Pacific West Builders 

• Delivered 50+ defence-related projects for clients such as US Navy and Air Force
• Large volume of documentation created and exchanged
• Required robust data security and audit trail

Robust data security for US Navy and Air Force projects

Client

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 defence-related projects for clients such as the US Navy and Air Force.

Challenges

A typical project can generate thousands of drawings, documents and correspondence items each month, and keeping on top of the information flow can be tough. Pacific West often needs to coordinate a project team of more than 50 people, including consultants based across several locations. 

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,” said Romero.

Solution

To overcome these challenges, Pacific West Builders selected the Aconex project collaboration system. The system allows Pacific West and its business partners to securely access, distribute, track and store all their project data using a single, common platform. 

Results

A more collaborative environment

“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 provides a more collaborative environment.”

“Aconex will mitigate these risks and help keep our projects on track.”

Patricia Romero, CEO of Pacific West Builders

Reducing delays

 “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 documents and RFIs 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.”

Data security

All data stored on Aconex is securely archived in professionally-managed, external data centers, and is backed up to an additional disaster recovery site, providing a level of data security that meets the requirements of the largest corporate and government clients.

Romero said, “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.” She added, “The system is user-friendly and easy to navigate.”