Built on Collaboration

Cold hard facts on collaborative savings

2010-02-12T17:48:00.008+11:00

Most people talk about the cost savings and efficiencies that collaborative systems can provide, but cold hard facts are often hard to come by.

We have just completed a case study with Saudi Oger in Abu Dhabi. Saudi Oger is one of the leading construction and property development companies in the Middle East and used Aconex on the Sowwah Square development - also known as the Abu Dhabi Financial Centre.

The project team used Aconex for document control and also used the workflows module and the online viewer for document and shop drawing reviews. Following this, they stated that they saved $550k in print costs, and (thanks to Workflows) improved their document review cycles by 20%. The project managed over 1.3 million documents and over 500,000 correspondence items, so the volumes were quite large (although still an order of magnitude smaller than some of our larger projects).

Gerard Couturier (the A&E Division Director) said, "Workflows significantly accelerated and improved the quality of the process. When using hard copies and an FTP site, a 10-day review process often turned into 12 days due to the administrative work required. With Aconex 10 days actually meant 10 days."

This finding is not news to some. As I have heard someone in the industry say recently - "People do not question whether they need a tower crane on a project or not - they intuitively know that they will save money compared to carrying bricks up the stairs on their backs. Now, people are starting to realize the same thing about collaborative systems. Compared to in-house systems or hard copy, they know it will save them real money." Amen.

CIO Magazine's Strategic 100

2010-01-27T10:55:00.005+11:00

Some recognition that Aconex is doing good things, this time from CIO Magazine, which has placed us in their annual list of businesses that are "showing signs of seriously influencing the way technology is bought or deployed". The list is an "indicator of companies that are currently impressing savvy CIOs", and is part of CIO Magazine's Strategic 100, compiled by judges that include analysts from ueber-respected firms like Gartner, Forrester, IDC, Ovum and Frost & Sullivan.

CIO Magazine is published in New Zealand, with an Asia-Pacific focus. You could say (to borrow a famous NZ advertising line) that it's "World-famous in New Zealand", which is fine with us, because we've found New Zealand to be at the forefront of collaboration technology adoption. (Incidentally, you can view that classic NZ advert here. But be warned: there are thighs. And very bad hair-dos).

BIM gowth continues

2009-11-20T16:07:00.004+11:00

I just read a post on the Building Design & Construction Network (www.bdc.com) that talks about BIM adoption amongst US firms. If you are a regular reader of blogs in the construction space (including Extranet Evolution), you may have noticed that BIM is becoming more and more common throughout the industry. It is no longer a question of whether BIM will replace traditional CAD systems, but when.

Essentially, the report states that BIM adoption has reached that tipping point. Indeed, the title of the article is "BIM adoption rate exceeds 80% among nation's largest AEC firms". This is certainly no surprise, although it is less obvious how extensively BIM is actually used in these organizations. Having a BIM license is not the same as using it! But BIM was always going to be adopted first by the very largest companies working on the larger projects, where complexity and coordination issues are magnified.

The interesting point will now be two-fold:

When will BIM penetrate down into the not-so-enormous firms? and
When will BIM systems allow central hosting of the model with people able to remote access and *edit* this model without having to download it?

Sure, people can use collaboration systems to store, distribute, share and even view BIM models (Aconex and others allow all these functions now, which is great for most users), but the real nirvana will be when the BIM model can be manipulated remotely. Bring on the future!

Collaborating for a good cause: the result (with video)

2009-11-12T13:55:00.016+11:00

Time for an update on Monday's post written "live" as 70 colleagues and I renovated a classroom for a children's home in Kuala Lumpur.

The task was a teambuilding event, part of our company's 3-day global

sales conference that has just finished up in the Malaysian capital. We had six hours to do everything needed to turn a disused double garage into a bright, inspirational classroom for some of the 43 kids at the home. While our company, Aconex, started the ball rolling with a donation, a large part of the challenge to staff was to raise funds, on the day, for materials, furniture, and whatever we would need to put on dinner and a party for the children that night. My blog post on Monday was part of that fundraising effort.

The result far exceeded what we, and the Lighthouse home, had dared to hope for. By the end of the day, we had raised over RM30,000 (close to US$10,000), an amount that goes a long, long way in Malaysia. We received support and introductions from members of the Malaysia Australia Business Council, and from the Malaysian chapter of The Lighthouse Club, a construction industry charity (that shares a name with the children's home, but is otherwise not related).

