Minnkota Chooses Aconex for 250-Mile Power Transmission Project

GRAND FORKS, ND--(Marketwire - Jan 22, 2013) -   Aconex, provider of the world's most widely used online project collaboration solutions for the power, construction, infrastructure, mining, and oil and gas industries, has been selected by Minnkota Power Cooperative, Inc. to support the Center to Grand Forks (CGF) Project, which involves the construction of a 250-mile high-voltage transmission line from central North Dakota to Grand Forks. The Aconex online collaboration platform was chosen to help manage, track and share massive amounts of files and data among both internal and external team members in diverse locations.

Formed in 1940 and based in Grand Forks, Minnkota Power Cooperative is a regional power generation and transmission cooperative serving more than 130,000 customers and covering 34,500 square miles in eastern North Dakota and northwestern Minnesota. Now under construction, the CGF Project will meet Minnkota's obligations as a transmission services provider for grid reliability and address a long-standing need to increase voltage support in the northern Red River Valley region.

"This new transmission line will meet the long-term power load requirements of a steadily growing region and improve reliability for our customers," said Mike Hennes, CGF project manager at Minnkota. "The five-year project is both large and complex, with aggressive deadlines. Aconex will help us stay on schedule with real-time, centralized access to all project documentation, which will improve the flow of information and enable faster decision making."

Prior to implementing Aconex, internal Minnkota project team members and various external contractors and consultants maintained files on different systems and FTP sites with different naming conventions. Transferring large documents was time-consuming and labor-intensive. It was difficult to ensure that the information needed by every individual on the project was visible, up to date, accurate, and available on a timely basis.

With Aconex, every document is now readily available to every project team member on the same centralized platform, and a consistent naming convention makes document search faster and easier. When the project is closed out, all historical documents will already be on file for transfer to Minnkota's internal document management systems, saving considerable time and money.

Frank Kopas, general manager of North America at Aconex, said, "As illustrated by Minnkota, any large power infrastructure project can benefit from the Aconex collaboration platform. It enables all team members to instantly and effectively access, distribute, track, and archive project information using one secure, neutral system."

About Aconex

Aconex provides the world's most widely used Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for managing information, processes and people throughout the lifecycle of construction and engineering projects across multiple industries. The Aconex suite of solutions -- secure, neutral and centralized -- enables owners, contractors and project managers to reduce the cost and risk inherent in capital projects of all sizes and improve efficiency, productivity and accountability for all project participants. Aconex has served projects valued at more than US$700 billion, with over 300,000 users. Customers include many of the world's largest power companies, nine of the world's top ten engineering procurement and construction (EPC) firms, 23 of the 25 largest global design firms, and nearly all Fortune 500 construction and engineering firms. For more information and examples of Aconex in action, see www.aconex.com. Follow Aconex on Twitter at @aconex and on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/aconex.