CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
3 August 2004
Implementation Investments
BIW Technologies-UK-Selects Web4's Document Collaboration Technology for its Leading Construction Portal
Web4, a division of netGuru, Inc., a provider of enterprise-wide collaborative document review solutions, announced that BIW Technologies, UK (BIW) is to invest around $0.5 million over the next two years to use Web4's expertise to enhance its BIW visual interface.
The UK market leader, BIW's web-based BIW Information ChannelT construction collaboration platform is also Europe's most intensively used construction project management system. Since 2000, BIW has invested heavily in creating its own powerful visual collaboration environment, carefully integrated with its core platform. To help it increase its lead over its European competitors, BIW is investing in extending the capabilities delivered through its viewer interface.
Working in a development partnership with Web4, BIW intends to enhance its viewer's asynchronous and real-time collaboration facilities. Drawing on Web4's expertise in developing eReview, future releases of BIW's visual interface will support a wider range of file formats, deliver new online meeting, chat and messaging features, and incorporate advanced voice and video technologies. End-users will be able to collaborate in real-time, using co-view, co-markup and conferencing features; such 'net meetings' will also be capable of being saved, replayed and archived into BIW Information Channel's work environment.
BIW Information Channel is a web-based supply chain integration technology, designed specifically for construction projects or programs. Each client is provided with a unique, project or program-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.
The initial order is valued at around half-a-million US dollars over a two-year period. This includes licenses, integration and customization work.
"Visual, knowledge-centric collaboration, both asynchronous and real-time, will soon become an important differentiator in any sophisticated web-based supply chain technology," commented Colin Smith, the CEO of BIW Technologies. "This deal makes netGuru's leading-edge technologies and its substantial intellectual resources and manpower available to BIW, massively increasing our development capabilities. We are particularly excited about the integrated solution that we are putting together specifically for construction projects or programs. The combined offering will consolidate BIW's leadership position in the UK and Europe."
Partial list of 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 Stanhope, Land Securities and Garbe.
The planned integration will allow BIW users to view, find, examine, manipulate, and mark-up diverse documents including more than 450 types of 2D and 3D drawings/models, as well as conference/collaborate with others.
eReview allows multiple participants across the globe to simultaneously view and redline documents with their geographically dispersed team members using their web browser. The same environment allows for chat, whiteboard, audio-video conferencing, remote desktop and application sharing, web-casting, and many other facilities to comprise a complete document-centric conferencing system. It also helps users collaborate on unstructured data, documents, capture the tacit knowledge and create a corporate record of meetings that are searchable and re-playable.
BIW Technologies Ltd (BIW®, http://www.biwtech.com/ ) provides supply chain integration services to the global AEC (architectural, engineering and construction) community. An application service provider (ASP), it deploys, hosts and manages access to software applications from a centrally managed facility. 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. At June 30, 2004, the total number of BIW Information Channel users had reached 34,517, from 3,747 different companies. Collectively, these users had logged in five million times, published more than half a million drawings and documents in the past 12 months alone, and have been working on around 2,000 projects with a total capital value estimated at around GBP 15 billion.
eReview is real-time and asynchronous, web-based document-centric, view, markup and collaboration software for design teams. For more information, visit http://www.ereviewonline.com/ .
netGuru is an engineering information technology and services company offering engineering and design collaborative software, solutions, and professional and technical services and support to businesses worldwide. For more information visit http://www.netguru.com
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