SaaS: flexible, scalable, affordable
Perhaps 12-18 months behind the UK and US in its adoption rates, but good to see that Australia is catching on to the value of the software as a service (SaaS) model. An article called "Software Engine at the Ready" (login needed to read it) in the 21/8 issue of Business Review Weekly magazine profiles a mid-tier construction firm's use of SaaS technology.
Like most mid-tier contractors, the firm, Ichor Constructions, operates on multimillion dollar budgets on paper-thin margins, and the sophistication of its project management software can decide success or failure. The prohibitive cost of purchasing the required software meant that Ichor was unable to tackle more complex, lucrative projects. The article explains how, by using a SaaS project management tool for its benchmarking and forecasting, they were able to grow from a $15 million company to a $50 million company.
Talking about the initial reasoning behind the shift to SaaS, Ichor's GM is quoted as saying, "Cost was the biggest factor. By running the software on a remote server it's a lot cheaper than owning and maintaining it internally, and I don't need to worry about finding someone with the technical expertise to make my server work."
Whether for tracking forecasting data or managing documentation, more and more construction and engineering firms are moving towards SaaS solutions due to their flexibility, scalability and affordability. In the online document management market we're already seeing the SaaS providers pull away from the pack as clients see the value of this model.
Labels: Global trends
R.I.P. The folder structure
Something our sales guys get asked in nearly every meeting is "Can you replicate our file and folder structure?" The answer is "Yes, but we have 5,600 projects with thousands of organizations taking part. 99.9% of them don't use this set up."
At this point there are usually a few raised eyebrows and a grumble or two. But, when you think about it, using a file and folder structure within a collaboration tool just doesn't make sense. Thankfully (on the Aconex system at least) keyword searching has made it redundant.
An analogy that comes to mind is to compare the Google search engine to the way the internet used to be. If you can remember searching using the original Compuserve, AOL and Yahoo! applications, you had to go all the way down a tree of folders, starting very wide, until you found what you were looking for. For example, if looking for information on Picasso. you would have to ascertain whether it would be held in the Entertainment folder or under Culture. You would then need to find The Arts, then Artists, then Painters, and then scroll until you found Picasso. Would we do that now? Of course not! We'd just tap "Picasso" into Google and wait for the results to appear, knowing the best matches would be near the top.
It's exactly the same with collaboration systems that offer keyword search. Why would you go through five levels of folders (and who would define the levels across your whole project anyway?) to find electrical drawings, when you can punch the word "electrical" into the search bar and get the files you need in seconds, sorted as you want them to appear? Effectively, a folder structure is still there, it's just behind the scenes.
As with the evolution of web-browsers, being able to search on meta data is far quicker than using a folder structure and it also clears up the inevitable confusion (and disagreements) over naming and categorization.
Also, as with the evolution of web-browsers, once they get past "but this is how we always do things", very few people can imagine going back.
Labels: Good practice, Technology
Mega blog
I've come across a blog about one of my favourite topics: mega projects in the UAE. It's filled with interesting entries and, with new developments being announced almost daily, there's obviously no shortage of breaking news and talking points to cover. The author is Brett Siegel who has a property background and is clearly very passionate and knowledgeable about the subject.
One post in particular brought a smile to my face. It's about Jumeirah Lake Towers, a "city within a city" that will include 87 residential, commercial and mixed-use towers situated around man-made lakes and a promenade. It will even feature an "air conditioned buffer zone" where, in hot summer months, the outdoor temperature can be cooled (only in Dubai!).
The reason it made me laugh was because our Dubai office is at JLT and the development is not quite at that stage yet! The last time I was there, my taxi driver spent 20 minutes driving round the site on a dirt road, trying to find another dirt road that would take us to our tower. Because most of the towers are under construction, the roads are absolute bedlam with trucks, labour buses and overloaded vans jostling for space. The image of relaxing by a lake during your lunch break seems a long way off!
But that's the beauty of Dubai. Just a few years ago, the JLT site was an empty patch of land, 30 minutes from the centre. In a couple of years' time it will be a stunning, self-contained community that is a desirable place to live and work.
If you want a good overview of the main mega projects in the UAE, Brett's '10 Most Important Mega Projects in Dubai' and 'Top 10 Mega Projects in Abu Dhabi' posts are good starting points.
