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Wanting to evaluate the suitability of construction collaboration technologies (or 'project extranets') in the delivery of its store projects, retailer House of Fraser asked two members of its supply chain to analyse the costs and benefits of using the BIW Information Channel platform. Although mainly focused on tangible, drawing-related expenses, Havelock Europa and Simons Construction both concluded that the system more than justified the investment made in its deployment, delivering tangible cost savings equivalent to 0.25% or more of the overall project value. The studies also identified further potential benefits that would arise if the technology was more widely and routinely deployed. House of Fraser subsequently decided to standardise on the BIW system for all future store projects.
House of Fraser, Britain's leading retailer of designer brands, operates more than 40 stores across the UK (plus one in Ireland). This represents a substantial property portfolio, and House of Fraser is constantly investing in both new store developments and refurbishments to its existing premises.
Recognising that information technology could play a part in increasing the effectiveness of its construction projects, House of Fraser encouraged some of its consultants and contractors to experiment with new web-based construction collaboration technologies (also called 'project extranets'). It wanted to evaluate the potential benefits of using such technologies on future store investment projects.
Retail fit-out specialist Havelock Europa used BIW Information Channel (from BIW Technologies), primarily for drawing management and control, on two schemes undertaken during 2004. The first was the second phase of a design-and-build contract in relation to the Kendals store in Manchester; the second was a shop-fitting sub-contract to Simons Construction at House of Fraser's new store in Maidstone, Kent. Havelock was asked to prepare a cost benefit analysis for House of Fraser.
Interestingly, Havelock had also been responsible for the first phase of the Kendals development, which was undertaken with the same teams, on the same site, and with similar technical scope. Havelock therefore felt able to make a fair comparison of costs, though the exercise was focused on the management and distribution costs of Havelock's own design and fixtures drawings, and ignored consultant or sub-contractor drawing costs. Havelock also carried out a similar exercise in respect of Havelock fixture drawings for Maidstone; Simons Construction was also asked to evaluate its experiences at Maidstone; and the feedback to House of Fraser from Havelock and Simons also took into account findings from similar projects undertaken by other BIW users, notably Mace and Gleeds.
Havelock analysed the overall cost per drawing on its Kendals projects, taking account of drafting time, drawing management, and printing and copying charges. After deducting the costs associated with the use of the BIW system, Havelock calculated that it had saved approximately £52,000, based on a net saving of £250 per prime drawing. Mace, based on experience in another project, had suggested that only 25% of drawing-related cost savings could be directly attributed to the use of a collaboration platform. On this basis, Havelock calculated that the BIW system had saved approximately £13,000 on the second phase of the Kendals project (approximately 0.25% of the overall capital value of the scheme).
Havelock conducted a similar analysis of its drawing-related expenses at Maidstone, applying the same 25% factor. Compared to the traditional drawing management methods previously applied (eg: on Kendals phase 1), the overall saving through using the BIW system amounted to over £37,000 (equivalent to 1.5% of the shop-fitting budget, or 0.34% of the overall project value. Havelock noted "this was also consistent with our drawing office view that a return to traditional drawing management methods would require approximately 20-25% additional resource".
Havelock's exercise had excluded potential savings on prelims, but it estimated that total savings of 0.5% would appear to be sustainable for future projects.
It also highlighted various additional but intangible benefits (calculated by Gleeds to be worth up to 2% of the overall capital value of a project)
House of Fraser recognised that the results of its initial experiments with construction collaboration technologies were likely to under-estimate the potential benefits (particularly as the analyses focused only on individual companies within the supply chain). The introduction of a 'project extranet' to its projects had involved a steep learning curve for all concerned; further benefits were likely as users became more proficient at using the system, and as more users utilised the system in place of traditional methods of communication and information-sharing.
Set to be a model for future MOD schemes, the £41 million Andover North Site Redevelopment project was one of the first ‘prime contracts’ let in the UK, and the first one to be completed. Proposals to use web-based communication technologies helped Citex win the contract; then, by cutting use of paper-based information and speeding up team processes, the ‘extranet’ system supported the culture of transparency and openness that was vital to successful completion of the project, and it provided a reference tool for future operation and maintenance purposes. To underline the achievement, the project won the BIFM PFI/PPP project of the year award 2002.
As a public sector organisation, a key priority for the MOD is to design, construct and manage its construction schemes as efficiently as possible, and it has therefore taken a lead in adopting partnering-type approaches – such as ‘prime contracting’ - to its projects.