As well as Aconex staff, many of our suppliers and clients came on board, with donations of either cash or materials. One highlight was the gift of an air conditioning unit from from ANZ Cool (thanks to Ms Kuan at the Subang Jaya outlet). Another was the offer by the hotel we were staying at (www.pacific-regency.com) to make the Lighthouse home their corporate good cause for December. A proportion of all food and beverage revenue will go to the home, as will money raised at the hotel chain's corporate Christmas party, and there will be a month long promotional tie in with a local radio station, too. We are hoping that all of this will raise at least another RM50,000, or US$15,000.

You can still make a donation (until 30 Nov 2009) at www.paypal.com. The account is lighthouse@aconex.com. All donations will go directly to the Lighthouse home, and you can read more about their great work here

A final note: part of the challenge was to make, within the six hours, a video that the Lighthouse can use to show other potential corporate supports what can be achieved in an afternoon of fun and hard work. You can see that below.

Again, thanks to those who showed such great support.

Collaborating for a good cause

2009-11-09T17:27:00.012+11:00

As part of a teambuilding challenge at our company's worldwide sales workshop in Malaysia today, I and 70 colleagues from Aconex are building a classroom for 43 fantastic kids who live in the Lighthouse home here in Kuala Lumpur. We started three hours ago and have until 6pm (KL time) today to complete the task!

We have split into project teams (construction, decoration, catering and fundraising).

We have to raise AU$3,000 to buy the construction materials we need to complete the project. We need all the help we can get if we are to get these children the classroom they need!

All of our staff worldwide are pitching in and we're asking friends in the industry to pitch in too.

You can read about the great work of the Lighthouse home here www.lighthousewelfare.org and you can contribute to this great cause by donating through PayPal (go to www.paypal.com) and send money to the account we have setup using lighthouse@aconex.com. Please help promote this live appeal in the next few hours if you can.Remember our cut off time to buy the materials we need is 6pm KL time, 9pm Sydney, 10am London!

Google wave in 2 minutes

2009-10-19T08:45:00.002+11:00

In a follow up to my post on Google wave, a friend pointed me to a slick video that describes Google Wave in just 2 minutes (much easier to digest than the 1hr+ intro video from Google!). You can watch the video here.

As I mentioned in my previous post I mentioned that we saw Wave as a great enabler or embedded technology for collaboration tools. The more I see wave, the more I am convinced of that. You will see some Wave enabled stuff coming from us in the next while.

Getting F1 to the checkered flag...

2009-10-14T17:34:00.005+11:00

I don't like to talk specifically about Aconex (this is not a marketing blog, after all!), but the Yas Island project is one that I mention, purely because of it's size and the volumes of information that were generated and managed on that project and this information may be interesting to some of you.

Some background: Yas Island is a US$40 billion, 25 km2 development located off the city of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The development includes the Yas Marina Circuit that will host the Abu Dhabi Formula One Grand Prix in 2009, as well as world-class hotels, theme parks, golf courses, shopping malls, marinas, apartments and villas. Highlights include the Warner Bros. Theme Park, the Yas Island Water Park and the world's first Ferrari theme park. The developer, ALDAR, is the premier property development, investment and management company in Abu Dhabi.

With the track and related infrastructure needing to be completed by race day on November 1, the pressure was really on. The project team was (typically for a project of this scale) widely distributed across the globe (around 95% of the organizations engaged on Yas Island have their head office located outside of the Middle East). Turnover of staff (and even organizations) is quite common, so having continuity of documentation and information is a challenge that (if not handled well) can cause projects like this to quickly come unstuck.

The sheer scale of documentation and information flow on this mega project is quite amazing. Some of the amazing stats include (and keep in mind that this is only 2 1/2 years into the development):

More than 5,700 users
From 380 companies
Located in 29 countries
More than 8 million documents and correspondence items.
Within the first six months of the project, more than 1,000 people from 80 companies had been trained and were using the system.

Would projects like Yas Island be possible without a web based collaboration tool? I would say quite emphatically - no! The coordination and approvals alone would be mind blowing and the handover process would have taken months longer.

