After all the hype, the world of e-commerce is settling down to a more realistic view of what the market is really prepared to support. Firms reliant on goods or services traded via their sites seem to be less robust than those like Building Information Warehouse, which offers management support services backed by sophisticated software technology for a straight fee. James Atkinson reports.

The dotcom bubble is deflating rapidly, with new companies hitting the crash and burn button before they've barely begun. Construction has not been immune either. Only last week the Arrideo B2B exchange, a joint venture between Amec, Balfour Beatty, Bovis Lend Lease, Skanska and Laing announced that it would not proceed.

The trouble with dotcoms is they just don't have the track record to make investors feel safe. But a few are built on rather more solid foundations.

Building Information Warehouse is one such exception. In fact, it has a good claim to be the UK construction industry's first website portal. It developed out of a 1994 research project sponsored by the Department of Environment with input from construction clients, professionals and contractors, along with research from Salford and Loughborough universities.

By the time the dotcom wave finally hit construction big time last year, BIW had developed a sophisticated product designed to be used with the minimum of fuss. All you need to access it is an analogue phone and a standard modem. No digital line, ISDN link or broadband technology needed.

BIW's chief executive Colin Smith says: "A lot of effort has gone into making it work with very narrow resources. Our objective is to integrate the supply chain, but no one needs to buy software or hardware or change their business processes. It supports their processes, rather than imposing ours on them. You just need internet access."

What BIW offers is supply chain integration services in the form of a free, searchable database of building suppliers, specialists, contractors and other industry professionals and their organisations and the Project Information Channel - a web-based supply chain integration tool or 'project portal', designed specifically for construction projects.

Competitors offering similar products include Citadon (a merger between Cephren and Bidcom), BuildOnline, iScraper, buildingwork.com, owned by Causeway Technologies and Ramesys, which launched a collaboration and supply chain management portal last September.

BIW is aimed squarely at construction clients. The thinking is that if clients adopt the system, their supply chain will have to follow suit if they want to work for the client.

Each client is given a unique project-specific website accessed by a personal password. A detailed description of each company working on the project and what it does is given to BIW, along with a profile of each individual in the company and their role on the project.

So when an M&E firm is appointed to project each individual is assigned to a particular team according to their function, such as design. The aim is to ensure the right information is given to the right people at the right time.

Those who need to see the latest electrical drawings will be sent e-mails telling them to look at the drawings. "There is a lot of technology in the system," says Smith, "but also many years of understanding of how construction works and who does what. The idea is that people don't have to spend ages rummaging around for the right information. The system disseminates responsibility for keeping information up-to-date to individuals working on the project.

"It took a lot of time to set up the project information. But we've now done it so many times it's very easy to set up. All the roles are well defined. We can also track people working on two different projects in different roles."

BIW now has some 600 organisations using the system. All of Sainsbury's current 170 projects use the Project Information Channel for example.

BIW charges a flat fee per project per month, using a matrix of prices depending on the size of the project. Discounts are offered during the design period to encourage earlier use of the system, rather than waiting for the construction phase when a huge amount of data would have to be bulk-loaded onto the system all at once. A discount is also offered in the post-construction phase, so the client can add to the information stored.

"It's no more complex than hiring a site cabin," says Smith. "It's very flexible. You don't have to sign up for a long commitment. Think of it like a piece of plant. You use it for as long as you want and then send it back."

Accessing the system is simple. Once a user is logged on a list entitled Headlines comes up detailing different areas of the project and highlighting information not yet accessed. For example, the user might be required to inspect some drawings.

Clicking on to the file will bring up the drawing with a list of who it was issued to, who has read it and any 'outsiders' who might also have accessed it with information on who they are.

They system gives a basic read out of what is in the drawing. A representation of the drawing can then be accessed, but cannot be edited or changed. Similarly, if new information is being sent out to a selected list, the document itself is not sent, just a notification that it needs looking at.

Once the drawing has been called up a zoom facility allows for closer inspection of details, along with a toolkit which can measure distances or work out area sizes. There is no need to download the drawings. However, information can be downloaded using ZIP files if necessary. BIW supplies a neutral file via Acrobat, so it does not matter what system was used to originate the material.

The system then allows the user to add comments or ask questions, which can then be answered by others on the team. If anyone else clicks on the comment box, it will automatically take them to the relevant drawing via an intelligent navigation system. The system manages the interactions and saves them to a separate database. This gives the client a full audit trail of who said what and when. Smith says: "What this does is create great transparency in the project."

George Stevenson, BIW's director of research, adds: "Then people can access the files around the country and discuss them on the phone. They can also access each other's comments like an internet chat room."

Key information can also be recorded to aid long-term facilities management - who supplied the boiler, what services lie behind a wall. Standard product information and best practice can also be stored and transferred to the next project.

"For a company like Sainsbury, standards evolve constantly and our system takes account of that and makes sure people have access to the latest information," says Smith.

Stevenson goes on to say that BIW has not wanted to impose a process on how people work on projects, especially given the changing nature of that process. "It is very fluid at the moment and it's very important to recognise these changes. There is a more open ethos and collaboration working - virtual teams. So we are keeping ourselves informed and providing the technology to support that change. But technology alone is not the solution. It's about 20% of it. The rest is having the people who want to make it happen."

While BIW has secured support from the likes of Sainsbury and Asda and is used by professionals such as Gleeds and construction manager Schal, it is also seeking to expand its clientele into the public sector. It recently recruited Charles Botsford from the Treasury to help it win clients in this area.

Another business strand that is beginning to evolve is licensing the technology to others. BIW has already signed a deal with fellow construction dotcom Mercadium, the construction trading hub backed by Aggregate Industries, Alfred McAlpine, BPB, Pilkington and RMC.

Smith sums up: "We are not a software company, but a service company. People will only use us if we provide a good service."