A Prime Contractor takes single, overall responsibility for the management and delivery of a project to meet the required specification efficiently, economically and on time. Responsibilities include selection and management of the supply chain, design co-ordination, planning, cost control and working with the client to ensure a fit-for-purpose outcome.
The Andover North Site Redevelopment (ANSR), providing new facilities for the Defence Logistics Organisation (DLO), was procured as a Prime Contract. The project brief required construction to provide best value for money. The successful contractor would also be responsible for post-construction maintenance of the structures and building services for six-and-a-half years, so design durability and reduced whole life costs were key elements of the brief.
A former air-base, the 34-acre ANSR provided 26,000m2 of new accommodation, including an office building for 780 staff, a warrant officers’ and sergeants’ mess, technical and sports facilities, a day nursery, gatehouse, and associated infrastructure and external works.
Citex has been working with the MOD for many years. Key projects include the ground-breaking Abbey Wood HQ for the Procurement Executive, and also their existing Project Partnering Agreement (South-West Region) to deliver a number of projects in south-west England. Having described how the ANSR project brief would be satisfied, and highlighting specific areas of innovation and efficiency (including consideration of FM requirements, and use of web-based team communications), Citex was awarded the prime contract in January 2001, and construction started in April 2001.
There was a single contract between the MOD and Citex Prime Solutions; Citex then agreed contracts with each member of a supply chain. Key members included the three main cluster contractors C H Pearce, Thomas Vale and Southern Electric Contracting, architect Percy Thomas Partnership, M&E engineers Hoare Lea & Partners and Torpy & Partners (now part of Halcrow), structural engineer URS Thorburn Colquhoun, civil engineer Hyder Consulting and landscape architect Fira. Integral members of the team were staff from the DLO, representing the client.
From the outset, great emphasis was placed on working closely together in an atmosphere of honesty, trust and openness. Key principles of the management partnership included open-book accounting and pre-agreed profit levels, and a partnering charter was signed by all team members.
Key team members were co-located in offices on site at Andover, but others continued to work from other locations. To support the partnering culture of openness and transparency, the team agreed to use a web-based collaboration system, a project extranet, to provide a communication platform to share and exchange all documents, drawings and other information relating to the project. This agreement was written into a key document, the project execution plan.
BIW Information Channel, from BIW Technologies (BIW), makes data available to every team member through a unique, secure, project-specific website – accessible by authorised individuals from any location 24x7. Users are able to create, and have access to, information on the site including drawings, specifications, comments, notes of meetings, schedules, photographs, team member details, etc. The system provides a transparent, single repository of the most up-to-date information, and all user activity is tracked and recorded, providing an audit trail detailing who did what and when (accountability was and remains an important issue with the MOD).
As a substantial amount of design work had already been undertaken prior to the contract award in early 2001, the Channel was populated with the then latest revisions of all drawings and relevant documents. Simultaneously, training for key users was provided; each key user attended a two-day course that equipped them to then train other users within their company. To accommodate team changes and additions as the project progressed (eg: short-term use by a cladding subcontractor), additional training days were provided at appropriate intervals throughout the project.
The site offices were equipped with a network, a 2Mb MegaStream telecoms connection (this was ‘throttled back’ to a lower bandwidth, but still gave more than adequate connectivity), plotters and a shared CAD facility; all other team members could use their existing company networks and/or internet connections to access the BIW system (some even started to use the system from home). The MOD was understandably concerned about information security, so BIW enhanced the Channel’s security by creating it as a ‘HTTPS’ site (a secure server certificate provides 128-bit high security level encryption). So that the MOD’s own secure network would not be compromised, MOD staff accessed the Channel via a dedicated PC.
The Channel was opened in February 2001, and as training extended across the project team, usage grew rapidly, averaging more than 2000 log-ins every month throughout the summer. One factor in this rapid adoption was that design work continued in parallel with construction for some months, so the Channel became a vital conduit between designers, constructors and suppliers. In 20 months, there were over 23,600 system log-ins; 1733 documents and 4072 drawings were published, over 1300 comments on these were made, and all were accessible to over 170 users from 27 organisations.
Instead of designers distributing multiple packages of drawings to lots of individuals, drawings were published once – to the Channel – and individuals could then view, comment upon and, if necessary, print off just the drawings or details they needed. This drastically cut the volume of paperwork produced, distributed and stored (team feedback suggests this reduction was also partly due to the partnering ethos; the absence of an adversarial culture removed the need for the many contract letters found on more traditional projects). Information could be found more readily (some team members contrasted ease of access to a single repository with searching through email attachments or filing cabinet drawers). The client team logged-in nearly 900 times.