Improving transparency, accountability and efficiency on ARRA projects

2009-10-14T13:18:00.004+11:00

Continuing my US government theme... Earlier today we released a white paper called, "Three critical challenges on any ARRA construction project, and how to overcome them with online collaboration". Although it's written for firms engaged on economic stimulus projects in the US, the content is relevant for anyone involved in construction/infrastructure works.

The paper references an interesting post by Jim Till on his Just Sharing blog called "ARRA Stimulus Funds and Your ECM Project?".

Five things to know before going to Libya

2009-10-09T16:30:00.003+11:00

We've talked before on this blog (here and here) about Libya's construction market - for some AEC firms, it's been a rare bright spot in the current gloom. Our Regional Manager Europe, Yuval Attias, has written an article for UK-based Building magazine called "Five things to know before going to Libya". If you're thinking about entering this market, or are interested to see what the fuss is about, it's well worth a read.

Concrete signs of recovery?

2009-10-07T16:10:00.005+11:00

The Reserve Bank in Australia yesterday raised the official interest rate by 0.25% to 3.25%, making it the first developed nation to do so. Many are pointing to this as concrete signs of a recovery in the Australian (and global) economy. It certainly is a strong statement by the Reserve Bank, and many are tipping another 0.25% rise when the Reserve Bank meets next month, with more rises set to follow... The official interest rate is at historical lows after falling from 7.25% to 3% in just 7 months and the Reserve Bank has hinted that it wishes to raise rates by up to 2% over the next 12 months.

This, coupled with strong job ads (The ANZ job ads index posted a surge in job ads of 4.1% in August and 4.4% in September). Unfortunately the ANZ also predicts that unemployment has yet to peak and will hit 7.25% by the middle of next year (it is currently 5.8%). So there will be more and more people out of work in the next 9 months, which will not be helped by the increasing costs of mortgage repayments.

The other indicators are mixed, with retail sales up 0.9% and car sales down 3.5% last month.

So, time will tell whether the rate rise was too early or not, but it certainly is a strong statement that the powers to be see the economy starting to heat up and they are using monetary policy to keep inflation under control.

US Government embraces SaaS

2009-09-28T13:54:00.001+10:00

I read with interest a blog from the White House (see the blog here) which was announcing the launch of Apps.gov. It is described as an "online storefront for federal agencies to quickly browse and purchase cloud-based IT services, for productivity, collaboration, and efficiency". In other words, it is a way for government agencies to buy SaaS or cloud computing technologies - something that many were reluctant (or unable) to do before due to outdated policies or restrictive procurement processes.

Technology is moving fast, and by using technologies from the 90's, Goverment agencies (and many private companies) have been missing out on the advantages of SaaS. This is something that was acknowledged, with the blog contining to say "Our policies lag behind new trends, causing unnecessary restrictions on the use of new technology. Past practices too often resulted in inefficient use of purchased IT capabilities across the federal government. We are dedicated to addressing these barriers and to improving the way government leverages new technology." Wow. That is a great forward step in policy.

It will be interesting to see how effectively this initiative works, or whether procurement managers will revert to their own and familiar ways?

Google wave and construction collaboration tools

2009-09-15T13:16:00.011+10:00

There has been lots of blog activity over Google Wave - the as yet unreleased communication and collaboration tool. I think we all watched the release video with interest and (often) excitement. But a common comment I heard afterwards was that it looked cool but will it actually make it from concept and idea to an embraced and widespread technology?

Paul Wilkinson blogged on ExtranetEvolution in July about Google Wave and project collaboration. Paul's view is that "Like me, she (Jodie Myers) reckons that Wave is unlikely to replace construction project-specific document management systems for major projects, but reckons it could be used to manage small projects, and perhaps to improve management of meetings, form processing and photo management." I too believe that Wave is unlikely to replace specific construction collaboration tools, but I am not sure that is the point. I see Wave as a component and enabler of collaboration tools, rather than a replacement. As an example, all the construction collaboration tools on the market use email as a component of their solution - it is not a question of one or the other. Software developers often use components to make up a solution, and I see Google Wave as one of those components.

We (at Aconex) have been lucky enough to be one of the companies to get early access to a Google Wave developer licence. Both our Senior Engineering Manager, Paul Smith, and our Principal Engineer, Paul Cowan, both have a great network of contacts in the development world, not least of all through Paul Smith's involvement in the Apache Software Foundation. So we are already looking a Wave and how (or whether) this will form part of our solution in the future... but we have already identified several areas that look like promising candidates. But more on that later...

