A close cousin has now taken over as the industry’s IT holy grail. It is the tantalisingly close prospect of an interactive project model incorporating “intelligent objects” downloaded from suppliers’ web sites. Today’s extranets are bringing such a model within tomorrow’s reach.
If the intelligent 3D model is a designer’s fantasy, cost-conscious quantity surveyors, construction managers and clients are even more ambitious. Their IT dream is a system that offers all of the above plus seamless management of the supply-chain and the e-purchase of material and components.
The industry’s advance guard has already achieved the first of these objectives and has built a bridgehead to reach the next two. Called Information Channel and co-developed by project manager Schal, it will be the first commercially available construction extranet system. Already, it cuts costs and improves communications. In the future, it will incorporate intelligent objects and price information.
The product has been developed over the past two years by web specialist Building Information Warehouse, previously known as Virtual Technology. BIW provided investment while Schal offered its expertise on the features, speed and reliability that the industry would expect.
In a few months’ time, BIW will launch the product, offering licences for specially tailored versions. The product should arrive glitch-free and fully tested: as well as the beta versions now deployed on five Schal sites, supermarket chain
J Sainsbury has been running a less powerful version of the system for the past nine months under the name Data Stream.
“The long-term objective is to achieve a 3D project model,” confirms Schal director Rob Spencer, “but we needed a few steps in place before that. This system is part of a progressive development.” Plans are already in place to involve material producers in the development of the intelligent project model. Schal and BIW are also at the early stages of integrating free-standing software systems that deal with project finance and supply-chain management into Information Channel.
Forget the future; what does it do now?
These developments should be completed in the not-too-distant future – but what will the first generation of licence-holders get when they buy today’s Information Channel? In essence, they will get a system that has already been proven to improve the flow of information between clients, consultants, project managers and trade contractors, cut tendering costs, eliminate the conventional “sequencing” of design changes and leave an auditable document trail.
The system will be hosted on BIW’s server in London’s Docklands, which can currently handle the data for up to 500 organisations, but could be scaled up to accommodate any number. Project members will connect to the server using a link that meets their needs: a 2 Mbyte or even 10 Mbyte fixed link, ISDN lines, standard modems or mobile phones.
During prequalification, tendering and design, the Information Channel ensures that every designer and trade contractor has the latest information. Once construction has begun, the powerful database tracks revisions and progress, and an on-site web cam can allow on-line users to see how work is progressing. After completion, the system forms a permanent record that will last as long as the building itself. “We can hand over to the facilities managers a package of information that includes photos, drawings and all of the health and safety documents and manuals,” says Spencer.
Schal is gradually installing Information Channel on all new projects and introducing it to new clients. So far, it has found that the extranet’s main advantage is that it allows participating companies to “pull” the information they require, rather than the industry-standard technique of “pushing” it out to everyone on a mailing list, regardless of how urgently it is needed, or even if it is required at all.
The system is flexible enough to suit each user’s information needs. For instance, instead of a standard home page, anyone logging onto the system arrives at a “headlines” page, which draws their attention to newly-posted documents that are relevant to them. “The system doesn’t use shared folders. Everybody’s version is unique,” explains Schal’s Information Channel project manager, Russell Crewe, whose job also involves training and editing each user’s access rights.
At trade contractor Ductwork Wolverhampton, which uses the system on a Sainsbury’s development at Castlevale in Birmingham, director Keith Preece says that the system has achieved a virtually paperless office: “We used to receive mountains of drawings every day. Everyone used to dread the post on Monday mornings. Now it doesn’t happen. You just punch up what you want on the computer.”
Every outgoing piece of paper – whether destined to be filed or binned – gathers considerable printing, post and administration costs on its journey. Schal estimates that a typical project, requiring 3000 separate drawings with seven revisions each, incurs costs of £378 000. But Information Channel, by reducing the need for revisions, targeting drawings at those who need them and offering the option of partial print-outs on standard inkjet machines, could shrink the printing bill to just £18 000.
Ink, paper and postage costs are easily identifiable and quantifiable, but they are probably only the tip of the savings iceberg. Schal is collaborating on a study by a postgraduate research student at the University of Salford to put a figure on the total saving over a project’s lifespan – in time, in site trips made redundant because of a web cam, and in travel costs eliminated thanks to video conferencing.
How extranets break the CAD barriers
Up to now, the most common barrier to the electronic exchange of drawings has been the use of incompatible CAD systems. Although an extranet does not eliminate this problem, it can reduce its impact. As most project members need only to comment on drawings rather than change them, their needs are met by viewing drawings over the extranet as web pages, and so the problem of file conversion does not arise.
Architects and designers publish drawings from their CAD systems onto Information Channel as web-compatible dwf files, which other team members can then access with full clarity thanks to a free viewing tool called Whip. At the same time, designers can upload editable zipped-up drawings for download by colleagues who need to work on them.
If construction clients – and even Schal’s rivals – adopt the system, the benefits of reduced costs and improved co-ordination could soon start to spread throughout the industry. “It doesn’t make sense to restrict things in e-business,” says Schal’s IT manager Nick Fresson, who is not worried by the prospect of competing firms offering the same service. “We’ve all moved on from the days of bespoke software systems.”
Information Channel shows how far the industry has advanced in a few years. And as it, too, evolves to incorporate “intelligent” components and e-commerce, paper use could dwindle to the occasional sketch on the back of an envelope – if you can find one.
