BIW registered 12,426 new users, pushing its user base from 39,783 at the start of the year to 52,209 by 31 December 2005 – up 31 per cent on 2004. Over the same period, use of its system extended to a further 1149 organisations, expanding the BIW community from 4310 to 5459 – up 27 per cent.
At 31 December 2005, BIW Information Channel had been deployed on 3,596 projects or programmes of work (adding individual schemes within multi-project programmes would increase the total by an estimated 2,100 projects to at least 5,700 schemes), conservatively estimated at around £23 billion in total capital value.
“On just about every measure, we continue to exceed our previous years’ performances,” says BIW chief executive Colin Smith. “Our turnover in the year to 30 September 2005 was also up over 30 per cent at £4 million, and our order book is now worth over £7 million in future revenues. “Growing use of our technology is also having an impact on organisations’ IT management practices, particularly by removing large volumes of email.”
Collectively, BIW users logged in almost two million times (1,995,495) in 2005, publishing over 443,000 CAD files and 255,000 other documents (excluding comments, requests for information, instructions, transmittals and other process-related forms and reports). In total, BIW now hosts just over 1.6 million CAD files and over 860,000 other documents, and its system has been accessed over 8.3 million times since 1999.
Removing millions of emails
“To put these numbers in context, around 1,200 CAD files are being published via the BIW system, along with 700 other documents - every day,” says Smith. If these were distributed via email – and BIW’s experience suggests an item is typically distributed to an eight-strong issue list – this would involve around 15,000 emails every day. Over a year, the BIW system therefore removes at least five million emails and their attachments from circulation within its user community.
However, as well as managing the online exchange of files, BIW also supports key business processes within construction projects. Where teams must manage drawing transmittals, comments and approvals, requests for information, instructions, change orders, print orders, tenders or other processes, BIW Information Channel allows all such processes to be managed flexibly online. “We are also cutting out the annual distribution of millions of process-related items, mainly emails, plus faxes and hand- or post-delivered paper forms,” says Smith.
A project archive for every participating company
“Using a securely hosted remote repository for project communications relieves many organisations of the headache of having to manage and store large archives of project-specific emails,” Smith continues. “Moreover, for insurance purposes, every company involved in a BIW-managed project can purchase a fully searchable archive of all the information exchanges with which they were involved.”
A full project archive can be created for a client, while each supply chain member can have an archive specific to their company’s role and responsibilities on the project. Archives are loaded onto hard disk storage devices, complete with all the software needed to search, view and access the full audit trail of every document, drawing, instruction, notice or other project communication. Depending on each organisation’s needs, the archive can then be copied or downloaded onto its local area network or placed in secure storage.
- ends - Notes to editors:
- Project collaboration services from BIW Technologies (www.biwtech.com) were first employed in 1999 on UK construction projects for Sainsbury’s. BIW believes it is the European leader in web-based collaboration systems for the construction and property industry, measured by numbers of users, usage and volume of data.
- BIW Information Channel is a sophisticated web-based supply chain integration technology, designed specifically for construction projects or programmes. Each client is provided with a unique, project or programme-specific website created around a knowledge database. With this, data can be made available securely to every team member – from the earliest concepts, through detailed design, buildability studies, pre-fabrication, construction, maintenance, operation and improvement to the eventual demolition or dismantling of the facility.
- BIW customers include United Utilities, Sainsbury’s, BAA, housebuilders Crest Nicholson and the Peabody Trust, Marks & Spencer, the Ministry of Defence, the Wellcome Trust, O2, Mace, Bovis Lend Lease, Kajima, Gleeds and developers Land Securities, Ballymore and Garbe.
- BIW’s figures are based purely on drawings and other items published once to its system, not on the number of people on a distribution list. Once a drawing, for example, is published it is counted once only. BIW also separates out process-generated items (eg: comments, requests for information, instructions, transmittals, etc) – up to 31 December 2005, over four million of these had been generated.
- BIW and BIW Information Channel are registered trademarks or trademarks of BIW Technologies Ltd.