By the way, you may have noticed that the photo at the top of the page now only includes me. Don't worry, nothing has happened to Leigh! My new role as Product Director at Aconex has given me a greater opportunity to analyse collaboration technology and the industries we operate in, so I'm keen to dedicate more time to sharing what we find on this blog. As always, look forward to hearing your views!

Big savings, robberies and chocolate bar wrappers: A few tales from the field

2009-08-14T15:18:00.000+10:00

We recently ran a competition within Aconex, asking staff to send us their best stories about why clients said they used a collaboration system. An iPhone was at stake so competition was fierce. Here are a few of my favourites, starting with one of the more sensible entries...

"A client that implemented our system on a high-rise office tower development in Australia recently told us that, over a three year period, no variations were paid due to incorrect documentation - a first for them. They said that they typically paid variations as high as 1% of project value due to poor document management. They also said that by managing their project information online, they saved around 2.7 tonnes of paper."

Good to hear! However this one, from one of our US-based client service team, takes this biscuit for most compelling reason...

"My latest trip to Columbia was an interesting one. The day before I flew in, the client for a pipeline project had their office robbed. Some employees were tied up and all their computers were stolen. So, as you can imagine, you can't implement a system with no computers! The client said to us how they wish they had our collaboration system before the robbery, as they wouldn't have lost all their project information. I guess you really never know when your data could vanish!"

And finally, also found this one quite amusing...

"A document controller in the UK once told me why he enforces the use of Aconex across his organisation. He said he once went to retrieve some important hardcopy documents in a box, and when he opened the box all that was in there was an old paper plate and a chocolate bar wrapper, NOT the very important documents that were needed."

Three reasons why online collaboration is essential on Alliance projects

2009-08-10T08:12:00.000+10:00

Front page of Australia's main business newspaper, The Australian Financial Review, last week, was the story that, to help state governments deliver high-risk infrastructure projects, Treasury officials are developing a national set of principles for 'alliance projects'. This would mean that, on publicly funded works, governments would share the burden of cost blow-outs and delays with contractors.

Often called a "pain-share/blame-share" arrangement, alliance projects help both parties to pull together towards the common goal, without the commercial barriers, red-tape and finger-pointing that can slow things down. Without question, this is a positive move and should fast-track the complex projects needed to boost the economy, while ensuring optimum use of public funds. Whether other countries that are also in a hurry to push through stimulus package-driven infrastructure projects follow a similar path remains to be seen.

With an alliance project, it's only logical to use an online collaboration platform. In line with the spirit of the contract, parties working together with common goals should use common systems. Using a project collaboration system facilitates a culture of trust, supported by transparency and information sharing – both major contributors to project success.

On top of this, I can think of at least three reasons to use an online collaboration system on projects of this type...

These are large, complex projects that will involve dozens of companies, sharing hundreds of thousands of documents and mails. They should be using a collaboration system anyway!
As well as streamlining communication between parties, both entities (and indeed everyone on the project) benefit from the gains in efficiency. What would be the point in one party using a best-in-class online collaboration system to manage their project information, while the other gets buried in paper documents?
In the event of dispute, the audit trail on a collaboration system can often help to resolve the matter quickly, without souring the relationship by resorting to litigation or arbitration.

Has anyone (successful or unsuccessful) worked on an Alliance project? Be interested to know your views regarding the client-contractor relationship.

Lower your project's blood pressure - use DWF

2009-08-05T18:35:00.003+10:00

Rob looked at some of the time savings that online collaboration systems can bring to a project in his previous posts here and here. This got me thinking about efficiency, and how even choices about the small things like file formats can make a difference. Using DWF (Design Web Format) over PDF for drawings is one that comes to mind. DWF is a secure file format, typically used when issuing drawings for review or approval, as they are non-editable, and much smaller in size than a PDF.

Bit of a gory analogy, but I like to think of the circulation of drawings on a project as its 'life blood'. If we think along these lines, we can say that the there are two ways to increase the flow of blood. One (very expensive) way would be to increase the size of the veins and arteries. When related to the use of an online collaboration system, this would be the equivalent of increasing the size (bandwidth) of everyone's internet connection. The second (and free) way to increase the blood flow would be to make the blood thinner. This is the equivalent of using DWF instead of PDF.

