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CITEX CONSULTING CONCLUDES:
"BIW INFORMATION CHANNEL LEADS THE PACK" 26 February 2002
Leading consultant Citex Consulting reviewed the collaboration products on offer, and concluded that BIW's web service came out on top. A leading UK construction, property and facilities management consultant, Citex Consulting, has undertaken a review of project collaboration systems on offer to the UK market and found that BIW Technologies' web service, BIW Information Channel, consistently came out on top. "Project collaboration systems are increasingly being used to manage and co-ordinate the complex communications within a construction or FM project," said Xavier Benedict, business analyst at Citex Consulting. "Such web-based software systems are to integrate project members with online real-time information via a centralised portal on a dedicated website. They remove duplication and 'black holes' and provide a clear audit trail of document and drawing issue and revisions. They provide a single platform for all project members to work from, and force a commonality of working practices and a collaborative approach. To benefit fully, the set up must be well-structured to mirror the needs of the project and client (reporting, measurement etc), and clear and simple protocols must be put in place and communicated." With more than 20 different project collaboration products on the UK market, Citex Consulting completed an analysis of eight of the most widely-used products, based on four sets of criteria: functionality, sustainability of the solution provider, customer support and cost. "BIW Technologies' Information Channel consistently came out on top," said Benedict. Citex Consulting ranked the product or service attributes: it suggested sustainability was the most important, followed by customer service, then functionality, with pricing the least important. "We purposely ranked cost last as we believe the investment decision should be based on value creation and the factors that can drive this added value. The other attributes far outweigh any capital cost savings," said Benedict. "Services must be securely backed by a financially stable company and ownership structure; the 'when,' 'how' and 'what' of user support available together with its ease of use and the actual help provided, are all important in optimising product use; and, while all the products reviewed had certain basic features, some had additional functionality which made them easier, faster and more intuitive to use. For example, using the same software to view and comment on drawings (as the BIW product does) gives added advantage over downloading third party software." BIW Information Channel was consistently rated the leading product. It had particularly high scores on sustainability and customer service, and scored well on functionality. There was a big gap between BIW and the second placed product (Bidcom's ProjectNet). "On the basis of the review and analysis," Benedict concluded, "BIW Information Channel is the best project collaboration product available for the construction industry on the UK market." "This is a powerful vindication of our technology and of our business model," says BIW chief executive Colin Smith. "We have dedicated BIW solely to the delivery of web-based supply chain integration services for the architectural, engineering and construction sector, developed in the UK by our own team. As a business, BIW is securely funded, and is winning orders at a flow rate well ahead of its break-even requirements. And our client list includes many of the UK's best-known companies, all of whom are able to feed back their requirements directly into the development of new services and functionality." "We set out to become the de facto industry standard for collaboration web services," Smith continued. "Citex's analysis suggests we are well on the way to achieving this." More information from: - Paul Wilkinson, BIW Technologies: 0845 1300 800 (mobile 07788 445920)
Notes to editors - Citex Consulting offers strategic inputs ranging from advice on corporate and project knowledge systems, benchmarking and performance measurement, to business and operational improvements, value and risk management, and financial and procurement solutions including supply chain innovation.
- Project collaboration services from BIW Technologies (www.biwtech.com) were first employed in 1998 on UK construction projects for Sainsbury. The customer list now includes Capital One Bank, housebuilder Crest Nicholson, Marks & Spencer, Manchester Airport, the Ministry of Defence, Ikea, the Welsh Development Agency, Asda, the Wellcome Trust, Kajima and developer Garbe. As the technology is adopted by each client's supply chain, growth of the BIW Information Channel user base has accelerated, with 6206 users being added in the 12 months up to 30 September 2001, compared with 2018 added in the previous 12 months.
- BIW Information Channel is a sophisticated web-based supply chain integration technology, originally 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.
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