Research by Construction Plus shows that some 20 providers are now supplying project collaboration solutions to over 1000 projects with a total capital value of more than £12bn.

Over 1,000 British construction projects with a total capital value of over £12bn are currently using a range of web-based project collaboration tools, according to exclusive research by Construction Plus, the UK’s leading provider of online information to the construction industry.

Currently there are around 20 organisations offering project collaboration solutions in the UK; together they are supporting over 1000 “paying” projects, with approaching 10,000 users, according to a survey conducted by Construction Plus. The total capital value of the projects is over £10bn, though this is skewed by Arup’s Integration which is claimed to be operating on 47 projects worth a massive £6.5bn.

Web-based project collaboration started life in the USA in 1998 and is leading the way in translating construction into an e-business sector. Also known as project extranets, project collaboration allows all members of a geographically diverse and corporately fragmented project team to communicate and exchange documents via the Internet in a controlled and secure way.

Prices for helping manage a typical £5m, 12-month building project range from £150 to £2,200 a month, depending on the level of functionality, the number of users and the amount of computer storage space the project documentation requires. However as with any new technique, especially relating to the Internet, pricing is subject to considerable discounts.

The leading project collaboration tool currently in the UK is the Project Information Channel from the Building Information Warehouse, according to the survey returns. Despite being at the top of the price range at £2,200 a month for a £5m building project, BIW claims its product is being used on 230 projects in the UK, and has 3,455 named users. The Project Information Channel has its roots in the retail sector, where it remains strong; among its clients are Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer and Boots.

The number two provider is Bidcom Ltd, the joint venture between the leading US e-business provider Citadon and a growing collection of UK construction companies. Bidcom currently claims 175 projects under management, with more promised from its UK construction shareholders including Carillion, Wates and EC Harris. Bidcom Ltd, which is seeking a new name following the decision late last year to merge the US companies Bidcom Inc and Cephren (itself the merger of Bluelineonline and e-Bricks) to form Citadon, is currently offering a range of products including Project First and Project Net.

Companies offering project collaboration solutions range from established US construction software companies like Bentley, Primavera and Autodesk, the latter through its e-business spin-off Buzzsaw, to household construction names like WS Atkins, Arup and Gibb. While Arup has developed its own solution, Atkins is basing its iProNet tool on the UK-based Business Collaborator, a generic project collaboration tool claiming some 800 construction-related projects, while Gibb has adopted the US system ActiveProject developed by Framework Technologies.

In the middle are the ASPs (application software providers), dotcom start-ups seeking to build entirely new businesses by offering web-based e-business solutions. Leading the overseas invasion are the US firms Buzzsaw and Meridian Project Systems; the Israeli-based iScraper; and Bricsnet from Belgium. On the home team are Building Information Warehouse and Cadweb, in addition to the Irish group BuildOnline, which is now based in London.

Increasing in prominence is buildingwork.com, the e-commerce arm of the UK project management and estimating software developer Causeway Technologies, which has done a deal with the US generic collaboration firm OpenText, which claims 5,000 industrial projects worldwide, and Arup’s Integration.