Constructech Vision Awards Recognize Aconex Client Projects

SAN BRUNO, CA--(Marketwired - Oct 15, 2013) - Aconex, provider of the world's most widely used online project collaboration solutions for the construction, infrastructure, power, mining, and oil and gas industries, today announced that three of its clients have received 2013 Constructech Vision Awards for the successful application of innovative technology to the management of their construction projects.

The recipients -- Minnkota Power Cooperative, Consortium Pomerleau-Verreault S.E.N.C. and Seattle Tunnel Partners, Joint Venture -- accepted their awards at the Constructech Technology Day Vision Awards dinner on October 4 in Santa Clara, California. Aconex was honored as the technology provider of the project information and process management solutions that enabled its clients' innovation.

"This marked the 14^th year of celebrating the annual Vision Awards and once again we were able to recognize the very best companies using technology in construction," said Mike Carrozzo, chief editor, Constructech. "This year's winners are prime examples of the impact of new and unique technology, as well as the possibilities these new innovations can create for the future."

Minnkota Power Cooperative -- Gold Award, Corporate Owner: Transportation/Com./Utilities
Minnkota Power Cooperative, based in Grand Forks, North Dakota, received the Gold Award for a Corporate Owner in the Transportation/Communications/Utilities project category. The project for which Minnkota was recognized is the construction of a 250-mile, 345-kilovolt transmission line through 11 counties, from the center of North Dakota to Grand Forks. The five-year, $350-million project involves a team of 150 individuals from 10 different organizations.

Through the use of the Aconex Online Collaboration Platform, Minnkota was able to:

• Eliminate the cost of a full-time administrator, servers, upgrades, and training for an additional FTP site -- estimated to total $500,000 to $1 million over five years
• Reduce project administration staffing requirements by focusing two employees on document control to save an estimated 5-10 hours per week for each of 20-25 Minnkota employees
• Improve reliability for power customers due to faster access to project records for better reconstruction planning, fewer change orders and more efficient use of reconstruction resources

Consortium Pomerleau-Verreault S.E.N.C. -- Bronze Award, Builder/GC Commercial, $501 to $750 million
Consortium Pomerleau-Verreault (CPV) is a joint venture between Pomerleau and Verreault, two of the largest contractors in the Canadian province of Quebec. The joint venture received the Bronze Award for a Builder/General Contractor in the $501-750 million commercial project category. The winning project, a public-private partnership (PPP), was the Centre de Recherche at the Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CRCHUM) -- a state-of-the-art, integrated research center at the University of Montreal, specializing in non-invasive human exploration applied to health care services.

Using the Aconex platform, CPV:

• Immediately improved the speed, quality and transparency of project information management across a team of 150 individuals from dozens of separate organizations -- according to IT Director Eric Lessard, "We saw the advantages of Aconex right away."
• Eliminated a capital investment of nearly $1 million for the customization of a generic enterprise software platform to manage construction information and processes
• Reduced response times for design requests from 2 months to 10 days per item, resulting in a productivity improvement of 85% for critical project decisions across multiple PPP stakeholders
• Reduced errors in the design and construction phases, saving time and costs associated with redesign, rework and financial penalties for missed deadlines or non-compliance

Seattle Tunnel Partners, Joint Venture -- Gold Award, Heavy/Highway/GC
Seattle Tunnel Partners (STP) is a joint venture between Dragados USA and Tutor Perini Corporation. STP received the Gold Award in the Heavy/Highway/General Contractor category for the $1.4-billion State Route 99 tunnel project in Seattle, Washington. The two-mile tunnel will run beneath downtown Seattle and enable the Washington State Department of Transportation to demolish the aging Alaskan Way Viaduct, which was damaged in an earthquake in 2001. The STP project team numbers approximately 330 individuals from various disciplines and organizations as well as more than 580 vendor contacts.

With the Aconex platform, STP has been able to:

• Automate document control and management for more than 100,000 project documents
• Reduce the time required to generate weekly reports by 75% -- from two hours to 30 minutes or less
• Accelerate the creation of document transmittals by 90% -- such that they now take 1/10^th the time required for the previous process
• Accelerate document upload time by 50%
• Save 20 hours of staff time a week, compared with previous requirements for document management

About Constructech Magazine
Constructech Magazine is where construction and technology converge. The publication influences construction professionals to unleash the business value of technology. www.constructech.com.

About Aconex
Aconex provides the world's most widely used 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$800 billion, with over 430,000 users. Clients include many of the world's largest power companies, nine of the world's top ten EPC/EPCM firms, 23 of the 25 largest global design firms, and nearly all Fortune 500 construction and engineering companies. 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.