Construction at the Andover North Site ended in October 2002. Post-construction, the facilities would be maintained by Citex for a six-and-a-half year period. So, as well as managing information processes during design and construction, BIW Information Channel created an efficiently searchable electronic archive of all information relating to the buildings, for future operation and maintenance purposes.
The introduction of an extranet did not enable collaboration overnight. Widespread take-up and use of the project extranet needed to be encouraged across the team and from the top down. The creation of a closely-knit project community, committed to principles of honesty, trust and openness through a partnering charter, was a significant factor, as was explicit provision for the extranet in the project execution plan. The training process also created influential advocates for the system (and sources of help and advice) within each team member organisation. Peer pressure was thus developed, encouraging use of the system; even quite sceptical ‘dyed-in-the-wool’ contractors became converts.
Crest Nicholson, Birmingham City Council and social landlord Optima are engaged in an ongoing 10-year urban redevelopment programme in central Birmingham. Recognising that the programme would provide considerable challenges in terms of information management, Crest Nicholson opted to use BIW’s web-based collaboration platform, BIW Information Channel. Early deployment and training helped ensure rapid and widespread adoption of the technology, not only across the core team and supporting subcontractors and suppliers, but – increasingly – to other programme stake-holders such as solicitors and council planners.
In an innovative public-private joint venture, Crest Nicholson plc, Birmingham City Council and social landlord Optima Community Association are engaged in a 10-year urban redevelopment programme covering a large inner city area south of Birmingham city centre. The Park Central scheme will ultimately provide 1384 apartments, 260 houses, 300,000 sq ft of commercial space (including retail, offices and a hotel), an 8-acre park, plus all associated infrastructure. The phased development is due to finish in 2012.
The core team comprises contractor Crest Nicholson, architect Tibbalds TM2, civil and geotechnical engineer Bullens, structural engineer Curtins and landscape engineer Lovejoy. This team is augmented by various mechanical and electrical, acoustics and environmental consultants, plus several subcontractors with design roles (steelwork, roofing, etc).
The project director, Stephen Boid, wanted to ensure efficient management of information relating to the programme. Key issues for him included:
Previous experience in running large projects using email had convinced Boid that email was not a viable solution. Whatever was used needed to be secure, robust, quick to deploy, inexpensive for users to adopt, and easy to access regardless of whether the user worked for Crest Nicholson or one of its supply chain partners.
Drawing on Crest Nicholson’s previous experience of using BIW’s web-based collaboration platform, BIW Information Channel on a scheme at Portishead, near Bristol, Boid decided that the same technology should be employed at Park Central at the earliest possible opportunity.
BIW provided an initial period of three days’ training for Crest Nicholson’s design manager (nominated to be the ‘hub’ of the information exchange community), and a further one-day training workshop for key consultants. Protocols for information exchange (eg: drawing numbering conventions) were also agreed. Through these processes, the core participants gained sufficient knowledge and expertise to then train other users in their respective businesses. BIW also provided a practice environment – a ‘sandit’ – in which users could experiment with and learn about the functionality of the BIW system.
The Park Central Channel went ‘live’ at an early stage in the programme and was soon being intensively used by all consultants to exchange, and provide feedback on, all design information. In the first year, over 2000 drawings were published to the system.
Once information has been approved for construction by Crest Nicholson, the relevant drawings and other documentation is routed via the BIW system to ServicePoint for paper issue (subcontractors still tended to prefer paper and few had adequate plotters to print out the information themselves; however, as the programme progresses, Boid expects Crest Nicholson to start distributing information for construction electronically).
The system is also used by the Council’s planning department and by the various firms of solicitors involved in reviewing contracts, leases, etc.
The programme team is beginning to use BIW Information Channel: Standards to apply standard information across all phases of Park Central, and is looking to extend use of the Channel to cover other processes such as tendering.
Most users had not used a collaboration system before and so tended to prefer paper-based information, particularly, for example, if their work involved taking design information out on site. Crest Nicholson provided a PC and plotting facilities on-site so that visiting team members could print off the latest information.
At an early stage, Crest Nicholson encouraged team members to commit as much information about the project to the system as possible. This resulted in fewer requests for information (“it’s on the BIW”) and increased transparency, leading to more efficient and productive design team meetings. Tasks were not necessarily completed faster, but a missed deadline would be apparent to every participant.