies switch their service to an in-house server and software
arrangement, which means an initial outlay of possibly $100,000.
One of the primary issues for companies is whether to rent or buy a server.
If you rent a service, somebody else essentially holds your data. If you buy
the software and server, you control your own data. Obviously, physical
ownership of data is critical to many companies.
John Thompson, senior project manager at SOSH Architects in New Jersey,
strongly believes the project-specific Web site is the way to go. "We
recently installed an FTP site to transfer only small drawings or informtion
on our smaller, less formal projects. We use it mostly to distribute files
to our local consultants, as we have had trouble e-mailing drawings more
than 1MB. It’s strictly a dump site to give others access to pick up
drawings. One of our concerns about that site is that once a consultant
accesses the site, they can get into any of the projects we have posted
there," explains Thompson. In comparison, having Cubus host projects lifts
the worry of having your projects accessed by the wrong consultants. All a
project member has to do is go to the Cubus Web site, download the client
software, and register an e-mail address with Cubus. Users can’t access the
project until Thompson grants them access to it.
 Arnona’s viewcad.com, CADViewer, and CADViewer Pro offer a range of
functionality.
The Ohio School Facilities Commission, the state agency in charge of
building and repairing school buildings in Ohio, uses Resource International
’s software on an in-house server. Resource International developed a
communication Web site for Ohio School Facilities Commission and from that
project developed a commercial version—ProjectGrid.com.
What Resource International offered was critical to the Ohio School
Facilities Commission: the ability to summarize financial information and
centralize documentation. "Our Web site offers the ability to upload
photographs of meetings and all the correspondence that goes on," says
Taylor. "We call it our construction management Web site."
ProjectGrid.com—Resource’s flagship product—is a little more focused on
summary and accumulation of data, says Taylor. Not surprisingly, many
features designed specifically for the Ohio School Facilities Commission are
now incorporated into ProjectGrid.com.
Team Up on the Internet
Page 3: Test drive the products
The good news is that many Internet collaboration tools are available for a
month or two for free while you figure out which one is right for your
company. buzzsaw.com’s ProjectPoint is free, as is Inquest Technologies’
ProjectQuest.
         Inquest Technologies’ ProjectQuest provides secure document management,
workflow, and project tracking over the Internet.
ProjectQuest is a simple, Internet-based project collaboration system that
focuses on collaboration from different locations. A standard Internet
connection and Web browser are all you need to access project information
from anywhere at any time. ProjectQuest is an example of a highly functional
system for many small companies working with many contractors in widely
dispersed geographic areas.
Collier & Colantonio, Inc., is a software development company that
collaborates with Duke Energy and other oil and utility companies. Multiple
consultants each have their own sets of data for one big design project.
ProjectQuest is set up on one of their servers and doesn’t require software
on the client’s end. "The client can just use a browser to upload and
retrieve files," says Jeff Allen, MIS and development director. "It’s great
for us because we don’t have to work with any other IT departments—these
guys can get right on the system. It is a big win for us with our clients
because they can get information any time without being dependent on us."
Team Up on the Internet
Page 4: Community acceptance
Having the project collaboration system in place is only the beginning. A
primary issue is getting the consultants to use the tool as more than an
elaborate FTP site. The capability of these systems is great—they can
simplify record-keeping and save money and time with more extensive use.
Once a company embraces the system, the benefits can be numerous. "To make
it really work you have to force the consultants to use that method
universally for communication," says John Thompson of SOSH Architects.
          Bidcom’s RFI dialog box is handy for users requesting information.
BSW International not only sets up real live projects to work on, but uses
the new technology for internal collaboration projects between teams. "It
forces them to use the tool and get over their fears of it. They begin to
understand it’s just another way of communicating and managing information,"
says president Tom Daman.
buzzsaw.com is an Autodesk venture that offers ProjectPoint, a secure design
collaboration hosting service with tighter AutoCAD integration than other
products can offer (see p. 44). It is one of a number of services available
on buzzsaw.com.
In addition, it offers a news service with industry columns, weather, and
syndicated headlines; industry content such as ProFile, Architect’s First
Source, ManuSpec, SpecData from CMD Group, etc.; a searchable database of
on-line industry resources; and services to deliver on-line meetings and Web
cameras for job sites.
         Bentley’s ProjectWise is designed for engineering project extranets. It
provides real time publishing and collaboration using the Internet and a
browser client (left).
Architectural firm WAT&G uses ProjectPoint on several large projects. Jim
Grady, CAD manager, says the product is very simple and is fine for posting
drawings to the hosted Web site. "It gets the drawings out there so the
consultants can work on them," says Grady. "It goes further than FTP in that
it tracks who gets the drawings, who downloads the drawings, and who views
them. It locks out those people we don’t want to view them." ProjectPoint is
free up to 100MB, beyond which you pay a modest price. Grady says, "I can
add users, change security, and manage the site very well. I can have a user
on it in a matter of minutes."
