Built a house recently? We guessed you didn’t. The trouble in materials, labor, and permits are gruesome enough. Now add all the documents you need for this—plans of every bit of built architecture, electrical layouts, plumbing, and so on. Now you are really in trouble. As they are wont to say in the construction business, “In the $800 billion U.S. construction industry ‘no brick can be moved without document management.’”

Consider blueprints. Getting a house plan drawn up and approved by architects, developers, owners, contractors, engineers and city planning departments, each time can cause hundreds of sets of blueprints to be issued in the course of a large project.

It is estimated that about $91 billion is annually lost in the construction sector due to mistakes in documents. About 54 percent of the construction projects are finished later than expected due to a bad document management.

Sensing the potential use of technology within the construction industry, early on, American Reprographics Company (ARC) got its act together, when none of the companies dared to venture into this unstructured sector. Glendale, CA-based ARC acquired more than 40 companies in an effort to develop a broader footprint. Further, the company invested heavily in digital technologies in an effort to transform the industry from a print-and-distribute model to distribute-and-print. To push technology into this paper–heavy industry isn’t that easy. Installed IT base is low, and then the people onsite are not always wired up to a system. Around the time, ARC chanced upon Mirrorplus Technologies, which was developing an e-pavilion server that serviced clients who could not afford to put up Web sites or had other constraints on doing business online. Understandably, ARC was piqued in the technology and invested in Mirrorplus.

Over time, Mirrorplus became the technology arm of ARC and Mirrorplus’ founder Rahul Roy became its CTO. Roy spearheaded the development of a browser-based software—PlanWell—that recreates industry workflow such that it is easy to learn and simple to use. It can distinctly reduce the voluminous quantities in printing, scanning, copying and transmitting of paper plans, specifications and documents during the constriction of construction projects.

“Owners, designers, engineers, contractors, and suppliers can expect incredible production gains and improved cost efficiency by managing their project document collection with PlanWell,” says Roy. The software is an online database that consists of more than two million active construction drawings and plans, which are used by subcontractors, general contractors and architects. Being hooked up with PlanWell provides customers with online tools for both construction project bidding and plan document management, thereby saving cost and time. Construction industry professionals looking for a better way to manage a project that involves plans and specifications bank on PlanWell. In fact, PlanWell has become the largest known software-brand in the construction industry and has attracted attention of the corporate world. Even the legendary technology masters Bill Gates and Michael Dell paid Roy a call in 2000.
Mirrorplus took ARC several steps ahead of the competition in the technology. Today, ARC is riding high on Roy’s PlanWell software. It has enabled the privately held ARC to grow from $80 million in sales to many times that size in less than six years with an employee-base of 3300. In the last three years ARC has captured nearly 90 percent of the West Coast construction document management business.

One of the latest reports by In-Stat/MDR states that the construction industry is transitioning from a low-tech industry to one that is adopting technology like the Internet and collaboration tools to improve efficiencies, communications and overall project management. This clearly means that the construction vertical is an upcoming opportunity for technology vendors; and ARC is here to benefit.

“The construction industry has been slow to embrace computers and the Internet. But technology can be hard to resist when it’s designed to help with one of the more onerous tasks on a job site: storing and accessing construction documents,” quips Roy. Stephanie Atkinson, a Senior Analyst with In-Stat/MDR concurs with Roy. “This vertical, while not highly targeted in the near-term, is expected to be a great opportunity for technology vendors looking to expand their vertical market program over the next several years or down the road.”

It is this long-term vision that has brought Roy this far. His product is truly revolutionizing the industry: cutting costs, eliminating disputes, and speeding projects to completion.

Being Different
For software professionals, many of who dream of building the ultimate killer app, the construction industry may seem an incongruous vehicle to stardom. But Roy’s reprographics software has served him well. Roy founded MirrorPlus in 1996. The interesting fact is that Roy decided that he did not need any venture financing. “VC money is for people who are not known to the world of entrepreneur,” he says. “A seasoned entrepreneur relies on angel funding or goes to an investment banker for funds; not to a VC. Why would anyone give away a major stake in his or her company to the VCs?” he questions.

‘Exit Strategy’ was the key word those days. ‘You don’t have an exit strategy?’ his friends would ask, incredulously. But by then, Roy had made the decision. He would not go public. “My aim was not to kill public money by ramping up, going public and then cashing out and becoming rich overnight. I’d probably have ended up in prison,” Roy jokes. “My dream was to build a real company—a company that will last forever.”