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Application Service Providers (ASPs) deliver and manage applications and computer services from remote data centres to multiple users via the internet or a private network. Obtaining such applications from an outside supplier is often very cost-effective (studies have indicated customer savings of between 33% and 53%), bearing in mind the demands of ownership: capital expenses, implementation challenges and continuing maintenance, upgrade and customisation needs.
Commercial ASPs offer an alternative to procuring, implementing and managing complex information technology systems. By leasing their systems from an ASP, customers are able to control more precisely the total cost of technology ownership. Also, with no capital expenditure on software, hardware and IT personnel, organisations can “test” new technology with minimal impact to their existing environment and bottom line.
An ASP will already have the equipment, applications and expertise needed to enable rapid implementation of the required IT system, and once in place, the ASP will also be able to offer superior levels of availability, security, backup, disaster recovery, and help desk services.
Customers who use ASPs often find better application reliability and availability than they experience from their internal IT departments. Why? Running information systems for other entities is the ASP´s primary business - it has the staff, expertise and equipment to maintain and sustain the most reliable and up-to-date service.
Some ASPs enabled traditional client/server applications for the web, but these services tended to lack the speed and responsiveness of applications designed from the ground up to be 'web-native'. As a result, alternative definitions, including 'On-demand' and 'Software-as-a-Service' (SaaS) have been developed.
The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) revolution allows companies to subscribe to software applications that have been specifically designed for web-access. In many instances, SaaS vendors support multiple customers from a common infrastructure and code base (so-called multi-tenancy), resulting in dramatic efficiency improvements in software development (no issues about having to work across multiple versions of hardware and operating systems), delivering software upgrades and supporting users.
Collaboration has been defined (Michael Schrage, "Shared Minds: the New Technologies of Collaboration", 1990) as:
“the process of shared creation: two or more individuals with complementary skills interacting to create a shared understanding that none had previously possessed or could have come to on their own.”
As this suggests, collaboration is a process of value creation that cannot be achieved through traditional communication and teamwork structures. The key requirement is an environment to which authorised collaborators have equal access, and which they can use to interact in real-time towards the achievement of agreed objectives. Effectively, this becomes a collaborative framework that people can use to create synergies, where the outputs from the group are greater than the sum of all individuals’ expertise and knowledge inputs.
It should perhaps be noted that collaboration is a human activity, not something undertaken by computer systems alone. Technology, therefore, provides a platform for collaboration - in short: people collaborate, not systems.
Electronic business. UK construction industry organisation Construct IT defines e-business as the use of electronic means for the conduct of business, not only buying and selling but also servicing customers and collaborating with business partners.
Electronic commerce. UK construction industry organisation Construct IT says this term is often used interchangeably with ´e-business´ but is now increasingly used to define the narrower activity of buying and selling goods by electronic means.
There has been widespread debate within the construction industry regarding the use of electronic document management systems (EDMSs) to manage paperwork associated with the design and construction of projects. This is, at least in part, a logical progression of the increasing use of computer technology to produce and distribute documents and drawings between project team members.
With any substantial construction scheme, over 90% of the associated documents and drawings are generated by computer. Typically, however, about 90% of these documents are then printed out and sent by post, fax, courier and by hand as hard, paper copies. In other industries (eg: automotive, aerospace), sharing of data through an EDMS has become increasingly common.
However, most EDMSs are designed for use on local area networks (LANs) within one organisation where speed of data transmission is not an issue. An EDMS is, therefore, typically a company-centric solution stored on a company’s internal networks - it is not a “Hub”.
In construction projects, information needs to be shared among a constantly-changing virtual organisation of multiple, geographically dispersed users, including the client, designers, contractor, other consultants, subcontractors, suppliers and manufacturers. Speed of download of information is likely to be slow – a typical 3MB drawing took between five and seven minutes to issue in a comparison test reported in “Construction Management” magazine (May 2000).
An EDMS does not reach down into the supply chain because use is normally limited to people who hold licenses. By contrast, collaboration technology encourages use by everybody in the supply chain by charging one fee for unlimited users and disk space.
An extranet is an external, closed (or ‘private’) computer network which connects together individuals from different groups or companies, normally via internet connections using a browser. Use is normally restricted by individual or group user IDs and passwords.
The basis for an extranet is often a company-based intranet. Access to this may then be extended, usually on a limited basis, to customers, supply chain partners, etc.
Each project-specific collaboration website could therefore be considered as a narrow form of extranet.
In this context, hosting means where the project extranet server is being held externally, either by the application software provider, or more commonly by a professional hosting organisation in a specially built server farm.
This is a key factor, in so much as the quality of data storage offered, the security of the project data, and the ease with which it can accommodate multiple users, is vital in the choice of an appropriate system.
There may be technical or legal concerns relating to hosting of data relating to UK projects in other countries (eg: USA).
The concept of intelligent objects is employed as a means for storing, using and re-using data and information about products and or components used within the building and construction industry. Intelligent Objects (IOs) know what they are, what their pedigree is, who produced them, what their primary usage/purpose is, what their attributes/properties are, what they look like, and how they should present themselves in different environments.
For example, on drawings, they appear as part of a drawing or as a drawing symbol; in databases they are database objects or tables of data, and on the internet they are simply an HTML document with links to other objects and information.
