CMAA has posted a copy of the presentation given by Gregg Humphrey with Springfiled Metropolitan Sanitary District and Christy Crites with Crawford Murphy & Tilly on using EADOC’s web based construction management application for the Spring Creek WWTP expansion project. Here is a link to the presentation Presentation You can also learn more about the CMAA Water Summit that was held in Kansas City, MO a couple weeks ago. If you want to learn more about this years Summit you can visit CMAA For those of you that missed the presentation we will doing another one at CMAA’s annual conference in San Diego this Fall. Check back for more details as it gets closer.

In this article by the Las Vegas Sun about the dispute between Perini and MGM Mirage New group enters dispute between MGM Mirage, the developer of another Perini building project is claiming that Perini used “sophisticated wiping programs to sanitize its project server and project computers after it was ordered by the District Court to preserve all project records.” Whether this occurred or not is up to the courts to decide. The question every owner should ask is “am I tracking all this information myself?” All too often private and public owners say “we let the contractors take care of managing project information on our projects”. This is obviously a recipe for disaster, even if a contractor does delete information on a construction project and is found guilty the information is still lost and can not be recovered. Every owner should implement project management applications that track and control project information. To protect yourself even more you should implement a system from a trusted 3rd party to guarantee that no one on the project can modify or delete records pertaining your projects. Systems like EADOC’s construction project management application do not allow any users to edit the database, this is where all the records are stored ensuring complete and accurate records of everything that occurred on the project.

A couple weeks ago I was talking with one of our construction management clients about the cost savings and benefits of using EADOC’s web based construction management application. The CM asked if we had any advice on how they could present the cost savings of using an electronic construction project management application to their client. I suggested the CM explain to the client how all the cost of inefficient processes like paper submittals are coming from the client’s pocket with the following explanation.

This process is also conducted by sub contractors and sub consultants. All the costs of meeting the owners requirements are calculated and passed back to the owner in the form of bids and fees. The owner is not only paying the actual costs but also the profits that are typically added to these fees. As an owner you should really review your specs to see if the 6-10 copies of paper documents you require is really worth the impact this will have on your budget.

This is a follow up to my previous post on industries being behind the construction industry in technology adoption. I ran across an even better example then the insurance companies I mentioned in my last post that is a little closer to home. Specialty Publishing who writes Constructech magazine appears to be more concerned with talking about technology then actually using it. This is a magazine dedicated to technology in the construction industry yet they appear to be about 10 years behind. At the end of last year I ordered a copy of their IT playbook. To do this I went to their website and filled out the order form, several days later I received an email with a form that I needed to complete with my credit card information and return to them via fax. Online payment would have allowed this process to be completed in a couple minutes. Online payments are so common that the small pizza place next to our office accepts them. Constructech took what should have been a 2 minute process to order into a 20+ minute process of emails, faxes, and filling out multiple forms. Next the Postal Service damages the magazine so bad that it was returned, so they have to mail me a new one. Had Constructech been operating in 2010 instead of 1995 I should have downloaded the It playbook after placing my order online. The worst part is this magazine is supposed to be experts on technology in the construction industry but they appear to be behind many of their subscribers in adopting modern tools.. Their latest example of being clueless is their articles about blogging, yet they themselves do not have a blog. How can a writer write about blogging when they do not have one?

In the mean time construction companies are disposing of their paper processes at a record rate and moving to web based project management applications, BIM modeling, blogs, and virtual offices. Many of our clients receive our invoices electronically and pay us through direct deposit. I think the editors at Constructech should put down their pen and paper and visit a modern day construction site. It could help them avoid the terrible fate that so many media companies have gone through.
Eric Law
EADOC Founder

