BIW MANAGES OVER A QUARTER OF A MILLION DRAWINGS

02 October 2002 
 
BIW Technologies (BIW), the European market leader in web-based collaboration services for the construction and property industry, has reached another milestone in the use of its BIW Information Channel service. In mid-September, the total number of drawings hosted passed the 250,000 mark.

“If you were reliant on paper-based systems, to store this many drawings alone, you would need a plan-chest as tall as the Big Ben tower at Westminster,” says BIW chief executive Colin Smith, “or enough vertical filing cabinets to stretch around the whole perimeter of a football pitch.”

“This latest landmark testifies to the resilience and scalability of our hosting infrastructure. As well as the drawings, we also host over 125,000 documents; in total we are managing some 230 gigabytes of data.

“To give some idea of the growing traffic we handle, our service has been accessed over 1.9 million times since we launched it in 1999; to date in 2002, we have recorded over 894,000 user sessions, and now average over 100,000 a month.”

According to Smith, demand for its collaboration services shows no sign of slowing down: “We have started more than 350 new projects this year alone, while our user base is growing at over 750 a month.”

Less than ten months after BIW claimed its 10,000th user, in December 2001, its user base has grown by a further 8,000. These users work in over 2,250 companies, making inputs to almost 900 projects, worth an estimated £8 billion in total.

Clients include Sainsbury’s, Capital One Bank, housebuilders Crest Nicholson and the Peabody Trust, Marks & Spencer, Manchester Airport, the Ministry of Defence, Ikea, the Welsh Development Agency, Asda, the Wellcome Trust, Kajima and developer Garbe.

For further information please contact:
Paul Wilkinson, BIW on 0845 1300 800 (mobile: 07788 445920)

Note to editors

• At 29 September 2002, BIW Information Channel was being used on 898 projects by 17,923 users from 2268 companies. Total number of drawings submitted was 257,111; total number of documents stood at 128,738. The company expects to pass the two millionth log-in during November.
• Project collaboration services from BIW Technologies (www.biwtech.com) were first employed in 1999 on UK construction projects for Sainsbury. BIW believes it is the European leader in web-based collaboration systems for the construction and property industry.
• BIW Information Channel is a sophisticated web-based supply chain integration technology, designed specifically for construction projects. Each client is provided with a unique, project-specific website created around a knowledge database. Using this, all data can be made available to every project team member – from the earliest concepts and specification, through detailed design, buildability studies, pre-fabrication, construction, maintenance, operation and improvement to the eventual demolition or dismantling of the facility.
• Recognising that hosting involved complementary but non-core skills and expertise, BIW sought a ‘managed hosting’ partner capable of creating and managing the sophisticated technical infrastructure needed to deliver its software technologies. BIW’s managed host, Attenda procures, configures, installs and maintains the necessary servers, routers, firewalls and other devices. Once configured, Attenda then provides dedicated bandwidth for BIW’s applications, and connects the servers to the web via its own network, where the application is constantly monitored to ensure availability and optimal performance. With Attenda, BIW is able to implement, maintain and update services in less time and with higher reliability than other hosting methods. Moreover, managed hosting ensures BIW’s technology services remain easily and seamlessly scalable. This is vital as its user base grows, as demand for bandwidth increases, and as the applications are upgraded.