This is Microsoft’s industry standard HTML-compatible browser. According to Construction Plus, in UK construction it is estimated that IE has over 90% market share, with Netscape claiming around 8% penetration.
Software interoperability creates an environment in which computer programs can share and exchange data automatically (without translation or human intervention), regardless of the type of software or of where the data may be residing. It allows business and technical data to be transmitted and correctly interpreted by computers regardless of their different operating systems or programming languages.
Many computer programs employed in the construction industry are used in a stand-alone manner and cannot exchange data directly, even when used by the same party. This often results in omission, repetition, confusion, misunderstanding, error, delay, and, eventually, in litigation. Accordingly, buildings take longer to design and build and cost more to construct and operate than necessary.
Implementing true interoperability among the plethora of software tools used by the industry would save billions of dollars annually in North America, according to industry experts such as McGraw-Hill and CMD Group. IAI official estimates suggest minimum potential annual savings of between $7.5bn and $15bn (£5-£10bn).
The International Alliance for Interoperability (IAI) is a worldwide organisation with nine chapters, including one in the UK, representing more than 600 entities (companies, government agencies, professional practices, universities and research laboratories) in 24 countries.
Incorporated in 1995, it is a fast-track, standard-setting organisation. Its mission is to develop and promote commercial implementation of common formats for the rapid exchange of information among all disciplines involved in the commercial building process — from concept, to design and engineering, to costing and operation, to facility and move management, to building maintenance.
An intranet is defined by Microsoft as:
"a private network built using internet standards and protocols. It brings the intuitive navigational interface of the World Wide Web to the information and services stored in a local area network."
In practice, this tends to mean a system offering employees (and trusted partners, suppliers and/or clients) browser-based access to an organisation's information.
Java is a programming language expressly designed for use in the distributed environment of the internet. It can be used to create complete applications that may run on a single computer or be distributed among servers and clients in a network. It can also be used to build a small application module or applet for use as part of a Web page. Applets make it possible for a Web page user to interact with the page.
Netscape developed the original HTML browser but has now been overtaken by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.
Plug-in applications are programs that can easily be installed and used as part of a web browser. Recognised automatically by the browser, their functions are integrated into the main HTML file that is being presented (eg: Adobe Acrobat allows users to view documents just as they look in print form).
´Portal´ is generally synonymous with gateway. It is usually a website that acts as a major starting site for users when they get connected to the web or that users tend to visit as an anchor site.
Some commentators make a distinction between ´general´ and ´niche´ portals. General portals include Yahoo, Excite, MSN, etc; niche portal examples include Garden.com (for gardeners), Fool.com (for investors), etc - and www.ncctp.net for the construction industry!
Typical portal services include a directory of Web sites, a facility to search for other sites, news, weather information, e-mail, stock quotes, phone and map information, and sometimes a community forum. Increasingly, sophisticated portals are offering users the ability to create a site that is personalized for individual interests.
Project collaboration is the generic term used to describe the interaction between members of a project team, in sharing and exchanging documents, drawings, letters, schedules, etc. This would be the main purpose of a project extranet.
´Red-lining´ describes the practice of marking-up drawings, particularly on a computer. Using a drawing tool, the user can, for example, put a circle or a cloud around a section of a drawing to highlight it for other users and then add some comments relevant to that section.
Secure socket layer is an industry standard protocol designed to establish secure communications via the internet. This form of advanced encryption delivers greater security than the standard individual user ID and password can provide.
Supply chain management (SCM) is the oversight of materials, information, and finances as they move in a process from supplier to manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer to consumer. Supply chain management involves coordinating and integrating these flows both within and among companies. It is said that the ultimate goal of any effective supply chain management system is to reduce inventory (with the assumption that products are available when needed).
Some supply chain management applications are based on open data models that support the sharing of data both inside and outside the enterprise (the “extended enterprise”, and includes key suppliers, manufacturers, and end customers of a specific company). By sharing this data "upstream" (with a company´s suppliers) and "downstream" (with a company´s clients), SCM applications have the potential to improve the time-to-market of products, reduce costs, and allow all parties in the supply chain to better manage current resources and plan for future needs.
Nothing to do with the intellectual capacity of our friends in the client organisation.
In this context, ´thick client´ is used to refer to web-enabled business software which cannot be fully used just with a standard browser. Such software requires significant additional software to be installed on a user’s PC, with all the ramifications this might have for network security, licensing, disk space, etc.
Nothing to do with the physical stature of key partners in a construction project!
In this context, ´thin client´ is used to refer to web-enabled business software which cannot be fully used just with a standard browser. Such software requires some additional software to be installed on a user’s PC.
Where the user´s PC resides on a corporate network behind a firewall, there may be security issues relating to the download or licensing of new software.
Workflow is defined (www.e-workflow.com) as: “The automation of a business process, in whole or part, during which documents, information or tasks are passed from one participant to another for action, according to a set of procedural rules.”
In an architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) context, ´workflow´ might be used to describe processes involving requests for information (RFIs), technical queries (TQs), instructions, transmittals, change orders, etc. However, such common processes often vary between different companies and projects, and will vary over time within an ever-changing network of individuals and organisations, making rigid workflow definition difficult.