(MENAFN- ABN Newswire) Alberta, Aug 23, 2016 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Aconex Limited (ASX:ACX), a global leader of digital innovation in construction, today announced that Rangeland Engineering Company Ltd., a leading full-service engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) firm, has chosen Aconex for the design phase of a $140-million ethane storage facility project.
The project is located in an underground salt cavern below the town of Burstall, Saskatchewan, near the Alberta border. The facility will have the capacity to store approximately one million barrels of ethane sourced from the North Dakota Bakken deposit. It will be connected by pipeline to an ethane gathering system in Alberta. Subject to final regulatory approvals, the facility is expected to be commissioned for service in the second half of 2018.
With a design team in Calgary, a construction team in Saskatchewan and global procurement, the Burstall project is inherently complex, with both physical design and process management challenges. Rangeland Engineering, an innovator in engineering design services for the oil and gas industry, implemented the Aconex cloud-based platform to provide project collaboration capabilities beyond its existing electronic document management system (EDMS). In addition to sophisticated document control, Rangeland required access to the project for all team members from anywhere at any time, automated workflows with dashboard notifications for greater transparency and accountability, an audit trail for compliance and conflict resolution, and integration with other systems for data exchange.
"Aconex Operates the Way Projects Need to Operate"
"Compared to other platforms we considered, Aconex most fully met our requirements," said Ryan Beamin, director of operations and design drafting at Rangeland. "We've already recognized a 25% time savings in our squad check processes by utilizing Aconex workflows. Communication is more fluid, and project information is always up to date. Aconex operates the way projects need to operate."
Rangeland wanted to provide the project team with easy access to current documents and drawings as well as prior versions on a single platform, while using its existing document naming conventions. The Aconex document register incorporated Rangeland's current document numbering system and accommodated the document numbering schema of its vendors. According to Mr. Beamin, the project team adapted quickly to the platform's intuitive data management capabilities, which make searching for, finding and accessing documents and drawings extremely efficient.
Rangeland's workflows for the creation, distribution and tracking of requests for information (RFIs) involve multiple issuers, responders and deadlines. With Aconex, the firm reduced its five-step RFI process to a single-step create-and-send workflow, which includes built-in reminders and a dashboard to track ongoing status. As Mr. Beamin characterized it, "Now we hit send, and the RFI is out there for everyone to see and respond to, and Aconex provides timely alerts and prompts to everyone involved."
Multidimensional Modeling and Data Integration
As part of its review process, Rangeland has deployed Aconex Connected BIM to share multidimensional models with project team members in a neutral Common Data Environment. Rangeland is enriching its plant design models with external data to provide more value to clients. Aconex Connected BIM provides a workflow for the model review and coordination process, which includes a complete audit trail of model correspondence with a fully connected dataset for handover and operation. On the Aconex platform, there are no file size limits or other constraints to prevent transmission of very large models for collaboration between the design and construction teams.
"It's a massive advantage to be able to load our engineering work packages in Aconex and give the owner and contractors a master file of all drawings at their fingertips," said Mr. Beamin. "Having all documents, RFIs and change notices managed on a single platform and logged in a permanent audit trail makes it easy to communicate with each other and to report on progress."
Aconex enabled Rangeland to integrate the platform with both internal and vendor information systems through application programming interfaces (APIs) for secure, reliable exchange of data. The Aconex APIs accommodate the use of enterprise document management systems by different organizations on the project team, which can easily transfer data to Aconex in the appropriate format without time-consuming, error-prone re-entry.
Positive User Experience
Mr. Beamin also cited the ease of learning and using the platform, as well as the high quality of Aconex service and support, as key factors in its rapid adoption across the team. The Burstall project had been managed initially on a spreadsheet-based system and then been transitioned to Aconex, with online training for all participants.
"The customer service has been exceptional," said Mr. Beamin. "For projects requiring process configuration and systems integration, the service is as important as the platform."
He added that Rangeland plans to deploy Aconex on future oil and gas projects.
"Rangeland is an impressive organization which has demonstrated to its clients the impact of engineering design services on cost management and speed to market for large-scale projects," said Frank Kopas, general manager of the Americas region at Aconex. "We look forward to helping successfully deliver the Burstall Ethane Storage Facility, and to earning future business from Rangeland based on our performance."
About Aconex Ltd
Aconex Limited (ASX:ACX) provides a leading cloud and mobile collaboration platform for the global construction industry. The platform connects owners, contractors and their project teams in the construction, infrastructure, and energy and resources sectors, providing project-wide visibility and control between the many different organisations collaborating across their projects. With more than 60,000 user organisations and over $1 trillion of project value delivered in more than 70 countries, Aconex is the industry's most widely adopted and trusted platform. Founded in 2000, Aconex has 47 offices in 23 countries around the world, including headquarters in Melbourne, Australia and San Francisco, California. The company's ordinary shares are traded on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) under the ticker code ACX.
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