ContactThe Appian Way, June 2007
Technology news for public works professionals
Contractors are asking…do you have the answer?
Road construction contractors are increasingly conducting on-line bidding – that is, downloading bid information on the Internet, electronically preparing bids and submitting them via the Internet. This technology, offered by more than half of US DOTs, provides convenience and cost savings that the contractors want. It is offered by Bid Express, an Info Tech Company.
Contractors are already asking to use this same technology for local jobs – your jobs. They want the convenience of online bidding because they now see paper-based methods as cumbersome and time consuming. The good news is that you can implement Internet bidding with Appia. Appia is developed by Info Tech and uses the technology of Bid Express to provide Internet bidding to local agencies.
The best part is that Appia offers the convenience and efficiency of Internet bidding, plus a whole lot more! Appia is a complete construction management solution developed to meet the specific needs of public works agencies.
When a project is initiated, Appia first provides accurate, reliable cost estimation, with precision, dependability, flexibility and speed. It handles all bidding functions electronically to eliminate the tedious data entry and proofing associated with managing bid letting activities. It even includes a component for contractors to use to prepare their bids electronically. Appia awards the contract and executes it, performing the full construction management functionality, including inspector daily reporting, change order management, and pay estimate information.
Appia offers many benefits to users, including significant cost and time savings due to reduced hands-on time and elimination of re-keying data, more accurate record keeping, paperless data collection, production of instantaneous status reports and pay requests and more access to information on and off the construction site.
Information from a highway construction project flows seamlessly through Appia as projects move through the contract life cycle. With just a web browser, it’s easy to see the status of all projects in Appia. The “active projects” web screen shows where all projects are within the project lifecycle so anyone in an organization can view project information without user training or installs.
Appia is a result of the decades of experience Info Tech has in building road construction management applications. Call Info Tech today to learn more about Appia!
Did you know?
Appia's Executive Dashboard provides an at-a-glance view of the current status of all projects. It is your information source with the stages of the construction project lifecycle clearly outlined. Implement Appia and make this part of your daily project briefing!
Advice from Heavy Highway
Dear Heavy Highway:
We have federalized many of our county road projects in the last year or two, thus we are expecting thorough FHWA evaluations and audits on our construction program. What steps can we take so our program is in accordance with FHWA approved standards and acceptable contracting methods?
Signed,
County that Wants Future Federal Funding
Dear County that Wants Future Federal Funding:
A good way to stay on FHWA’s good side is ensuring them that you are spending their money wisely. There is software on the market that will help you do this. Many contractors these days are submitting their state road bids through the internet for DOT jobs. Most local agencies to date have not yet picked up this approach but it is available to them. Internet project letting and bid reception will provide mistake free bids from the contractor, more competitive bids, a larger bidding audience and lower construction costs to the letting agency. Further, there are software products on the market that will allow a project owner to accurately track the depletion of the multiple sources that are funding a project.
Two such tools are Appia and Bid Express. For a local agency, Appia is the complete construction management solution. Appia is an administrative tool for most agency personnel that touch a construction project, providing increased communication and collaboration between their departments. As a construction project goes through its evolution, Appia assists an agency's efforts by automating and administrating processes, beginning with the generation of the project cost estimate. The solution then provides complete bid management as Appia gives a local agency the ability to post bid proposals to, and retrieve bids from, Bid Express. After Appia has retrieved bids from Bid Express, it provides complete bid analysis for contract award. Appia then becomes the management tool for project managers and inspectors as it provides automatic generation of a variety of CM reports, including IDRs, pay estimates and change orders.
-Heavy Highway
See Appia at:
| Winston-Salem, NC | 50th NC Annual Public Works Conference & Equipment Show | June 13-15 |
| Marco Island, FL | FES/FICE 91st Annual Summer Conference & Exposition | August 2-3 |
| San Antonio, TX | APWA International Public Works Congress and Exposition | September 9-12 |