Mass management

Imagine never having to update computer software, or having to worry about which software version each team member is working to. Imagine, to, knowing that outstanding responses to design queries are being automatically dealt with for you. And imagine having access to a vast up to date library of downloadable building products. These are just some of the claims for buildingwork.com.

Graham Cunningham-Walker, vice president of marketing at Causeway Technologies, says the company looked at the construction industry from a fresh viewpoint. "We asked how [construction industry members] deliver a project, from the client down to the trades operator...and how to deliver something that focuses on the needs of those individuals in an integrated fashion." Cunningham-Walker sees this as a subtle difference to the portals that cater more for individual team members and are aimed specifically at say the contractor or client. Causeway wants to make sure there is "something for everyone" on its portal.

Getting construction members into the internet era is an important step if things are to change: "If we can encourage those people to feel comfortable using the internet, they become part of the information and communication chain, said Cunningham-Walker. "Whether or not they like to use the technology, you've got their attention so we can then start to say, okay, what sort of services do we need to make their lives easier and to make projects run smoother," stresses Cunningham-Walker.

Causeway Technologies emerged from Siteman Software, a company whose products now manage over £5 billion of construction projects. Today, Causeway's service is divided into four parts: a project centre, a resource centre, an e-procurement centre and an information centre.

The information centre is available to non-subscribers as a general construction industry tool, but also to entice users into the paying parts of the service. Within this centre is held ancillary information required by construction projects such as weather forecasts, site maps, and industry news and market statistics. Demonstration project information will also be displayed here, as Cunningham-Walker says, "to whet the appetite" of potential subscribers. Who gains access to the paid areas of the portal and specific project information is a decision taken by the project owner when the initial contract is made.

The project centre will provide access to cost and project management services (powered by Siteman technology). As well as open-book cost and budget management, this is the area where sharing of information and collaboration between project team members is possible: information retrieval, business process automation, electronic document management and virtual team collaboration are all aspects of the project centre.

The e-procurement centre also enables project management, although with slightly different goals. Electronic tenders, enquiry management, product and specification information and document exchange can all be carried out, with full specification and cost information available to carry a project from design and construction to operation and maintenance. An electronic version of paper-file management in this sector uses the Construction Industry Trading Electronically (CITE) standards for the exchange of information, this enables integration of different team members' business applications.

CITE was set-up by the construction industry to look at electronic trading, looking at all the European Standards and how they can be combined to exchange documents effectively. Although this is the standards option chosen by Causeway Technologies, the company does say that if more effective regulations are introduced, it will adopt them.

The fourth sector of the portal, the resource centre, holds Causeway Technology's Tradesmanlink.com. This is a single market place for tradesmen to find projects and offer their services. Over 150 000 suppliers, professionals and subcontractors are linked to a central real-time update service giving users a managed solution for their resource needs.

Also contained within the resource centre will be an on-line database of products. The intention is that full design, specification and tendering for projects can eventually be carried out using this service. The potential benefits of this addition are enormous – the original specifications chosen by the engineers can be embedded within a project's filing system removing the possibilities of failure at a later stage. Much time can be saved in the selection of these products and specifications by simply clicking through an on-line listing which splits the products into sectors. The availability can be checked and similar products compared.

Cunningham-Walker admits, "to try and get all the different components on an individual database is going to be quite a difficult task. [Causeway Technologies] can't do it alone."

SpecNet: the product database

Causeway Technologies is approaching some of the UK's large manufacturers, selling the idea of an environment where they can publish their product information, up to date specifications, photographs, videos and cad drawings. Causeway Technologies will then provide these companies with the tools with which to convert their existing paper documents into a form that can be published electronically and give access to a secure place to publish them directly. This product environment is being named SpecNet.

  Manufacturers are reported to be showing positive response to the scheme. One of the early adopters is Hamworthy, which has committed to putting all its boilers and associated equipment by around the end of October. Causeway also expects to have 95% of UK brick manufacturers' catalogues on-line by Christmas 2000.

A sales force is currently targeting different aspects of the industry for subscribers; some are talking to large construction clients such as BAA and BT, while others are speaking to contractors and housebuilders.

“...manufacturers...can publish their product information, up to date specifications, photographs, videos and cad drawings”

Companies may well have existing services design and internal systems, but these systems have generally looked simply at what users have internally, rather than on how to cooperate on a project partner basis. For example, the m&e clients and contractors may have systems that allow them to do estimating and managing of projects typically in isolation from design engineers and contractors. Causeway Technologies' aim is that all team members will be able to see the effects any variations will cause from the very start of a project. M&E contractors, for example, will be able to overlay their design on top of the architect's and the structural engineers' drawings, so if the client decides to make a change to the layout, the impact on the m&e designs will be obvious.

One very useful part of the proposals is the workflow management. At the project start, the team leader can set-up the workflow intended for that project and the guidelines for its management. The designated team member responsible for managing the project and design responsibility can also be stated as well as which design tools will be needed, by whom and in what capacity.

Time is also part of this workflow management. Project time-frames may be set at the initial contract stage for the project. Subscribers basically decide who the project partners are and how they are going to collaborate on this project, what the primary responsibilities of each member will be and how information will be distributed between the project team. That helps to set the project's timescales.

For example, drawings may published by the m&e engineer but require architects comments or approval within seven days, if this response doesn't occur, the system will then automatically trigger e-mails or phone calls to people.

A third process that could have enormous timesaving benefits is document formatting. Each team member simply states which format they wish to receive documentation in and which standards they must comply to and an on-line translation will be carried out to convert between those methods used by the individual team members. The need to constantly check validity of standards is also removed, as the portal's service will take care of any updating required.

Data security

The security and privacy of data is an important factor. Cunningham-Walker says, "Causeway Technologies toyed with the idea of delivering [the data] to people, but then you say, who within the project team should hold the data? How do they feel about being responsible on behalf of the other members? And do they have the internal IT skills to be able to do that?"

The general consensus Causeway received to these questions was the team members did not want to hold the data, but be guaranteed access to it from anywhere in the world to properly manage the data sources. Causeway Technologies therefore decided to hold the data on behalf of the client in a secure data centre.

There are two aspects to this. The first is software and being able to service the application. There is a basic guarantee provided at the contract stage that clients will always have access to these applications no matter what happens to Causeway Technologies.

The second concern is specific project information. To guarantee security, team members are given encryption codes which will allow them access to data that is designated vital to their part of the project. Part of this guarantee is that again, should anything happen to Causeway Technologies and/or their continuity of service, the project teams will have the facility to go straight to their data and bridge the period until the service is restored. The company that holds this data is Exodus, a global organisation that stores data around the world and guarantees protection against among other things, nuclear attack, outbreak of war and terrorists.

This use of an external back-up removes the need for system redundancy from both construction team members and Causeway Technologies: these companies handle all the back-up, recovery, disaster recovery of files as part of the service agreement with the client. These companies were also chosen because of their size.

The cost of management

The costs of using the services offered by buildingwork.com vary depending on the specific services chosen for individual projects. Some areas are based on a flat subscription fee, others on a user basis; for example there is an area of the system which enables document exchange and on the simplest level exchange purchase orders with suppliers, but it can also be used for project management where the client may ask the architect to change a variation.

Managing the flow of information may be based on a transactional charge where users will be charged on document exchanging in the same way as, say, with a telephone bill.