One Application Scales To The Supply Chain

Enterprise Extranets extended Project Specific Websites to scale to the needs of a single organization. The Enterprise Community® extends Enterprise Extranets to scale to the needs of the supply chain. In this sense, ProjectVillage™ represents a third stage in the evolution of web-based applications for the AEC industry. In doing so, it is the only architecture that truly leverages the Internet to connect organizations rather than simply extending their reach while maintaining their separation. 

The Enterprise Community® is an architecture that enables a complex fabric of information exchange between multiple organizations while retaining the benefits of the Enterprise Extranet for every organization. ProjectVillage™ is the only application built on this patent pending architecture. With this structure, the project, as a subject of collaboration, is moved out of organizational containers and used as a common channel upon which multiple organizations can attach and, optionally, share their organization-specific content or work process.

The Enterprise Community®
 (click image to enlarge)

The illustration above shows the structure and effect of an Enterprise Community®. In any given organization, folders that match the color of the organization's circle represent content published from within that organization's container. Other colored folders represent content published from another organizational container, but made visible to that organization. Since each organization controls the privileges of other organizations to its own content, any matrix of exchange is possible between any number of organizations and any number of projects. 

In the diagram above, another unique feature stands out: multiple domains in the supply chain are represented among the hosting organizations. In this example, a general contractor, subcontractor and architect each host their own accounts AND work with each other on projects from their own accounts. Realistically this could not happen with an Enterprise Extranet. In an Enterprise Extranet, the hosting organization owns and controls all information and process on any given project. If, for example, a mechanical subcontractor had an account on an Enterprise Extranet, the general contractor would have to submit to using the mechanical subcontractor's account for that project. Though this isn't likely to happen, even if it did, the source of inefficiency in Enterprise Extranets would only be shifted from one organization to another. 

While construction projects often include team members from a variety of geographic locations, there is generally a core community of regional organizations whose members, in one combination or another, are involved in all or most of the projects in that region. The result, in any given period of time, is many combinations of temporary partnerships as projects are started and completed. The figure above illustrates an example of this in which three organizations work on three projects in three combinations of partnerships, while each organization retains all of the information for all of its projects in the same container. It is this de-centralized, many-to-many nature of the AEC industry that ProjectVillage™ reflects.