WAT&G also helped in the developmental stages of BluelineOnline, which they
use on projects that require RFIs (requests for information), site
administration, and other support. WAT&G used BluelineOnline during the
design and building of the world’s largest hotel, The Venetian, in Las
Vegas, Nevada. WAT&G was able to complete The Venetian within two years as
opposed to the projected four-year schedule, due in large part to
BluelineOnline. In addition, the fact that WAT&G had a clear audit trail
minimized the chance for costly law suits that are common in such big
projects.
Team Up on the Internet
Page 5: Total solutions
In the area of alliances, EVOLV announced its alliance with Bricsnet. They
created, with a few more companies, Bricsnet.com, an e-marketplace for the
building industry. ProjectCenter is now available on Bricsnet.com, which
includes data from AEC Info and a building content library.
On-line libraries of information prove invaluable to some AEC firms.
Brasfield & Gorrie, a Birmingham, Alabama, general contractor, credits the
Blue Book of Construction Materials with reducing database management
overhead in his company, because Blue Book keeps information current.
Under the terms of an alliance between ConstructW@re and Blue Book, Blue
Book is notified each time there is a change in a subcontractor’s address.
The Blue Book also validates information on various subcontractors.
ConstructW@re has introduced an Internet Plan Room through
www.constructware.com, a commercial construction portal available to the
construction community.
         ThePigeonHole’s Redline Tools makes it inexpensive enough for anyone to
work on the Internet.
The Internet Plan Room is a portal built for construction people, according
to Chris Stockley of Brasfield & Gorrie. "Not only does this portal host the
initial plans, but it also hosts the plan changes as they occur throughout
the project lifecycle and on into maintenance."
ThePigeonHole recently announced a service and training partnership with
Intelligo, Inc. RedlineTool, ThePigeonHole’s interactive on-line
conferencing software product, will benefit from the support provided by
Intelligo. Customers wanted to license the RedlineTool for use on their own
intranets and needed help from ThePigeonHole to set up and train their
people.
Where ThePigeonHole has focused on providing software products and Web-based
services to a wide range of industries, Intelligo specializes in project and
end-user documentation and training of large ERP software implementations.
Team Up on the Internet
Page 6: True collaboration
One prime advantage of getting in on the ground floor with a collaborative
tools vendor is that at this time they are generally most open to
suggestions. You may have a greater say in the development of the tool you
choose simply by virtue of its newness. Also, these software products are
not as complex as a CAD program. People who aren’t technically savvy must be
able to use them almost as easily as they can scribble a message on a
Post-it note.

Hot off the press A new company on the horizon, CollabWare,
                launched
GS-Design, a high-end solids modeling 3D CAD system designed for use over
the Internet. GS-Design was originally developed at Lockheed-Martin to
manage extremely complex design programs such as the F-22 Stealth Fighter.
This CAD system is capable of modeling ultra-large assembles and managing an
almost limitless number of design configurations, according to the company.
Features include built-in configuration control and management, use of
shared data, and a topological modeler that won’t let you create a broken
solid. GS-Design should be available on a month-to-month subscription basis
over the Internet ($29.95/month) early in 2000. Users download the GS-Design
client program and can get to work immediately. You can find more
information and a free trial of the beta product at www.collabware.com
<http://www.collabware.com>. InfoQuick Web #256


Once you’ve had an opportunity to experience Internet collaboration tools,
you can see what would make them a lot better. "We would like the ability to
do some more custom node information and customize some of the views
specific to what we’re doing," says Jeff Allen of Collier & Colantonio, Inc.
Joe Flynn of Margulies & Associates, a Boston architectural firm and
Bricsnet ProjectCenter customer, says that they set up a separate account
for each client, so that one client can’t access another client’s Web page.
"In ProjectCenter 2.0, you can modify the Web page yourself to meet your
client’s needs." When you load something onto the Web site, Flynn says, then
you’re responsible for e-mailing people to inform them that the file is up
there. "It would be great to have a notification system that was simple and
easy to use."
Flynn adds: "Another helpful change would be the option to use our own
forms, rather than the proprietary forms that come with ProjectCenter." Most
architectural firms and contractors have their own forms. ProjectCenter was
chosen by Margulies & Associates because "it was the only company out there
really thinking fast-forward in terms of working with architecture," says
Flynn.
Contract management firm DPR, Inc., is working with buzzsaw.com to add
construction management functionality. Features such as RFIs, transmittals,
document logs, submittals, procurements, and scheduling are all being built
into ProjectPoint. "buzzsaw is using construction professionals’
[experience] to develop the enhancements," says DPR’s Les Fondey.
BSW International represents various clients in what they call
"volume-driven programs," wherein they deliver hundreds of projects on an
annual basis. "After doing 15 years of work with them, we know what their
needs are in terms of project and program management tools," explains Robert
Workman, Chairman and CEO of BSW International. "Our clients also listen to
our opinion and ask for it when they’re making decisions about these tools."
BSW works with such clients as Walmart, Marriott, and restaurant chains that
try to get their products and buildings into the marketplace very quickly.