The insurance industry is way behind the construction industry in the use of technology. Blue Shield and Travelers are perfect examples of companies that still believe the fax machine is modern technology. I have had the unfortunate experience of having to work with both of these companies laboriously painful paper processes recently. Blue Shield who provides our employee health insurance plan does not have email access. Everything has to be mailed or faxed. Their invoices are 5-10 pages long with many pages duplicated. When I asked them to email these to me their response “we don’t do email”.
Travelers a company all of us in the construction industry know well has a slight advantage over Blue Cross. This year they provided me a temporary email address for submitting our 2009 payroll records for their annual review. This is a lot better then last years 30+ page fax I had to send them. There is still room for improvements, they should really provide clients with a portal for uploading this information and tracking the status of invoices and renewals. Even the state of CA DGS lets us go online to upload our Small business certificate documents for renewal. Travelers has made some progress but still has a way to go.
In the mean time construction companies, facility owners, and engineering firms are disposing of their paper processes at a record rate and moving to web based project management applications, BIM modeling, blogs, and virtual offices faster then these three companies can refill the paper tray on their fax machine. Many in the construction industry have recognized the limits and inefficiencies in email and are moving to collaborative applications, portals, and blogs to move information electronically.
So if you want to help move the insurance industry forward I would urge you to request all insurance documents via email, after enough requests they may finally get it.
Eric Law
EADOC Founder

I just completed a webinar with Mike Warriner from Carollo on “Leveraging Web-Based Collaboration to Deliver Quality, Cost Effective CM Services”. CMAA asked us to conduct this presentation again via webinar. This presentation was originally delivered at the 2009 CMAA conference in Orlando, Florida. If you missed the webinar the recording is available here Click here for the recording This presentation is a great opportunity for Construction Managers to learn about the benefits of using Web-Based Collaboration software for improving project control and reducing costs for their clients. The presentation provides attendees with benefits, evaluation criteria, and recommended processes for implementing a web based collaborative project management application.

With the constant negative news about the economy and over dramatization of the world ending by the media it is nice to share some good news at the end of this year with you. This year EADOC has added 40 new contracts and 38 new clients to the EADOC application in 2009. EADOC clients are reporting tremendous costs savings in the form of reduced staff time on projects, reduced printing and shipping costs and tremendous reductions in document turnaround time. Not only are EADOC clients saving money but they are also helping the environment at the same time making the EADOC a must have tool in these difficult economic times. Another positive note is we have seen a tremendous pickup in the number of projects requests EADOC features be enabled for tracking ARRA funding sources and the buy America certifications. With the Feb deadline fast approaching for many of these projects to start we, are looking forward to a very busy start to the new year for ourselves and our clients.
From the EADOC team we wish everyone a Happy and Safe Holiday season.

J. Kent Holland wrote a great article in his monthly Construction risk report about discovery of electronic information. Electronic Discovery Requires Cooperation between Opposing Counsel The article focused mostly on which emails between a CM(Hill International) and their client were admissible based on the keywords within the emails. Because the CM was using general email for project communication where each email could not be differentiated between Hill’s multiple clients. The courts had to severely restrict the clients keyword ESI search to not expose emails from other Hill clients. Had the cm and client used a collaborative project management system for all communication then all communication for that clients projects would have been filtered before the keywords were applied. This would have eliminated the need for the court to even intervene in the discovery process for this case. CM’s and their clients need to be careful how they communicate as this case shows their is the potential for your email to be discoverable even if they had nothing to do with the project in question.

This case is a good example of why you should consider a true collaborative project management application like EADOC instead of an Enterprise project management application(Primavera) as Hill International uses. With a true collaborative application all information including communication is kept with each individual project eliminating the potential for discovery to cross project communication lines.

A couple weeks ago I was talking with one of our clients about how they were able to achieve their objectives of going completely paperless on their project. They said the biggest key to success was getting rid of the printers in their project office. The client said it was the only way to break the bad habit of their users constantly printing project documents. Talk of Green benefits, cost savings, team objectives all failed to break the users tendency of clicking print. Initially after removing all the printer there were a few grumbles among the team members but after a couple weeks there was not a single complaint within the office. We realize not everyone can make this drastic change given they may be required to have wet signatures on legal documents. For these cases you may want to consider only allowing users access to printers who must print legal documents for wet signatures. Even though you may still be printing a few docs the dramatic reduction in paper, printing supplies, and printer costs will make your finance department and green team very happy.