Databases, Design Collaboration Services And On-Line Bid/Buy Transactions

Here are four major ways the Internet can server your business needs:

Information

The Web continues to amaze me. There are more and more productive products and services available today than ever before. In many cases, these products are free.

Available informational tools include manufacturer portals such as Sweets, CMD Group and ARCAT, which offer manufacturer listings of many products. In addition to multiple indexes, they all offer intelligent search tools for just about any type of search.

Many of these sites offer links to the manufacturers own web sites as well as numerous industry trade associations. Most manufacturers still offer paper catalogs, but these go out of date very quickly. Data on a web site is updated constantly and is available at any time through your browser. Some of the sites offering these services and more are:

www.bricsnet.com offering manufacturers information from ARCAT and industry news collaboration services through Project Center Service, as well as other services.

www.cmdexchange.com offering data from Architect's First Source, Cost information from RSMeans, current construction projects information, Construction Market Data and databases such as Profiles listing of architects. RSMeans is now part of the Cahners family of services, which also includes www.housingzone.com and www.buildingteam.com, databases of building codes and links to the Cahners family of publications.

www.construction.com offering databases including Sweets Manufacturers Catalogs and Dodge projects and cost databases. The site also offers extensive daily industry news on new projects and technology.

www.buzzsaw.com , a service launched by Autodesk the developers of AutoCAD, originally offering a project collaboration site through ProjectPoint Service, but now has added manufacturers catalogs, industry news and bidding and procurement service.

These sites, as well as many other local and regional sites offer a wealth of information only possible on the Web and the Internet. They offer everything from reprints of articles, news on upcoming construction projects, and cost information, to current industry news, electronic plans of current products in bidding phase, and databases of architects, engineers contractors, sub contractors and suppliers.

With the advent of the Internet, many of your paper sources in file cabinets and book selves will no longer be needed. Instead of keeping out-of-date catalogs and other technical data taking up valuable office space, the Internet can be the place to keep this information.

Design Collaboration

Design collaboration services continue to attract many firms to the Web. This allows the owner, architect, engineers and contractor to share information, such as plans, specs, renderings and other documents, which are maintained in a central depository with proper security so that the latest information is available for coordination, pricing and ultimately to build the project. Many of these sites offer these services, ranging in price from free for under 100 mbs to several thousand dollars a month for full scale large projects.

The beauty of these sites is the latest and most current information is posted and make available to everyone on the team. If a single document is needed it is located and can be viewed on online or downloaded and viewed and printed locally. For bulk downloads, many reprographic shops will download the documents, including full size plans, print and distribute the sets as per instructions. Some sites even offer technology to send the print orders directly to a national association of reprographic firms across the country.

Paper still has not gone away, but finding the piece you need just got easier. Once the project is complete, the data can be archived for record purposes. There will be some coordination of standards, but with proper planning, it's a great tool. In addition to file sharing processes, such as RFI's and Shop Drawing Logging, Punch Lists can be processed online and logs updated for the entire team to review up-to-the minute.

Construction Marketplace Sites

Currently used more extensively in the commercial construction market, these sites offer online bidding and procurement of construction materials. There are currently over 200 companies offering this service. Buyers (Contractors, CMs and Building Owners) and sellers (Sub Contractors and Suppliers) subscribe to a number of these services to transact over the internet for construction materials and services. The goal of these services is to reduce the amount of time and money it takes to build a project or a component of a project.

With many contractors having existing relationships with their suppliers and subcontractors, this may sound like something from Galaxy Quest. It is still new, as many of these services are still only getting started this year.

In concept, the information for a bid is posted. Bidders (from a database of thousands who are notified) send bids back and the system determines the low bid. Once the bid is accepted, a purchase order is generated. In most cases, the service receives a small percentage of the transaction. For sellers, these services allow for more exposure outside a seller's local markets. Some of the services even offer bonding, financing and electronic payment transactions

Permits On-line

The permit process will also be driven by the internet. Many municipalities throughout the country are beginning to adapt to electronic filling and notification over the Internet. According to one vendor of permitting software, 50 to 85 percent of the staff time in government agencies across the country is spent handling information requests for simple over the counter permit process. If you can cut down the amount of paper work, including filing (or in some cases miss-filing), and save days or weeks off the process and send notifications over the net to avoid delays by the postal service, why not?

These concepts are only the beginning. Technology continues to develop ways to expedite tedious processes in the construction industry. As construction and business professionals, you will have very little choice but to use these services.

In some cases it will save money directly. In other cases, it could be a project that you would not have heard about except through the Internet. In most cases, it will be about saving time and, ultimately, saving money. Design Collaboration, Construction and Office Administration, Engineering, Client, Project and Employee Referrals and many other processes could be improved, as well as your bottom line.

For more information, contact:
Tomas Hernandez, Jr.
Associate Principal, & Direcctor of Computer Services
Kohn Pedersen Fox Architects
New York, NY
Phone 212-977-6500
www.kpf.com

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Hernandez Jr. Discussion