"They may have a development program over a ten-year period in which they do
100 to 200 projects annually, depending upon program and targets," states
Tom Daman. "This means getting involved in a number of projects all
throughout the real estate process—you have some in the real estate phase,
the due diligence phase, the design and construction phase, all at different
times."
The challenge for BSW is to find a tool powerful enough to manage both the
level of project management information and roll that into program
management information in order to manage clients’ work more effectively.
They have done exhaustive research on the various project management tools
and have found that none are as "broadly developed" in their project
management reach as they or their clients would like them to be for the
volume industry.
"In order to assure ourselves and our clients that we had done our homework,
we set about to help develop those products, test them in-house, and deliver
them to the marketplace," Workman says. "That’s how our relationship with
BluelineOnline has grown and developed into a full business venture."
Page 7: XML on the horizon
Brasfield & Gorrie uses ConstructW@re, construction management software that
helps to tie subcontractors, architects, contractors, and owners together on
projects. ConstructW@re is a business unit of Emerging Solutions. "A true
management tool had to be collaborative in nature or our project managers
would not be able to do what they were hired to do," explains Chris
Stockley.
With Framework Technologies’ ActiveProject, you can build and manage
         your
own Web site.
"The biggest problem with managing projects was that some contractor would
submit an RFI via fax. Then the project managers would type it into their
system and present it to an architect via fax. The architect would get the
information back and several weeks would go by. Then the information would
come back from the architect and we’d have to key it in again."
What ConstructW@re has done is refine the processes so that the
subcontractors can simultaneously key in their information and notify the
project manager. The manager then approves the information, and
ConstructW@re notifies everyone in the loop.
Brasfield & Gorrie has its database in-house, and its ConstructW@re system
is hosted through replication through XML. XML, or extensible markup
language, efficiently lets you customize tags and structures data so that it
makes sense. Then you can merge data into presentation languages, such as
HTML. "Within a couple of years, we won’t host a single application in-house
because we don’t want the responsibility of hosting applications 24/7 for a
construction company," explains Stockley.
"XML has removed the barriers that used to prevent Brasfield & Gorrie from
taking on projects," says Stockley. "We have thought of more work we can
develop in the next two years, just because of XML." "Applications have
changed the way we do business now," says Stockley. "XML will change the way
we collaborate information."
 Page 8: Get on-line
          ProjectTalk.com from Meridian Project Systems is a hosted Internet
application for the architectural, engineering, and construction industry.
It doesn’t take a reorganization of a company’s infrastructure to implement
an Internet collaboration system on-line. Chris Stockley says that for
people accustomed to e-mail, learning to use ConstructW@re and its Internet
Plan Room "is just point and click." He also adds that for the younger
generation, there is almost no training required.
BSW International puts its people through a three-hour training regimen that
introduces the different features of BluelineOnline. A second day is spent
in training specific to their clients and customizing a project Web site for
each client.
Field-to-office communications
Because much AEC work takes place out in the field, the new Internet tools
can also leverage technology such as laptops, palm pilots, and Web cameras.
 Primavera’s Primecontract.com is a new on-line service. Check it out at
www.primecontract.com <http://www.primecontract.com>.
Brasfield & Gorrie has a strategic partnership with IPIX cameras and uses
them on several jobs. "IPIX is basically a Web camera," Stockley explains.
"It has a phone line and plugs into a camera that we put aerial. We put them
on cranes, poles, and on top of buildings. The camera snaps pictures every
so often based on what we tell it to do and then FTPs the photos to
ConstructW at re. You set it to get updates of how a job is progressing."
In the very early design stages, according to Joe Flynn, the Web is just not
"enough" for the amount of action that takes place. "We actually take the
drawings out to the client on a laptop and we do interactive design with
them right there in their office," he explains.
Page 9: All up, all safe

Think it through So you’ve decided to jump into the fray and use
                an
on-line collaboration tool. Be sure to ask yourself these questions before
you commit to a product. What phases of your project will you use the
solution for?  How quickly can the system respond to your needs? Is it
customizable?  How well does the system track your project’s process and how
accessible is the information?  Does the system consolidate project
communication as well as project documents?  How active or passive is the
solution?  What type of security does the system have?
To help speed acceptance of electronic progress, BSW’s Tom Daman says his
firm takes people to see the actual security and privacy infrastructure of
companies. "Most of the clients don’t do the level of due diligence we did,
and they need to be able to meet the technology partners—those who are the
ones hosting the data and the guys managing the pipelines of the data," he
says, adding: "We’ve been able to provide an enormous amount of comfort to
our clients based on giving them that type of information on our research."
Another issue is accountability, according to Bob Workman of BSW. "There’s a
lot of hiding out that goes on in our industry. These collaboration tools
are going to start bringing real time monitoring and communication to bear,
and are clearly going to show where the responsibility lies in the process
at any given time. No one will be allowed to hide out in the system any
more." He adds, "You’re going to find a little bit of resistance just
because people must learn how to add value to their company, knowing they’ll
be in full view."