Oakland, Calif. – February 21st, 2012 – EADOC Software, the market-leader in collaborative construction management software for the Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry, announced today the introduction of its education partner program, which provides free access to the EADOC application for qualified construction management educational programs.

“Universities and technical schools offering construction management programs can benefit from having free access to a contemporary Internet-based project management application being used to manage real-world projects across the country totaling more than $4 billion,” said Eric Law, Founder and CEO of EADOC.

EADOC’s software is used across North America by facility owners, construction management firms, engineering firms and general contractors to minimize the cost and hassle of managing complex construction projects. Critically, for construction professionals, EADOC software integrates the entire project team, allowing them to efficiently manage cost control functions alongside document management and scales to serve projects valued at $5 million to over $1 billion.

The general contractor, Swinerton Builders, selected EADOC to manage the $115 million effort, centered on a 37,134 square-foot central utility plant and a 34,436 square-foot Center for Joint Replacement.

Going Green
All submittals, RFIs, daily reports and inspection documents go through EADOC software; Swinerton chose to go paperless for this project, including a computer and flat screen television in the plan room allowing team members and sub-contractors to review drawings in actual size.

View of the project from BART platform during construction (Swinerton)

More than sixty sub-contractors and agencies are are linked to the project through EADOC, highlighting the collaborative power of the application. Contractors upload drawings from their own offices and submit them to Swinerton within minutes. Turnaround time is fast.

Completed Central Utility Plant Building (EADOC)

Superintendent Benefits
Swinerton used EADOC routinely to organize meetings with subcontractors and track meeting minutes, and when inspectors had to find RFIs, they could do so quickly and easily via EADOC. For example, at wall close-up time, the inspectors liked the ability to see all of the work and inspections done on the elements in the wall, before signing off. Swinerton also used EADOC’s electronic send groups to get daily reports out electronically to several superintendents in one fell swoop, saving time and paper.

A Boon for QA/QC
Having everything electronically was a boon for Swinteron’s Quality Control/Quality Assurance processes as well. However, the ability to have sub-contractors submit daily reports via EADOC was not fully exploited, something Swinerton plans to correct on future projects.

Overall, Swinerton realized huge time and cost savings by moving to a paperless project management model with EADOC’s collaborative construction management software. EADOC sees the Washington Hospital project as a perfect reference point for other project teams planning to go paperless.

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The forum, held in Newark, California, and sponsored by SVForum, invited CEOs and investors alike to give advice and guidance to attendees on alternative funding sources, such as loans from friends and family, research grants and seed-stage angel investors.

Members of the SVForum Panel, Eric Law at Right (EADOC)

Mr. Law was joined on the panel by Maureen Shea, President & CEO, Two Shea Consulting, Eric Alderman, President & CEO, Solarnexus, Leif Langensand, CFO, Angels Forum, and Jo Anne Miller, Partner, Milk Street Ventures.

More than thirty attendees, many of them seeking funding for their own venture, turned out to hear moderator John Matthesen press the panel for practical fundraising strategies and ask their own questions.

The SVForum East Bay Series meets monthly and held their event in the Fremont/Newark area for the first time last night.

Mr. Wideman was writing about claim avoidance and the important role of record keeping in that endeavor. Claims originate from disputes, he wrote, and disputes often end up in court, which can be costly. Good record keeping is essential to minimizing the costs arising from disputes and litigation, and it begins at the initiation of the project.

This is where a product such as EADOC’s construction management software really shines. Built for collaboration, document organizing, cost control and risk mitigation, EADOC gives contractors the power to keep control of their on-going work, and simplify the all-important issue of record keeping. And, it’s like an all-knowing, objective, eye on the project, creating a paperless audit trail of activities.

Interviewed for this article, construction law attorney Christopher Hill, of Glen Allen, Virginia, had this to say about the need for strong, organized record keeping for construction projects, “I usually have to deal with something after it happened, and I can’t put together what happened without the documents. It helps me from an information and advising standpoint, because I need to be able to figure out what happened. Memories get fuzzy, and sometimes what the client thinks happened didn’t really happen. Having the documents puts you in a position not just of ‘your word against theirs,’ but in the stronger position of ‘documentation plus your word against theirs.’ If they come in with documents and you don’t, you’re in a worse position. Typically, he who has the best documents wins.”

Mr. Hill often represents small sub-contractors, who typically use paper-based record keeping systems, in claim disputes that aren’t usually complicated as a matter of law, but are complicated in the volume of documents and how well they are organized, or not.

When it comes to moving a dispute down the path of litigation, Mr. Hill said, “If you look unprepared, the other side isn’t going to take you seriously. Even if you are willing to settle, you have to be prepared to go to court. And if you don’t look like you know what you’re talking about, you won’t get far. It’s a credibility issue. Anything that helps clients keep documents organized is good. It saves my clients money too, so they don’t have to pay me to organize documents on top of reading them and figuring out what happened. To the extent that electronic document management helps with that, I’m all for it. I use cloud-based electronic document management for my practice.”

All project team members can appreciate the benefits of a construction management application like EADOC – the ongoing, automated, organizing of project documents allows their attorney to focus on the core of the dispute, not record organizing.

On the opposite coast, construction attorney William Last, of San Mateo, California, said, “With electronic document management, it’s easy to put your finger on the key documentation quickly. With paper, it’s a lot of cutting down the forest to get to the trees. Electronic systems also help force project team members to enter information in a consistent form, improving the chance that it’s evidence admissible in court as a business record, and not inadmissible hearsay.”

