The formation of the NCCTP has to be "AGT" - A Good Thing.

Not only is there now an established group of project extranet providers committed to better understanding and representing the needs of end users of collaborative technology, but they are working together to develop and implement a set of data exchange standards between all member systems.

The enterprise dimension

Why are these data exchange standards so important? Tim Cole explains: "If you think about the term project collaboration, it very much refers to individual points in time. For a company, it actually goes a lot further than single project collaboration - they have a lot of information that they will routinely transfer between individual projects, so there is clearly an enterprise dimension to it as well."

He continues: "If you were a main contractor going into a project, you may well already have a lot of information you need to run an effective project. Now if that information is held in system A and for the next project you have to use system B, which is the new client's preference, then it can mean all that data needing to be set up again from scratch. Alternatively, being able to take your corporate elements from system A and exporting them directly into system B would make for a far more efficient process and a considerable reduction in project set up time - not every project has to start from scratch."

Generic and specific data options

So what exactly is a standard? Tim explains: "The current collaboration systems all sit on different data bases, different structures and different information models. So although I can extract data from one system, certain formatting can result in data loss or reduced management information when this is imported into a second system. For example, folder structures may be different and the access rights hard to interpret - the data is all there, but in a format that is hard to use. It would require significant re-building and mistakes could still be made and elements misinterpreted. The standard is required to correctly and accurately interpret the data that was extracted from the original system ready to be imported into the new system." 

In this case the standard is a data structure built using XML (Extensible Markup Language) that supports both generic and specific data options across all the tools. Each application then builds an interface to convert project data into the standard language which then allows the export / import process.

Tim continues: "There may be things in systems that are generic - that every system does in exactly the same way - but certain things are specific to a particular system. The standard has initially focussed on the generic information but has been structured to support specific options so as to give the most flexibility to how data moves. Flexibility is important for innovation. Using an analogy, it's like creating a language that is flexible enough to write the different stories that people want to read without saying they've all got to be murder mysteries."

Choice is the order of the day

So a standard should enable bulk and routine transfer of information between tools for cross project working. And the NCCTP recognises that there are healthily a number of tools out there. More than £35 billion worth of UK construction projects are managed using project extranets and there are about twelve major players in this market, seven of which are members of the NCCTP.

Tim acknowledges the many reasons why one might need to use a different tool at a different time, from a client wanting data transferred into his system for monthly reviews or to an unlikely worse case scenario of a provider going bust and users being reassured they can still extract their data from a no longer supported system.

"The standard represents the ultimate protection of a user's data. It makes it possible to access information, even when this may involve moving it between different systems. it is important to make this possible as, ultimately, this flexibility allows information to be more effectively shared so as to become knowledge," Tim concludes.

Timeframe

Although the benefits of collaborative working are well documented, the NCCTP believe that increased adoption of collaboration tools will be built on increased market confidence in the products and information management, and that addressing data incompatibility across the systems was a matter of top priority.

By the end of 2004, the objective was for all members to have documented the agreed standard and each to have built the required interface so trial exchange of information between members could take place.

Tim confirms that NCCTP members are very much on schedule having completed trial exchanges between different systems and put into place an internal testing requirement, which the majority of products have now gone through. 

"We are virtually there with compliance which was our goal in a tight timeframe," he confirms. "It has meant a significant amount of work which each company had to undertake on a collective basis initially. Then each company had to take the standard back home and build it into each product. So every member has made a significant contribution in terms of time and cost to get it to where it now is. The next stage would possibly involve awarding an accreditation giving an additional level of confidence for users when selecting a collaboration tool." 

Generic collaboration

It's important to note that the NCCTP is looking at construction collaboration as a generic process. "The NCCTP doesn't differentiate between collaboration tools hosted behind a company's firewall and those hosted on an ASP basis. The standard recognises and supports the ability to collaborate in different ways. All should be able to use the most appropriate system for their needs and the standard is all about the systems being able to talk to each other," states Tim.

The NCCTP is delivering practical benefits to support collaborative working. The standard should build confidence in the wider use of collaboration tools as it addresses practical business issues and has drawn on the experience of different users. Tim concludes: "Now that we've built the standard, the next stage is to ensure that users know the facility exists and feel confident in using it. The market will and should drive the issues that we need to be addressing on their behalf."

www.ncctp.net