Procure in Australia? Doubtful, page-9

From my perspective you are correct, it is the people that are forced to use the system that experience the difficulties and additional costs. But I would agree that it does make it a lot easier for the people at the top who look over it and say "hmmm seems to all be in order".

The biggest difficulty I find as a user is that you are forced to conform to the set numbers, categories and so forth.
A simple Example would be -
At the start of the project, they think about the disciplines that will be required and so add categories for those. So they might add Structural, Architectural, Hydraulic, Glazing, Aircon/Ducting and a few other main ones.
However, the problem is that the industry subcontracts and evolves to specialize certain areas as they become required.
So we then end up with a lot of items that fall between the categories and by allocating it to either category would be wrong.
Take a Structural Frame to support the Aircon Ducting - The Ducting package was given to the Aircon people and so it should fall under the Aircon category... but it is a Structural Frame and thus must be reviewed and listed as Structural. But the Main Structural Engineer did not do the work, it was a subcontractor by the Aircon people... so he is not the "Structural" category.

Similarly with the categories of correspondence - is it for Tender, Review, Construction, or just General.
Sometimes there are correspondence that does not fall into any specific category, but is still too important to fall under the General category.


Speak to the Aconex helpline... they explain that it needs to be sorted out by the specific Project administrator... Who does not really want to do it (or maybe does not know how to do it, because it was all setup at the start with the help of Aconex company).

So then you are left fudging your information into a system that is designed to keep everything need and ordered.

And the same thing occurs when you are trying to get information from 1 of the other trades... because they were forced to fudge the system, you don't know which category to search through.
Solve this by calling the contractor direct, and they just email you the drawings...

This is even the case when dealing with the Builders' Site Foreman, Contract Administrators etc.
If you want to be productive... do everything via email and dropbox. Once you have finished the job... then you upload a set to Aconex... so basically its a glorified Archive.


In regards to Aconex investing in developing their BIM capability etc.
This is fantastic for selling the concept and project to the client... but completely useless in reality.

The fact is that projects begin construction before the Design is even out of Tender stage.
The number of times we are being told to work from drawings that clearly say "Tender only Not For Construction"... and still have to work from it.
Architects and Engineers don't coordinate information or responses. The project is being built on site, and the consultants are still arguing about who should have to change their design.

The problem is that Aconex is setup to work in an Ideal situation... but the majority of construction jobs don't actually run that way. So companies look for a product that will give them the benefits of an Aconex type Structure... but the Flexibility to use the system how they need it for their project... from the Site Foreman, to the Subcontractor, through to the Consultants and eventually the End Client.