BIW Technologies' web-based construction collaboration technology, BIW Information Channel, has become the first application of its kind to be hosted on a system compliant with the stringent new global information security standard, ISO/IEC27001.

BIW's solution is entirely hosted at managed services provider Attenda, which on 10 January 2006 became one of the first UK businesses to be certified by the British Standards Institution (BSI) as compliant with the standard. ISO/IEC27001 was adopted by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) on 15 October 2005 and replaces the previous British Standard, BS 7799 Part 2.

"Attenda was an early adopter of the original standard and one of the first to achieve certification when it was launched. Through our partnership with Attenda, BIW customers and end-users could be reassured about the confidentiality, integrity and availability of BIW Information Channel," says BIW chief executive Colin Smith. "This latest landmark means that reassurance can now be even stronger."

BIW registered 12,426 new users, pushing its user base from 39,783 at the start of the year to 52,209 by 31 December 2005 - up 31 per cent on 2004. Over the same period, use of its system extended to a further 1149 organisations, expanding the BIW community from 4310 to 5459 - up 27 per cent.

At 31 December 2005, BIW Information Channel had been deployed on 3,596 projects or programmes of work (adding individual schemes within multi-project programmes would increase the total by an estimated 2,100 projects to at least 5,700 schemes), conservatively estimated at around £23 billion in total capital value.

"On just about every measure, we continue to exceed our previous years' performances," says BIW chief executive Colin Smith. "Our turnover in the year to 30 September 2005 was also up over 30 per cent at £4 million, and our order book is now worth over £7 million in future revenues. "Growing use of our technology is also having an impact on organisations' IT management practices, particularly by removing large volumes of email."

Collectively, BIW users logged in almost two million times (1,995,495) in 2005, publishing over 443,000 CAD files and 255,000 other documents (excluding comments, requests for information, instructions, transmittals and other process-related forms and reports). In total, BIW now hosts just over 1.6 million CAD files and over 860,000 other documents, and its system has been accessed over 8.3 million times since 1999.

"To put these numbers in context, around 1,200 CAD files are being published via the BIW system, along with 700 other documents - every day," says Smith. If these were distributed via email - and BIW's experience suggests an item is typically distributed to an eight-strong issue list - this would involve around 15,000 emails every day. Over a year, the BIW system therefore removes at least five million emails and their attachments from circulation within its user community.

"Using a securely hosted remote repository for project communications relieves many organisations of the headache of having to manage and store large archives of project-specific emails," Smith continues. "Moreover, for insurance purposes, every company involved in a BIW-managed project can purchase a fully searchable archive of all the information exchanges with which they were involved."

A full project archive can be created for a client, while each supply chain member can have an archive specific to their company's role and responsibilities on the project. Archives are loaded onto hard disk storage devices, complete with all the software needed to search, view and access the full audit trail of every document, drawing, instruction, notice or other project communication. Depending on each organisation's needs, the archive can then be copied or downloaded onto its local area network or placed in secure storage.