Mercadium, a construction industry-sponsored internet trading hub featuring content from The Stationery Office, and Construction Plus, a business-to-business website run by New Civil Engineer published Emap, have both adopted Building Information Warehouse's project collaboration software to deliver their project-hosting services.

Mercadium (www.mercadium.com) was founded in April 2000 and claims to have strong backing from buyers and sellers throughout the European construction sector. Investors including Aggregate Industries, Alfred McAlpine, BPB, Hammer Architects, Pilkington, RMC and WT Burdens. It also has an exclusive partnership with The Stationery Office, official publisher of statutory, parliamentary and government information in the UK, to develop content for the site.

Construction Plus (www.constructionplus.co.uk) was launched by Emap Construct back in January 2000 and now claims to have nearly 50,000 specialist users. The site, which features nine differently focused information portals and three e-commence businesses, is based on its portfolio of construction media which includes New Civil Engineer, Construction News, Architects' Journal, Interbuild and Glenigan. It is also allied to UK building merchants Wolseley Centers and Travis Perkins.

Both sites have recently adopted the Project Information Channel, an established supply-chain integration product from UK application service provider Building Information Warehouse (www.thebiw.com). The system was launched in 1998 after over 3 years of development and currently has 2600 users on 130 projects, including Sainsbury superstores and Manchester Airport. Construction consultants Gleeds also embeds the system within its services to clients.

The BIW system is designed to streamline the exchange of information between all members on a construction project as well as provide a secure, as-built archive for future maintenance or alteration work. It enables all types of project drawings and documents to be viewed and commented on via a normal internet browser, over normal telephone lines and without the need for any other software.

Mercadium plans to use the BIW system as part of its hosted suite of software and information services designed to help the construction industry reduce its procurement and project management costs. The first-phase offering will include UK regulatory information, such as building regulations, planning guidance and legislation relating to construction and health and safety; directories of architects, builders' merchants, contractors, product manufacturers; and a request-for-quotation tool for buyers of building materials.

Construction Plus says the inclusion of the BIW system alongside its existing Construction Intelligence specification and procurement tool will establish the site as a virtual office, where the industry can come to work and find all the information and management tools it needs.

BIW - which also provides its own industry news and supplier databases on its website - believes the partnerships with Mercadium and Construction Plus will help to establish the Project Information Channel as the de-facto standard for managing UK construction projects.