Mr. Last is familiar with EADOC, and he likes the ability to “push a button and see all the relationships between owners and subcontractors” without having to spend time sorting through records to figure that out. “Clients that pay their attorney to sort through and organize their project documents often end up with a big bill,” he said.

Written in 2001, Mr. Wideman’s article references the applicability of the micro-computer to construction project record keeping. EADOC software is the natural outgrowth of that application, simplifying and automating record keeping, and speeding access to critical information when it’s needed.

The forum, sponsored by SVForum, the hub of the Silicon Valley software community, takes place on February 15th, in Newark, California.

The topic: Getting Funded Without VCs, How to Launch Your Business Without Money from Venture Capitalists

Eric Law will be joined by Leif Langensand, CFO, Angels Forum, Jo Anne Miller, Partner, Milk Street Ventures and Eric Alderman, President and CEO, Solarnexus. The panel will be moderated by serial entrepreneur John Matthesen, CEO, Related Concepts.

EADOC customers routinely tell us that time is money, and that it doesn’t take too many delays to push a project over budget. Holding up work crews while a decision is made, or someone tries to find the right information, translates into a lot of money. Getting the right information to the right people at the right time helps bring projects in on time and on budget.

And that’s the power of EADOC software – allowing the entire project team to collaborate, quickly disseminate – and locate – information, and rapidly run decisions up and down the chain of authority. Owners and other stakeholders get into the loop as well – EADOC customers encourage them to log in to the system for updates and to know what’s happening with the project. This reduces the burden on the project manager, whose time is re-focused on managing the project instead of providing updates. And this is how EADOC increases efficiency as more users are added to the project – pricing is based on size of the project, not per user.

If you have some time now before your next project starts, invest it in a live demo with EADOC, and be ready to launch it with the market-leading construction management application for cost savings and risk reduction.

Time can be lost moving paper around to secure a “wet signature” in ink. There’s also the cost associated with moving volumes of paper – specifications, drawings, cut-sheets, etc. – along with approval forms, especially if many wet signatures are required from multiple agencies, spread over a diverse geographic area. The cost of shipping documents alone can be significant, but project delays often translate into penalty assessments, which could be staggering.

Collaborative construction management software was created to alleviate this problem. Virtually all project documents originate electronically these days, so why not keep them in that format? There’s no reason to print CAD drawings, specifications or digital photographs to paper any more, when they can easily be transmitted electronically for approval with a digital signature, and electronically archived as well, along with approval documents.

Even when a wet signature is still required for some reason, collaborative project management software can still speed things up – just scan the document with the signature, and upload it to the system for quick notification and distribution to the interested parties. The paper can follow along behind.

Another benefit is that Internet-based software allows project participants to see the approvals from anywhere they have Internet access – even from a tablet computer on the job site.

And with electronic approvals, events and sign-offs are logged, creating an audit trail and a clear view of any required outstanding approvals. At the end of a project, electronic archive of documents and approvals can support regulatory compliance audits.

The pace of software development, and the technology that exists today, is allowing many project managers to move beyond the wet signature, and focus on project completion – on time, and on budget.

Truly collaborative project management software should untether the busy manager from the office. On the road, at the job site, or at the lunch counter, information should be available and accessible when you need it. Timely access to information can also prevent costly errors – catching mistakes early can prevent them from compounding. With today’s complex commercial and industrial construction projects the ability to quickly respond to the needs of a project are paramount to reducing risk.

EADOC designed its collaborative construction management application to follow the construction manager wherever he or she goes, on any device. Construction Managers have access to real time information about document reviews and current projects costs. You no longer have to wait for a project engineer to update the report and email it to you. You can log in and see in real time how your project is performing. EADOC works with any browser, on a PC, laptop, smartphone or tablet computers, like the iPad or Xoom.

Anywhere there’s internet access you have instant access to all your project information including drawings, specifications, change orders and pay estimates. And with EADOC, each project participant has instant access to information you have shared with them electronically, ensuring that Contractors, Engineers, Architects, and clients all have access to current real time information.

Your construction management software should match how you do business, and follow you right into the field if it has to. With EADOC, your information is right there with you when you need it.

Oakland, Calif. – January 16, 2012 – EADOC Software, the market-leader in collaborative construction management software for the Architecture, Engineering and Construction industry, announced today that year-over-year revenue growth in 2011 was 25 percent, and its customer base grew by more than 40 percent.

“We had a good year, and 2012 is looking even better, as the commercial construction market begins a recovery,” said Eric Law, founder and CEO of EADOC. “EADOC software is unique in the marketplace in that it provides for true collaboration across the construction management spectrum of owners, contractors, sub-contractors, architects and engineers. It deploys quickly, is easy to use, and unlike other products on the market, adding users increases efficiency, not cost.”

The cloud computing-based software vendor also plans 40 percent headcount growth for 2012 after roughly doubling employees in 2011; EADOC is hiring software developers and sales representatives.

EADOC’s software is used across North America by facility owners, public agencies, construction engineering firms and general contractors to minimize the cost and hassle of managing commercial construction projects. Critically, for construction professionals, EADOC software integrates cost control functions with document management and scales to serve projects valued at $5 million or less up to over $1 billion.

EADOC is headquartered in Oakland, California.

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About EADOC, LLC
EADOC, LLC is the leading cloud-computing software vendor delivering the industry’s first truly collaborative construction management application to public agencies, facility owners and construction management firms in the trillion dollar construction industry. Designed by construction professionals for the commercial/industrial construction management industry, EADOC avoids many of the pitfalls and lag times that are found in legacy construction management software. EADOC is the first and only application which provides true collaboration across a capital project’s entire supply chain. EADOC is based in Oakland, California. www.eadocsoftware.com