Kajima will be rolling out BIW Technologies Information Channel as its preferred extranet solution worldwide, UK research and innovation director Mark Corrigan told delegates at Construction Plus' Manchester conference.

The decision followed his demonstration of the system at Kajima's International Innovation Conference in Tokyo. Kajima had used the tool on an £8m Asda store project, which had met demanding targets set by the client. The team achieved a 10% reduction in overall construction cost, and brought the construction time down from 17 weeks to 12.

A full survey of all the companies in the supply chain on the project showed that 90% wanted to use the tool again as it had made a substantial contribution to efficiencies.

"The normal 10 day drawing review process was cut to 2 days," said Corrigan. This was just one of the speed enhancements the extranet tool helped to provide, easily paying back the £25,000 additional IT cost. The project architect alone identified £31,000 of savings as a direct result of using a project extranet.

Also at the conference, Ken Millbanks of Bass Leisure (now Six Continents) said: "Everyone who wants to stay in business will be using these tools." He believed that extranet tools would effectively be universally used within two years.

Tony Pinchess of Altonwood Project Management separately identified £20-£30,000 of savings on printing of documents alone that helped his use of the Sarcophagus tool pay its way.

These speakers are indicative both of the rapid adoption of project extranets to aid project management, and of the growing body of evidence of their effectiveness, in terms of reduced cost, and construction time.