Labels: Global trends, Project profiles
4 principles of document revision management
One of the things we like to use this blog for is to share some of the good practice processes that we've identified through working with clients. These can help projects run better and avoid the cost and time impacts of poor information management.
The control and revision of documents is one area where establishing good procedure between participants can really help a project. Areas to focus on include the numbering, revision and status of documents, the control of transmittals, and the maintenance of a document issue register.
Use of an online document management system can ensure a best practice approach to the generation and management of document registers. We've identified four principles of good revision management that should be agreed between the collaborating parties - whether or not an online collaboration tool is being used.
- The document numbering system should be agreed at the start of the project
Clients may insist on implementing their own document numbering system, or participating organizations may combine to create a new system. Whichever way is chosen it is important to make a clear statement about the system and to ensure all parties are aware of it and use it. - The revision coding system should be agreed as part of the above numbering system
The most common revision systems are based on a numeric (1, 2, 3 ...) or alphabetic sequence (A, B, C ... AA, AB, AC ...). In some cases, numbers are used for revisions up to the 'For Construction' issue of documents, with letters used for revisions from that point on. Alternatively, letters and numbers can be combined, with the sequence reverting to a letter at agreed points in the revision process (A1, A2, A, B1, B2, B, C1...). Some organizations develop more complex coding to reflect their own internal review stages (e.g. A1-01, A1-02, A2-01...). - The revision code must continue sequentially from the first issue of a document through its entire life
This allows all participants, including those not involved in the creation of a document, to understand how versions of documents relate to each other. There can be exceptions to this rule if predefined. For example, the revision code may revert back to A or 1 at the completion of each stage of a project. This is a complicated requirement and requires careful management and quality control. - Revisions must be clearly identified within a document
In the case of a drawing, there will normally be a revision cloud around the area of change, with a revision letter placed inside a triangle attached to the cloud. CAD drawings would have this on a revision cloud layer, with a new layer created for each cloud.
We see these four principles as being essential for effective document revision management. Let us know if there is anything you think should be added to this list.
Labels: Good practice
Different industry, same challenges (and same solution)
An article in Middle East technology publication ITP.net highlights an issue in the oil and gas industry that is proving costly, and yet has a tried and tested solution.
It reports that data storage provider EMC held an Energy Solutions Day in Abu Dhabi in June, during which IT management of oil and gas companies talked about managing growing information stores while minimizing downtime and enabling collaboration.
According to EMC, back-up and recovery of data is a key consideration for oil and gas companies due to the amount of information that is distributed around a number of sites or offices. Staff need to be able to store data securely and cost-effectively. They also need to be able to facilitate collaboration between knowledge workers in exploration and production, process safety, operations, and other areas.
To recap, the challenges are that the energy industry involves:
- Complex working structures involving dispersed, multi-disciplined parties
- The need for team members, across several functions, to be able to access and share information in real-time, even from remote locations
- A requirement to maintain a comprehensive and secure archive of data
- A robust, scalable and cost-effective system for data management that includes disaster recovery
Sound familiar? These are exactly the same factors encountered in construction; and the construction industry has been using collaboration tools to overcome them for much of the past decade.
More specifically, the challenges highlighted above all point towards the need for the energy sector to adopt web-based collaboration tools that are delivered using the SaaS model.
Although the resources and energy sectors are progressive users of IT, they are a few years behind the construction industry in their uptake of online collaboration. The gap may be closing, though - we are beginning to see more engineer-led industries (such as mining, oil and gas) recognize the benefit of implementing these tools.
Labels: Global trends, Technology
Collaboration tool leads to 80% reduction in printing costs
I was talking to a project manager at construction firm Hansen Yuncken who said that, by using an online collaboration tool, his project has reduced its printing costs by 80%.
That is really quite an amazing stat. It was easy for him to calculate because they pay a monthly fee to a print centre, so he simply compared his costs to a similar sized project that wasn't using the technology.
If anyone else has tracked how much document management systems save in printing costs, we'd be very interested to hear what you've found.
Labels: Good practice
Not so Excel-lent: six reasons to use a collaboration tool instead
Labels: Good practice, Technology
Venezuela anyone?
Building, the UK's top construction magazine, recently published an article on the merits of doing business in the world's ten fastest growing construction markets, as ranked by consultancy firm Davis Langdon. It's a fascinating piece, and raised a few eyebrows around the office.
