Ai Solutions Ltd is celebrating the best ever quarterly results following a major software upgrade order from Seeboard. The company has now ordered CDM ToolKit™ 2000 software for installation across 6 of their key sites in the southeast. The synchronous network will allow a high number of users to access the CDM database both from their network workstations and with our innovative Away From Base option that allows users laptop access. Seeboard will be supported through a service contract to ensure they have the opportunity to use this leading document management solution to best effect.
Our new CDM Seminar took place on 5th April 2001. This was our best ever attended event with 45 attendees listening to the latest information about the sharp rise in construction industry accident statistics and the government's response to this. We are all under notice from Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott to attend to the issues of health & safety in the construction industry by this autumn or, we are promised, direct legislation will be imposed to correct the situation.
This stark warning delivered to the audience by Mike Stokes, Health & Safety Director of Mouchel was reinforced by Stephen Taylor of the HSE who went into some depth about the individual statistics and how legislation is being developed to focus their detail. This includes planned visits at short notice to about 200 'SME' enterprises to ascertain what management and auditing procedures they have in place for CDM. Network users of the CDM ToolKit™ 2000 product will be aware that they already have the tools in place to achieve those requirements.
At the end of his presentation, Stephen asked the audience a question and invites all our contacts to respond: CDM Regulation 9 - Provision of adequate resource in the tender documents.
How do you check for compliance with this regulation?
We intend to publish this question on our cdmUK.com site so that you can respond to it there along with a copy of the various other questions and answers to our CDM Gurus. Please see cdmuk.com for more information on this.
Details of the CDM Seminar including some of the presentation material will be made available on our web site. Please note that our next seminar is scheduled for Thursday 4th October 2001.
You should be aware of the impending legal requirement for all building managers to have an 'open' register of all their asbestos 'sites' including survey reports and action plans. Our Asbestos Register ToolKit™ has been announced – at our CDM Seminar – and the product is scheduled for release in June this year.
We are working with Hyder, Harrow and Callsafe and 2 Asbestos Surveying Consultancies to develop our new software. Our solution identifies the need for large database support, inclusion of digital photographs and site plans. There are many other innovative features that we could include in due course depending on the needs of our customers.
Our web site has a downloadable datasheet including pricing. Please let us know if you want to take advantage of the 50% discounts available for the next few months until September 2001. With prices starting at around £500, this has to be a bargain release, so please tell your building managers about it!
We have announced our Energy Management solution for organisations wanting to monitor their use of various 'fuels' across a wide population of properties. Developed with Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council, the system has now been installed with them and we are looking forward to further developments including electronic data interfaces to speed up the input of batch billing data from energy providers. Our web site has a downloadable datasheet including pricing. Please let us know if you are interested in discussing this solution.
Vaughan Titterton of Bradford MDC gave an illuminating insight into the challenges of managing large projects on-line. Using our CDM ToolKit™ Online project management software, Bradford have stated that all their suppliers and contractors need to use the software for all communication of documentation for the project. Centred on their requirements to provide the Health & Safety File, Bradford have developed their own procedures within the CDM ToolKit™ Online software so that suppliers and subcontractors upload documents including drawings into folders 'owned' by the Principal Contractor – Wates Construction – or themselves (Bradford) as Planning Supervisors. Documents are then vetted by the folder owners and passed to other respondents as required. The strength in this approach is that it emulates the paper systems that are already in place and is easily understood by all participants. However, the software allows all concerned to make significant savings in terms of time, and the cost of storage of these volumous pieces. In Bradford's case the stakes are really high on this issue. They hold warehouses full of paper currently and see the Health & Safety File as only adding to the storage problem without the implementation of our software solution.
One of the many issues to come out of the pilot project with Bradford is that of cdmUK.com charges. We have already amended them to suit the needs of projects like the one under development and there is general agreement that we have got them 'about right'. However, it is clear that a large number of potential users still find it hard to justify any additional costs to a project. To understand the rationale behind this issue, we need to be clear on the benefits of managing projects online. They are;
cdmuk.com can support your project for as little as £25 per month with access by as many external users as you like for £50 each for as long as you like. Considering this is a fully working system, this must be a very cost effective solution for any project manager wanting to make substantial savings to the administration costs of managing his or her project? www.cdmuk.com is all you need in your web browser and you can pay on line on our secure site.
We look forward to the rest of this year continuing to meet the needs of our many groups of customers representing all sectors of the construction industry in the UK. Our portfolio below illustrates the diversity of our solutions and the excellence of our pedigree. Please let us know if we can help you.