EADOC software's web based construction management blog

CMAA Water Summit presentation

Eric Law — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 18:32:56 +0000

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.

American Institute of Architects (AIA) Contract Documents and EADOC Announce Embedding of G702 and G703 Forms into the EADOC Construction Management Application

Eric Law — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 02:41:29 +0000

Washington, D.C. – July 20, 2010 – The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and EADOC LLC, the provider of the EADOC web-based project management application for the construction industry, today announced the integration of two select AIA Contract Documents into the EADOC application, giving easy access to AIA payment forms to owners and construction managers. These two forms, G702™–1992, Application and Certificate for Payment, and G703™–1992, Continuation Sheet, are two of the most heavily used AIA forms in the industry. This marks the AIA’s most recent effort to integrate AIA Contract Documents into a construction and project management system.

EADOC users can now easily share AIA’s G702 and G703 payment forms with other project team members through the software application. The application provides the content and tools necessary to streamline workflows and save time. It automatically populates forms with project data, tracks multiple payments by period relative to budget and eliminates the need to enter duplicate payment information into two systems, reducing the chance of error.

“We are eager to expand our customer’s access to and use of digital documents. The EADOC application provides our customers with access to our payment forms when they need them, where they need them,” said Molly Lindblom, Managing Director of AIA Contract Documents. “The partnership between EADOC and AIA is a great complement to the breadth of AIA contracts and forms that are available through AIA Contract Documents software.”

Eric Law, Founder and President of EADOC added, “Delivering AIA’s G702 and G703 through EADOC’s project management application makes it easier for clients to follow industry standards while reducing review time and waste associated with paper forms.”

“Utilizing the AIA G702 in EADOC for our monthly billings has greatly simplified the process as we are able to create, review, approve and distribute AIA pay applications electronically,” said David Heyde, Construction Manager of Mortenson Construction and an EADOC customer. “EADOC’s project management application combined with AIA’s payment forms has allowed me to focus my time on managing the project instead of pushing paperwork and filling out spreadsheets.”

More information about AIA forms in EADOC can be found at www.eadocsoftware.com/aiadocs

More information about AIA Contract Documents can be found at www.aia.org/contractdocs. AIA Contract Documents software can be purchased at www.aia.org/contractdocs/purchase. Documents in paper form are available through the AIA’s full service distributors. For a listing of full service distributors and pricing information, please visit www.aia.org/docs_purchase.

About The American Institute of Architects
For over 150 years, members of the American Institute of Architects have worked with each other and their communities to create more valuable, healthy, secure, and sustainable buildings and cityscapes. By using sustainable design practices, materials, and techniques, AIA architects are uniquely poised to provide the leadership and guidance needed to provide solutions to address climate change. AIA architects walk the walk on sustainable design. Visit www.aia.org

About EADOC LLC
EADOC provides a fast, secure, easy to use web-based project management application that reduces construction delays, rework, and overhead costs. With unlimited users, a project team gains instant access to all the information communicated from design through construction. Visit www.eadocsoftware.com or call 877-305-3844 for more information.

To download the release click here

Why Owners should track and control their construction project information.

Eric Law — Fri, 21 May 2010 18:33:14 +0000

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.

Great quote that can be applied to construction projects

Eric Law — Thu, 20 May 2010 23:23:21 +0000

If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less -
General Eric Shinseki

Facility Owners Bear the Costs of Inefficient Construction Management

Eric Law — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 21:31:50 +0000

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.

Contractor prepares a bid price based on labor, materials, sub costs and overhead for a project. Typically the overhead rate includes office admin staff, printing, filing, and other costs associated with meeting the clients requirements. Contractors adjust this rate depending on the client and their requirements. Therefore clients requiring contractors submit paper documentation will see higher bids then clients allowing for electronic submission.

Construction Manager calculates costs of work, adds markup and submits as fees to the client. Every CM contract we have seen has an overhead rate or line item for office costs. This cost is based on the amount of administrative work that has to be done for the client. The more paper the client requires the higher the cost to the client.

Designer estimates cost of construction services, typically as number of hours per submittal review. If the designer has to spend one hour just logging, copying and shipping the submittals this cost is included in their price to the client.

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.

EADOC celebrates 4 years

Eric Law — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:50:12 +0000

Last month EADOC celebrated 4 years of providing the EADOC web based project management application. This is a tremendous milestone to pass considering today’s tough economic environment and the shrinking construction industry. Not only are we surviving this economy but we are also growing rapidly. Our revenue grew 45% in 2009 compared to 2008 while the construction industry shrank 27%. We added 38 new clients last year representing over $1 Billion in construction projects. With these new clients EADOC’s user base is over 3500 now. Much of this growth is attributed to clients using EADOC to reduce costs on their capital projects allowing them to do more with their shrinking budgets. I would like to thank all of our wonderful clients along with the EADOC staff at our offices in Oakland for this success. We are looking forward to another great year even as the Construction industry looks to be facing more challenges ahead.
Thank You
Eric Law

Construction Industry is not last in technology just look at Constructech

Eric Law — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 00:34:37 +0000

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

Construction Industry is not last in technology just look at the insurance industry

Eric Law — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 16:19:50 +0000

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

CMAA Webinar follow up to 2009 conference

Eric Law — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:09:09 +0000

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.

Finally some good news for 2009

Eric Law — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 20:16:00 +0000

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.