Whereas the obvious Top Ten candidates are there - China, India and Russia as the top three, and the UAE (6th) - there were a few surprises, too. Vietnam (4), Poland (5), Egypt (7) and, most of all, Venezuela making it into tenth spot. Although the tip for companies looking at Venezuela to "Go to Mexico instead" might halt any interested parties!
As well as highlighting new opportunities for construction firms, this report also hints at the massive potential for expanding the use of collaboration tools, especially by linking the head offices of firms based in the UK, Europe and the US with their ventures in new markets.
Labels: Global trends
NCCTP: Flogging a dead standard?
The collaboration providers who are members of UK-based industry group NCCTP met on Wednesday to discuss progress towards an industry-wide technical standard to support data exchange between collaboration technology vendors. This was a follow up meeting to that discussed in Paul Wilkinson's blog post last month. The attendees were Aconex (me), Asite, 4Projects, Business Collaborator, Causeway and Sarcophagus. Cadweb and BIW were not present.
The aim of the meeting was to ensure that all NCCTP members were compliant with the data transfer standard (or, at least that they would be by September 1st). As Paul mentioned, there is a difference of opinion on whether the standard is worth pursuing or not. The meeting also discussed whether the standard should be enhanced and whether we should move to one that uses web services to transfer data.
The original rationale for the standard came about several years ago when the collaboration space was relatively new. Vendors were recently established and, in some cases, not yet financially secure. A common question from potential clients during the sales process was "What happens if you guys go out of business? Can I transfer my data to another provider easily?" We simply do not hear that objection any more and this is due to a number of reasons:
Firstly, the collaboration market has matured, and so has the attitude of clients. They have confidence in the delivery of software as a service (SaaS) and now trust that their data is backed up and secure. (In fact, data is almost always more secure under SaaS than if managed using the client's own IT infrastructure).
Secondly, the leading collaboration providers are now established businesses with strong revenue streams and future order books. Financial viability is no longer a major concern. Now the only question a client may have is whether a provider has the leadership and financial clout to continue to invest in product improvement and platform performance (but that is a separate issue).
Thirdly, many providers have already done scores of data transfers between respective systems - and these transfers have been done predominantly without the use of the technical standard. In fact, one of the key objections by members (including me) is that the standard is a "lowest common denominator" and that the richness of data can be lost when the standard is applied to do the transfer.
The technical standard, taking Aconex as an example, touches only a small proportion of the functional and data set. Even if the NCCTP technical standard was available, many collaboration providers would choose to not use it. Aconex falls into that camp and I know of at least one other provider that has expressed the same view. Rather, we would look more closely at the respective data sets involved and come up with a transfer method that maintains as much of the richness and functional utility as possible. We know that if we used the standard to transfer data from our system to a competitor's and then took that imported data and immediately transferred it back (again using the standard), we would lose a large amount of data and utility in the process.
Finally, the technical standard was specified a number of years ago. Even at that point, it suffered from being a lowest common denominator effect. Fast forward three years and the functional offerings of most of the providers have progressed significantly - leaving the standard even further behind.
Improving the standard to be an all-inclusive and (at the same time) a one-size-fits-all data set would in my view be extremely complicated, difficult and costly. It would be like trying to make a single size, cut and style of jeans that would fit a dozen random people and at the same time make it suit all of their fashion tastes. For this reason, I sense the standard is ultimately doomed and destined for irrelevancy.
So, while the NCCTP has an important role to play in educating the market and in promoting online collaboration within construction, I cannot see the value in diverting development resource from improving our respective functional sets to getting a data transfer standard that gives us a poor cousin of what providers are already doing quite well already.
Labels: Technology
New blogger on the block
I recently came across a new blog called Collaboration Corner that was started a couple of weeks ago by Joe Croser from collaboration technology provider Bentley.
Great to see more and more thought leadership in this space (this post by Paul Wilkinson on his Extranet Evolution blog outlines some of the others) and I thoroughly recommend you check it out. Like Connected, a blog by three of Buzzsaw's managers, it appears that it will often focus on his company's products, but Joe is obviously an enthusiastic advocate of how collaborative solutions can enhance the construction industry and so I look forward to reading his thoughts.
Labels: Global trends
