You’d think that with the futuristic and gravity defying creations they spawn, architects would be leading the vanguard of efficient working practices. It turns out they’re still stuck in the 90s, where sharing files and collaborating with partners and clients is done via CD and bike messenger, or – shock! horror! – even printouts sent by post.
Tech startup Woobius is trying to solve this problem with its collaboration tool for architects and engineers, built to suit the specialised workflows of the construction industry.
To set the scene: your typical building project involves hundreds if not thousands of drawings, depending on the size of the project. Each drawing has multiple revisions and comments from consultants on the project. Multiply this by 15-20 companies involved in a typical building project, and it makes for a pretty big collaboration headache.
Woobius is taking on existing tools in this space, such as BIW, Asite and 4projects, which have been criticised for being slow, expensive, hard to use and often introduced only in the construction stages of a project, rather than starting from the design process.
The service is centred on two tools: the dropbox, a light-weight inter-company file sharing tool, and the vault, which includes document control functionality. It’s been in beta for a year and has evolved in response to feedback from architects using it on live projects in that time.
The business model is a straightforward freemium one; projects are free up to 200MB, and £10/GB/month thereafter. The privately funded startup was founded in 2007 by architect Bob Leung, who designed the product, and technology lead Daniel Tenner.
They plan to officially launch and market Woobius now that proof of concept is in place. Given the site’s reported growth through word of mouth alone – from 15 initial users to over 2500 registered users across 100 construction projects in 27 countries – I’d say they’re on to a winner.
Thanks for the great write-up
Worth adding that the 2500 figure is a little out of date – that was over a month ago! We’re now just over 3000, in 32 countries rather than 27.
Thanks again for the write-up!
It will be interesting to see how the features/price compare to other systems like Buzzsaw & Acconex!
I couldn’t see it anywhere on the site, but does Woobius provide a full back up to users at the end (or at any time during) the project for their own records?
We haven’t gotten round to building the “archive/download this project” functionality just yet, but it’s very high on our list. Should be out in the next few months at most.
Interesting assessment, Basheera. I am not sure that it is fair to say that the likes of BIW, etc are often only introduced at the construction phase. There are numerous examples where such systems are implemented early in the design cycle and become the backbone of communication right through to project handover and into operation and maintenance. Much depends on the client’s understanding of the need, and on the procurement route.
Simon, I made the same point about post-project archives to Daniel and Bob when I met them recently – see my blog post on Woobius at http://www.extranetevolution.com/extranet_evolution/2009/04/woobius-follow-up.html – maybe that’s why Daniel put it high on the list!
Hey Daniel
Gd luck, and nice post by the TC team, at least the project is a little diff from the normal social network type apps which we keep hearing about.
Keep it up
Iqbal
Excellent! It’s about time. We’re stuck in the 90’s here for sure… multiple ftp sites that are always losing connection, unwieldy email trails a mile long, printouts all over the place.
There is so much that can be improved in design, construction, and project management.
I’m looking forward to a time when we can collaborate in real time in virtual 3d space as the model is being designed and built.