Aconex, a provider of project collaboration solutions to the construction industry, has been selected to service Pacific West Builders’ portfolio of government projects. Pacific West Builders will use the Aconex system to streamline collaboration with its project partners and to manage large volumes of information more efficiently.

Pacific West Builders, a general construction contracting firm based in San Diego, is primarily engaged on the design-build of federal facilities. The company has delivered more than 50 defense-related projects and its clients include the US Navy, and the US Air Force.

Aconex will provide Pacific West Builders and its business partners with a web-based system for managing project information such as drawings, documents and correspondence. The system replaces hard copies and email by allowing all the parties involved in a project to access, distribute, track and store their data using a single, common platform.

Patricia Romero, CEO of Pacific West Builders, said, “When we undertake design-build projects for the Navy and Air Force, a tremendous amount of documentation is generated and exchanged. Because of this, we wanted a centralized, standardized system for managing information.

“We previously used in-house tools – MS Word, spreadsheets and Outlook – to communicate and manage information; however we found that, with so many external parties involved, this could be cumbersome and lacked the tracking capabilities we required.

“Particularly since our work is government-related, our main reason for selecting Aconex is to ensure that our documentation is in order and that robust data security measures are in place.” Romero added, “The system is user-friendly and easy to navigate.”

Pacific West Builders often needs to coordinate a project team of more than 50 people, including consultants based across several locations.

“As well as pulling together the local participants, we may be working with a mechanical engineering firm from Missouri or electrical engineers from Chicago. Because of this, the fact that Aconex is web-based is important, as it will provide a more collaborative environment.”

All items stored on Aconex are securely archived and can be instantly retrieved using a search engine or drop-down filters. The system maintains an audit trail of every transaction so that, at any time, Pacific West Builders will be able to track the status of document reviews and correspondence.

“On each project, we collaborate with government personnel, the design team and subcontractors, and are charged with keeping everyone on task,” said Romero. “In the past, projects have sometimes experienced delays because we haven’t been able to track items – such as which documents have been reviewed and whether RFIs have been responded to – as well as we’d have liked. Being able to track all this through Aconex will mitigate these risks and help keep our projects on track.”

International Business Wales announced today that Wales, U.K., manufacturers have secured U.S. defense contracts on the heels of the country’s largest-ever international trade mission to America in June 2009.  Another trade mission is coming to the Association of the United States Army annual meeting in October in Washington, D.C., three companies that were on the June mission.

Contract announcements include:

• Aircraft maintenance manufacturer CAVE Systems Logistic Containers has won an order for phase one of a contract with a potential value of $5 million. The initial $500,000 order from the Pennsylvania National Guard is for aircraft maintenance equipment required by troops in Iraq.
• Teddington Engineered Solutions, based in Llanelli, Wales, has secured a contract worth over $800,000 from the U.S. Navy for bellows designed to allow rescued submariners to pass from a rescue vessel into a compression chamber on-board a ship – regardless of weather conditions.

Over 80 Welsh companies from the technology, aerospace, defense, life sciences, security and engineering industries visited the U.S. in June to foster international corporate partnerships and promote international trade.

“We’re thrilled that we’re already seeing excellent results from our trade mission this summer, and we expect the good news to continue, given the strong interest from the American companies and organizations we met,” said Geraint Jones, CEO, Americas for International Business Wales, the economic development and trade arm of the Welsh Assembly Government.

Cave Systems, Faun Municipal Vehicles Ltd., AB Connectors/TTElectronics, were all part of the June trade mission, and will attend the AUSA meeting. The other companies on the new mission will be Digital Surface Research, Dytecna Systems Engineering, Spectrum Technologies and Concrete Canvas.

CPI Aerostructures announced that the U.S. Air Force has released a new order under CPI Aero’s C-5 TOP contract for a variety of spoilers and fairings valued at approximately $4.9 million. Orders under this program, including this $4.9 million order, have totaled $8.2 million for 2009 and $30.6 million since the inception of the contract. On average CPI Aero has received $5.8 million of releases on this contract per year.

This award brings the total new year-to-date awards for the Company to $11.9 million.

CPI Aero is engaged in the contract production of structural aircraft parts for leading prime defense contractors, the U.S. Air Force and other branches of the armed forces. In conjunction with its assembly operations, CPI Aero provides engineering, technical and program management services. Among the key programs that CPI Aero supplies are the UH-60 BLACK HAWK helicopter, the Sikorsky S-92 helicopter, the MH-60S mine countermeasure helicopter, the Gulfstream G650, C-5A Galaxy cargo jet, the T-38 Talon jet trainer, the A-10 Thunderbolt attack jet, and the E-3 Sentry AWACS jet.