Smooth and efficient collaboration of all parties involved in a construction project can be one of the most difficult parts of the job. With so many people, the flow of information is difficult to keep track of and the opportunity for discrepancies increases with every RFI, change order or communication exchange.

There is an established technology that may alleviate many of these problems in the form of a Central Project Management System (CPMS). Jon Antevy, CEO of e-Builder, explains that CPMS is a document management resource that stores the critical project files in a central location. The result is that no one person is in control of any document, file, etc. It is located in the CPMS and any changes made are identified by who made the change and when it was made. "This way users always know they are working with the most-recent documents," says Antevy.

Getting information into a central location allows for work to get done quicker and in a more organized manner. If the contractor has a question for the architect, he may have to forward that to several other people. If there is a change that results in more cost, the owner has to be brought into the conversation. If the contractor were to e-mail everyone, he would receive multiple responses that would need to be relayed to everyone else and there would be no logical flow of conversation. "By having one central location specifically for all correspondence, you can get speedier turn-around time," says Antevy.

One example is that users are able to mark up drawings or take photographs of an issue in the field. "The contractor would take a photo of something wrongly placed and put that information online," save Antevy. "He can redline and mark-up different areas of the drawing, and several people can look at it fast and then offer a solution." This way, the project moves forward with less of a delay.

In the mass back-and-forth interactions between all of the parties, when a disagreement does arise, it is difficult to specifically identify where the project went off track with a traditional model. With the use of a CPMS, everyone is kept up-to-date on the status of a project and those responsible for their portion of the project are kept to their commitments.