21-Jan-10
Pacific West Builders Selects Aconex for US Navy and Air Force Projects
Aconex has been selected to service Pacific West Builders’ portfolio of government projects. Pacific West Builders will use the Aconex system to streamline collaboration with its project partners and to manage large volumes of information more efficiently.
Pacific West Builders, a general construction contracting firm based in San Diego, is primarily engaged on the design-build of federal facilities. The company has delivered more than 50 defense-related projects and its clients include the US Navy, and the US Air Force.
Aconex will provide Pacific West Builders and its business partners with a web-based system for managing project information such as drawings, documents and correspondence. The system replaces hard copies and email by allowing all the parties involved in a project to access, distribute, track and store their data using a single, common platform.
Patricia Romero, CEO of Pacific West Builders, said, “When we undertake design-build projects for the Navy and Air Force, a tremendous amount of documentation is generated and exchanged. Because of this, we wanted a centralized, standardized system for managing information.
“We previously used in-house tools – MS Word, spreadsheets and Outlook – to communicate and manage information; however we found that, with so many external parties involved, this could be cumbersome and lacked the tracking capabilities we required.
“Particularly since our work is government-related, our main reason for selecting Aconex is to ensure that our documentation is in order and that robust data security measures are in place.” Romero added, “The system is user-friendly and easy to navigate.”
Pacific West Builders often needs to coordinate a project team of more than 50 people, including consultants based across several locations.
“As well as pulling together the local participants, we may be working with a mechanical engineering firm from Missouri or electrical engineers from Chicago. Because of this, the fact that Aconex is web-based is important, as it will provide a more collaborative environment.”
All items stored on Aconex are securely archived and can be instantly retrieved using a search engine or drop-down filters. The system maintains an audit trail of every transaction so that, at any time, Pacific West Builders will be able to track the status of document reviews and correspondence.
“On each project, we collaborate with government personnel, the design team and subcontractors, and are charged with keeping everyone on task,” said Romero. “In the past, projects have sometimes experienced delays because we haven’t been able to track items – such as which documents have been reviewed and whether RFIs have been responded to – as well as we'd have liked. Being able to track all this through Aconex will mitigate these risks and help keep our projects on track.”
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