The benefits of DWF over PDF are well understood by design consultants, so you would think that DWFs would be the industry standard. Yet it's amazing how many project professionals prefer PDFs. Perhaps it's because virtually every computer has Adobe Reader pre-installed, or it could be the misconception that DWFs require expensive software to view them.

It's important to remember that DWF is not a replacement for native CAD formats such as DWG. The sole purpose of a DWF is to allow designers, engineers, project managers, and consultants to easily view and comment on drawings, without the need to change the drawing or to own AutoCAD software.

So, how much time and bandwidth is saved using DWF over PDF? I read an interesting post by Shaan Hurley on his Autodesk blog where he found that DWFs were 11 times smaller in size than PDF files, with no discernable difference in quality. Therefore, when you consider the enormous volume of drawings created and distributed over a project's lifecycle, it makes little sense to still use PDFs.

Any thoughts? Have you noticed increasing or decreasing acceptance of DWFs in the industry?

Risky Business

2009-07-29T11:51:00.003+10:00

An article titled 'How to Minimize Project Delays' was posted on the news website Industrial Market Trends last week, which highlights the importance of communication and information management in controlling delay-causing risks. Interesting piece and good to see project collaboration recognized as a key influencer on on-time delivery. If you'd like to read more on this topic, the article references a whitepaper that we put together a couple of years ago titled 'Risk Management in Construction'.

Retrieving your project information faster than a Google search

2009-07-06T12:23:00.000+10:00

A manager from our product engineering team told me today that our average system response times are now faster than Google. Nice analogy! Basically, over the past 18 months, his team have worked hard to improve response times when a user is searching for data, getting the results right down to around 0.1 of a second. This is despite the load of information on the system more than doubling over this period. When doing a Google search and checking the response time at the top right of the screen, I have rarely seen one lower than 0.1 of a second (although I'll stand corrected if you can beat this consistently!).

In the context of the efficient running of construction and engineering projects, this is great news, and a good illustration of how far collaboration systems have developed over the past few years. Factors such as faster server response times and web acceleration technology give the entire project team a better user experience. Perhaps as much as features and functionality, this is what drives adoption and usage, helping those on the project to capture as much information as possible.

Handover: Managing project information when the show's over

2009-06-28T10:18:00.002+10:00

We obviously talk a lot on this blog about the benefits of using collaboration systems during projects, but what about at a project's end? The Handover process - where all the documentation relating to the built asset is transferred from the project team to the client/developer ready for operations - is an important process when a project draws to a close.

A comprehensive handover is essential as it provides operators and those responsible for defects liability with the data they require for asset management - from where electrical cables and gas pipes are positioned to the specifications of door frames and lighting fixtures. If there are flaws in this process, clients can end up wasting time and money trying to source or reproduce documentation, and can be exposed to risks relating to health and safety and other compliance standards. Over the years, I've heard numerous horror stories about this data being missing, and new fit-out contractors drilling around live utility cables - not good!

We're working on a large, multi-faceted development in the Persian Gulf at the moment which involves several separate packages as part of one master development. Combined, the project teams have generated several million drawings, documents, tenders and correspondence items, which, under the developer's insistence, have been stored and managed using a collaboration system. Now that contracts are coming to an end, this is looking like a very smart move.

Because all data from across the program has been managed using a collaboration system, the developer is finding the usually fraught handover process a relative breeze. For the first time, they are sure that all the participants are able to contractually complete the formal handover. For them, this means three things: 1) All contractual conditions are met, 2) All documentation, from as-builts to variation requests, is stored in one secure, online archive, and 3) Document retention regulations are followed in a very cost effective manner. And this has all been done at the click of a button, with no need for vast paper archives.

A SaaSy Salesforce.com video

2009-06-18T14:49:00.001+10:00

Over the past few years, Salesforce.com have undoubtedly been the leading lights in furthering awareness of the Software as a Service (SaaS) model and, more recently, Cloud Computing (this article explains the subtle difference between the two).

Yesterday, one of their sales reps sent me a link to an excellent video which, in just a few minutes, clearly lays out the benefits of using applications delivered using the cloud computing (and SaaS) model, compared to self-hosted software.

Their arguments are as applicable to our business (web-based collaboration for construction and engineering projects) as to theirs (customer relationship management solutions). We often get asked by companies why they should use a SaaS-delivered project collaboration system when they (or their head contractor) already have a document management system. So, if you want to get a fun and easy-to-digest overview of why SaaS-delivered systems are the best way to go, this video is a good place to start.

