E-CONSTRUCTION - MANAGEMENT OF PROJECT INFORMATION

Written June 2004 - Requires update

Call me sad, but I think the evolution of Project Extranets, and their use in the construction process, is one of the most exciting thing to happen in my (admittidly relatively short) civil engineering career.

The potential of these electronic animals is amazing.  Think of a project extranet as an electronic window to a central store of information.  Currently they can enable all partners throughout the construction process (financier, to client, to consultant, to contractor, to supplier, to the general public) to access/ share and exchange information via a single portal, where ever each is geographically.

Their future?  I believe that the true usefulness will evolve once mobile access begins to be explored.  Think of all the people who have to interact with a construction project: Site engineers, the gereral public, emergency services, delivery personnel...........  Now imagine yourself as the project manager, being able to deliver relevant information, instructions (safety for example) and directions to those people as they approach, and move through your site.  Also imagine those people being able to feed information back to you.  Could save a lot of time, and make sure that everyone is in the right place at the right time! Could be pretty useful don't you think?

E-Construction - Management of Project Information - A briefing sheet written by yours truly (click the link to open a PDF file (70KB). If your computer cannot read the PDF file, click here and download the Adobe PDF Reader.

Some useful Extranet resources on the Internet:

Project Collaboration	Extranet guide from New Civil Engineer Plus
BuildOnline	Internet based software and services including project collaboration; knowledge sharing; tendering processes; supply chain management systems
Citadon	Provides on-line collaboration workspaces for the design, construction and operation of large, complex capital projects.
Buzzsaw	Autodesk's online project management and collaboration services
Business Collaborator	Colloboration systems for the construction industry
Econstruct	Project, now closed, to develop new internet data exhange technology based upon XML
Cutter
eProject	Project management and collaboration solutions
ConstructionPlus
TDOC Projects Ltd	Software for document control in the construction and engineering industries
AVANTI	A programme to develop ICT-Enabled Collaborative Working
BIW Technologies	Provider of internet-based collaboration or supply chain integration service
4Projects	Collaborative extranet and online tendering service provision

collaborative extranet and online tendering service provision