Three Aconex customers have won the 2014 Constructech Vision Awards for their use of technology to drive business success. The winners, OHL-FCC Limited Partnership, Parsons Corporation and Rio Tinto Group accepted their awards at the Constructech Vision Awards ceremony, following the Technology Day conference held recently in Redwood City, California.

Aconex, a leading provider of cloud solutions to manage information and processes for the world’s largest construction and engineering projects, was also recognised as the technology provider behind its customers’ award-winning innovations.

Constructech magazine editor Laura Black observes that the 2014 Vision Award winners form an impressive group of construction companies representing multiple verticals, with each company able to not only recognise the benefits provided by technology, but also implement the necessary solutions.

Through their use of the Aconex platform, all three companies were able to realise substantial benefits in cost, time and effort, enabling them to implement more efficient processes, and deliver the desired outcomes with a quicker turnaround.

OHL-FCC Limited Partnership – Gold Award, Builder/GC Commercial: $26 million to $100 million

A joint venture between two global contractors based in Spain, Obrascon Huarte Lain (OHL) and Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC), OHL-FCC won a Vision Award for its work on a key component of the C$2.6 billion Toronto-York Spadina Subway Extension. OHL-FCC’s $404 million development involved construction of twin tunnels at the northern end of the new Toronto subway and the Highway 407 Station. The project team consisted of approximately 350 individuals from 250 different organisations.

OHL-FCC used the Aconex platform to save 8,900 kilograms of paper and approximately $13,350 in administrative costs; reduce turnaround time for communications with third parties by 88-90%, from 25-28 days to three days; improve the efficiency of the bidding process by 80%, reducing it from 30 days to 5-7 days; speed up design review cycles by 96%, reducing them from three to four days to three to four hours; and save $396,000 in indirect costs per year, reducing the required number of product coordinators by half.

Parsons Corporation – Gold Award, Builder/GC Commercial: More than $500 million

A worldwide engineering, construction, technical, and management services firm, Parsons is focussed on transportation, environmental/infrastructure, defence/security, and resources. Parsons won a Vision Award for the Denver International Airport (DIA) Hotel and Transit Center program, which required collaboration between 116 different organisations, and consisted of a Westin Hotel and conference centre, a public transit centre with a commuter rail station, a pick-up/drop-off point for buses, and a public plaza.

Using the Aconex platform, Parsons saved approximately US$100,000 per year in staffing costs, managing documents with one employee instead of three; eliminated bottlenecks for 2,000 requests for information (RFIs) and reduced RFI turnaround to 10 days, while maintaining a complete history of all RFIs from initiation through close-out; reduced logging time for daily reports and eliminated reporting errors, driving faster resolution of field issues; significantly decreased processing time for change management paperwork by making documents readily available to the project team; and mitigated risk through a permanent audit trail of the project.

Rio Tinto Group – Gold Award, Corporate Owner: Mining

A leading international mining group based in the U.K., with global operations focused on finding, mining and processing mineral resources, Rio Tinto won a Vision Award for the Holden Mine Remediation project in the Cascade Mountains of eastern Washington. The complex project involved a five-year clean-up of a copper, gold, silver, and zinc mine including water quality improvement and long-term site reclamation. Approximately 350 individuals from more than 20 different organisations work on the project for seven months a year on site because of weather and remoteness.

Using the Aconex platform, Rio Tinto has been able to reduce its invoice approval cycle by 30% and internal document review process by 35%, saving over 250 hours per year; reduce document printing and shipping costs, saving approximately US$100,000 per year; use one document controller instead of four, saving approximately $300,000 per year; and save up to 4,000 hours or $340,000 per year in communications, compared to the use of SharePoint or other enterprise content management software.