A good night for Aconex

2009-06-10T14:14:00.003+10:00

Pleased to say that our company, Aconex, won three categories at the 2009 iAwards, Australia's main awards for the information & communications technology industry. Having made it through our state round, we won the best Industry Application, Exporter of the Year and the overall 'best of the best' award (which has the nice title of 'Inspiration Award'). Great for our business and a good reflection of the high demand for construction collaboration technology globally.

I was in Dubai at the time so couldn't attend, but company co-founder and Built On Collaboration blogger Rob was there to collect the awards. Our video, which was played when we won, has been posted on YouTube and can be viewed below (in case you're wondering, a definition of "multi-tenanted SaaS" can be found here!).

New service for firms looking to enter Libya

2009-06-01T14:48:00.003+10:00

As mentioned in this previous post, it has been interesting how much Libya has been popping up in the news lately. There's an article in Building Global (the online version of the UK's Building magazine) which reveals details of a new service, provided by The South East Centre for the Built Environment, aimed at helping small British construction firms to enter the Libyan market.

The service includes introductions to other firms and advice about how to set up business in the country, how to obtain visas and how to repatriate revenues. At £13,000 (around US$20,000) it's not cheap, but apparently they've already had expressions of interest from about 45 companies.

Why the interest? According to the Libyan British Business Council, Libya's GDP is predicted to grow 8% from 2008 to 2011 and it has a massive construction program underway, including a £100bn infrastructure works plan.

In the Related Articles section underneath, there are articles about Italy committing $5 billion to support Libya's construction and infrastructure projects over the next 25 years, and details of Libya's plans to build a $5 billion economic city for oil and gas businesses. The latter is part of Libya's plan to massively increase oil production and begin exporting gas. It aims to nearly double its crude oil production by 2012.

Interesting times in Libya. We're engaged on some massive housing, education and infrastructure programmes there, including some major airport developments in Tripoli, Benghazi and Sebha. Definitely a market we'll be keeping an eye on.

Managing project correspondence: Want to save 25 seconds per mail?

2009-05-26T11:49:00.004+10:00

Along the same lines as my recent 'Man vs Machine: The Race to Revise Documents' post, one of our clients has taken out their stopwatch and done some research into the time it takes to perform common information management-related tasks using an online collaboration system compared to using their internal document management tool and email.

The results make interesting reading and (unsurprisingly) reinforce the greater efficiencies of using a collaboration system. When comparing how long it took to file a project mail (e.g. an RFI, advice, notice, instruction, variation, etc.) using each system, here's what they found...

	Internal document management tool & Email	Online collaboration system
Step 1	Read email in Outlook	Read email
Step 2	Read attachment	Read Attachment
Step 3	(Switch to document management system)	-
Step 4	Navigate to the folder the email should be stored in	-
Step 5	Select to import email	-
Step 6	(Switch back to Outlook)	-
Step 7	Drag email from Inbox into document management system folder	-
Step 8	Delete email from Outlook	-
Time Taken	32 seconds	7 seconds

Table: Filing a received mail using an internal document management system and email compared to using an online collaboration system

Because collaboration systems automatically index and archive all incoming mail through one central platform, the process is six steps and 25 seconds lighter. When that is multiplied across dozens of mails a day and an entire project team, it's easy to see where the gains in efficiency lie.

A couple of our clients have done other 'side by side' comparisons on tasks such as drawing review and searching for info, so I'll try to track down the data and add one or two more. Anyone out there heard about or done similar comparisons?

Getting New Delhi Airport ready for takeoff

2009-05-20T14:40:00.003+10:00

Our marketing guys have just put together a case study about the New Delhi Airport Terminal 3 project's use of our collaboration system. It's an interesting project due to its size (US$2 billion), scale (world's 2nd largest terminal) and dispersed project team (of the 70 firms engaged 45 are based outside India). But what's remarkable about this development is the schedule they're working to so that it's completed in time for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

The construction timetable has been compressed to just 39 months. To give you some comparisons, the new terminal at Changi Airport in Singapore took 76 months and delivery of London Heathrow Airport's T5 and Beijing's Terminal 3 each took 60 months.

