Sainsbury's agrees £1.5m contract with BIW

Sainsbury's Property Company has agreed a £1.5m deal with BIW Technologies to ensure the "good management" of the design, construction and delivery phases of its stores.

Under a three-year deal, Sainsbury's will employ the BIW Information Channel collaboration web service on all existing and future projects until 2005.

"We recognise the need for an information system that can be accessed live throughout the operational life of each of our facilities. We researched the market and selected BIW, who impressed us, particularly with regard to managerial and technical issues," said Ian Coull, board director for Sainsbury.

BIW Information Channel is a web-based supply chain integration technology, originally designed specifically for construction projects.

Each client is provided with a unique, project-specific website created around a knowledge database.

Through this, all data can be made available to every project team member - from the earliest concepts and specification, through detailed design, buildability studies, pre-fabrication, construction, maintenance, operation and improvement to the eventual demolition or dismantling of the facility.

Sainsbury's was one of the first client organisations in the UK construction industry to employ web-based collaboration systems to speed up the design and delivery of new projects.

It used an early version of BIW Information Channel, for its new Clapham store in south-west London, in 1998. Since then, it has adopted BIW's system as its standard communication platform to deliver over 400 UK projects.