5 ways to mitigate risk in building and infrastructure projects

How can technology reduce and resolve disputes in design and construction projects? We provide the normal way and a few more:

1. Cover your rear. It’s not a pretty attitude, but when it comes to risk mitigation, some people still work in this model. Our enterprise software logs transactions automatically and indexes your network for Google-like searches, with the added capability to sort and filter results. And our cloud software maintains a project record that no one can argue with.

2. Prevent conflicts from arising in the first place. As BergerABAM President and Chief Executive Officer Arnie Rusten put it, “Often we can resolve a dispute simply by showing an email that documents our instructions. Newforma Project Center makes it easy, even if that email was generated by someone who’s no longer with the firm.”

3. Make sure everyone is working from current documents. Our software offers a few ways to make sure people are working with up-to-date files. The Newforma Project Cloud collaboration platform is one. Newforma-to-Newforma connectivity is another. Newforma Info Exchange Shared Folders is a third.

4. Work transparently. When everyone knows what everyone else is accountable for, what information they have, and when they got that information, it’s hard to shirk duties or point fingers. The technologies cited above all support transparent workflows.

5. Make more-informed decisions. Our financial and resource planning software enables project managers and senior executives to head off prospective problems by forecasting needs months into the future, instead of just weeks. And our soon-to-be released ability to publish 3D models in the cloud, where they can be viewed and navigated by non-Revit-using team members, will facilitate more-informed decision making, too.

 

Which is the better project information host: The enterprise? Or the cloud?

If you were hoping for a definitive answer, please accept our apologies, because the answer is, “It depends.”

The optimal location for your project information depends on your business needs and the information being managed.

For example, because architecture, engineering, construction, and owner organizations maintain so much information on their networks, we offer software to manage all that data.

At the same time, because extended project teams – teams that span multiple companies – gain efficiencies by filing and managing project information in one place, we offer software to host it in the cloud and access it via the web, where everybody has equal access.

Note in the example above, the answer is not “either/or.” It’s “and.” So we’re doing that, too – linking enterprise-hosted information to cloud-hosted information. (If you’re acquainted with Newforma-to-Newforma connectivity, you know how we do it.)

To see the future of project information management, get the whole story from Newforma Chief Executive Officer Ian Howell’s newly revised white paper, “PIM in the Cloud.”

Request your copy here.

BIM’s place in the project information life cycle

Following last week’s post that BIM is a subset of PIM, United Kingdom Direct Sales Manager Russ Monrose provided this diagram:

Thanks, Russ!