With time pressures like that, it's hardly surprising that they didn’t want document and correspondence management to slow them down and so (wisely) selected to use a web-based collaboration system. From what I hear, they've made good use it, already managing around 100,000 documents and mails a month on the system.

As part of the case study, the head contractor, Larsen & Toubro, had some interesting things to say about the challenges they faced - such as distributing documents to over a thousand engineers, limitations of email, trying to manage 500 mail items a day and needing to access files on the move - and how using a collaboration system helped solve these issues.

Maybe I'm being biased but I think it would have been near impossible to complete this project to that timetable without the use of a collaboration system. The Indian government is looking to fast-track a number of infrastructure projects (particularly much-needed road developments), so hopefully they'll look to New Delhi Airport as an example to follow.

Stimulating reading

2009-04-23T16:50:00.006+10:00

Like many companies in the AEC industry, we're looking with interest at the stimulus package announcements and hoping that each one has a sizeable chunk allocated to infrastructure investment.

Nearly all major economies have announced at least one package so I thought that, to get an idea of where the opportunities lie, it would be interesting to compare them and see what they've put on the table for infrastructure spend.

The figures below are all in US dollars and have been converted using current rates. The $265 billion stimulus package put forward by the European Union is additional to these figures.

Country	Stimulus Announced	% of GDP	Infrastructure Investment	Types of projects
United States	Feb 09: $825bn	6.0%	$120 billion	Transport: $46bn Education: $21bn Energy: $31bn Water: $6bn
Canada	Dec 08: $30bn	2.4%	$12 billion	Public works: $4bn Green Energy: $1bn Schools: $2bn
Germany	Jan 09: $63bn Nov 08: $42.2bn	2.2% 1.3%	$33 billion	Education/Health: $10bn Roads: $1.3bn Rail: $850m
France	Dec 08: $35.3bn	1.4%	$23 billion	Housing: $2.4bn Public works: $5.3bn
Spain	Nov 08: $14.7bn	1.1%	$10.3 billion	Public works: $10.3bn
United Kingdom	Nov 08: $29.2bn	1.1%	$4.5 billion	Public works: $4.5bn
Australia	Oct 08: $26bn	3.4%	$15 billion	Education: $10.5bn Housing: $4.7bn
Japan	Dec 08: $687.7bn Aug 08: $125.7bn	15.7% 2.9%	$53 billion	Green Energy: $16.3bn Public works: $26.4bn Health: $17.3bn
China	Nov 08: $585.6bn	18.0%	$219 billion	Housing: $4.1bn Regional works: $4.6bn Education/Health: $2.5bn Public works: $4bn

From these numbers, nearly $2.5 trillion will be spent by these countries alone to try and get the global economy back on track. What's interesting to note is that countries joined to the WTO's 'Government Procurement Agreement' can bid on each other's projects. For example, companies from the United States, Canada, the European Union, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Korea, Liechtenstein, Singapore, and Switzerland are all entitled to bid on infrastructure developments in each others' countries, significantly opening up the opportunities worldwide. Companies from Mexico, Australia, and Chile can also bid on projects, as these countries have free-trade agreements with most of those countries.

Although the jury is still out on the extent and timing of any impact of this stimulus spending on the wider economy, the construction industry has certainly taken note. The past few months have seen a deluge of conferences and seminars in most major markets aimed at helping firms understand where the opportunities lie. Aconex has recently sponsored and attended two of these - in Sydney and Houston - and the mood of participants in both cases was cautiously optimistic about the outlook for the infrastructure sector over the next 12 months.

Information 100 times faster

2009-04-17T13:28:00.003+10:00

Following on from my post last month about the impact of internet speed on construction project productivity, I was pleased to hear last week's announcement that Australia's federal Government will lead the build of a national, fibre-to-the-home broadband network. At an estimated cost of up to AU$43 billion (making it Australia's largest ever infrastructure project), the new service will deliver speeds up to 100 times faster than currently available.

On a national level, it's estimated that, when fully operational in 7-8 years, the new service is likely to increase Australia's gross domestic product by 1.4 per cent over a 5-6 year period, adding about AU$15 billion to the economy.

Naturally, my main interest is in the impact it will have on construction collaboration technology and project delivery. The new service will mean that users of online document management and collaboration tools in Australia will potentially be able to access, download and share their files up to 100 faster, leading to significant efficiency and productivity gains. This is an exciting prospect and should help to further drive uptake of these systems.