Leading UK Builder Will Standardise on Aconex under Enterprise Agreement
to Streamline Portfolio Management for United Living
London, June 19, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Aconex Limited (
ASX:ACX) (ACNXF:OTCMKTS), provider of the #1 global platform connecting teams on construction and engineering projects, today announced that United Living Group, one of the UK's leading providers of refurbished and new build living solutions, has signed a three-year enterprise agreement. Under the agreement, United Living will standardise on the Aconex platform and solutions across its project portfolio.
United Living provides planned maintenance and new build services to clients throughout the UK, providing not just high-quality homes, but a commitment to community responsibility. With a focus on the customer at the heart of United Living's approach to design and delivery, efficient operations and strong, consistent project performance are high priorities.
After a merger in 2014, United Living was faced with managing multiple point solutions, which had been used to varying degrees of efficiency within both businesses. The existing legacy systems did not have the functionality or the user engagement necessary to provide either operational efficiency or high productivity. Greg Morley, chief information officer, set a goal to implement a single enterprise-wide solution that would drive streamlined project management across all operations and the company's extensive supply chain. Mr. Morley specifically sought a web-based solution to provide a consistent user experience for both internal and external teams while minimising IT capital expenditures.
Beginning with a two-tower build of 200 residential apartments on the Chelsea waterfront in London, United Living will implement all new projects on Aconex. Projects in process and completed projects will be assessed and scheduled by priority for their transition to Aconex, with the goal of all projects - past, present and future - to be accessible on the platform.
Optimising Processes through the Project Lifecycle
United Living plans to fully utilise the Aconex platform and suite of solutions, including Aconex Field for mobile inspections and defect resolution, Aconex Connected BIM for collaboration on multidimensional models, Aconex Smart Manuals for digital handover, and Aconex Mobile for platform access in the field. All project team members, from owner/operators to subcontractors and vendors, will use Aconex to ensure consistent data and processes through every project lifecycle.
"With our supply chain becoming increasingly dependent on mobile devices, whether smartphones or tablets, it is essential that we provide the tools to empower them at the ground level," stated Mr. Morley. "As a business, we are heavily invested in mobile devices, and as we deploy Aconex, we'll start driving better value from our investments."
Mr. Morley also cited the inherent inefficiency of point solutions to manage everyday processes such as design reviews, requests for information (RFIs), and changes and variations across multiple organisations. United Living will utilise Aconex automated workflow management to streamline and standardise these processes, applying best practice from one project to the next.
"We will be able to define specific tasks, monitor their progress, track activity, and automatically save all details in a complete audit trail," said Mr. Morley. "The organisation is committed to an efficient new centralised management platform. There is a significant groundswell of excitement from our operations staff on the ground - everybody is very enthusiastic and can't wait for Aconex."
Maintaining a Single Version of the Truth
According to Mr. Morley, managing project data on legacy systems presents significant challenges. Documents, drawings, multidimensional models, emails and attachments, and other information may reside only in hard copy, on a remote hard drive, in an inaccessible database, or in a contractor's files. The time and effort required to track down relevant data can be onerous, and conflicts between different organisations may be impossible to resolve.
"On Aconex, everyone has access to project data, and everyone controls access to their own data," said Mr. Morley. "There is one consistent data set for each project which is stored on the platform." In addition, Aconex employs metadata to enable fast, easy searches that would be impossible on non-centralised legacy systems or point solutions. "Modern metadata usage is eminently more powerful than traditional search through multiple layers of folders and files," Mr. Morley added.
Handover to the owner/operator at practical completion of a project has historically been a labour-intensive process, with unavoidable room for error during the gathering of relevant project data, scanning to PDF files, collation of those files into manuals, and distribution of the manuals to the operations team. Aconex Smart Manuals automates, simplifies and streamlines this process, which Mr. Morley described as a "huge step forward for us."
"We are excited to partner with United Living in standardising and streamlining processes across their entire portfolio," said Steve Cooper, general manager of the UK and Ireland at Aconex. "We look forward to helping them implement enterprise solutions that will continuously improve project performance."
About Aconex Ltd
Aconex Limited (ASX:ACX) project collaboration solution digitally connects owners, builders and other teams, providing complete visibility and management of data, documents and costs across all stages of a construction project lifecycle. The Aconex cloud-based solution has been used to manage over $1 trillion in projects across 70,000 user organisations in over 70 countries. The company’s ordinary shares are traded on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) under the ticker code ACX and are included in the S&P/ASX 200 Index.
Supporting Resources
For more information on Aconex, please visit:
- Website: https://www.aconex.com
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/aconex
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aconex
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Aconex
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