Aconex to assist building of Hyatt Andaz New Delhi hotel

New Delhi: Aconex, provider of the world's most widely used online project collaboration solutions for the construction, infrastructure, power, mining and oil and gas industries, has been deployed by Confluence, a global project and construction management firm, for the building of the Hyatt Andaz New Delhi hotel.

Located in Aerocity, near Indira Gandhi International Airport, the project involves a 1.2-million-square-foot development with 585 guest rooms, serviced apartments and townhouses, a large central courtyard, and banquet and meeting rooms.

The hotel is scheduled for completion in 2014 and designed to achieve the India Green Building Council LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating. It will be managed under the Andaz brand by Hyatt Hotels Corporation and Juniper Hotels Private Limited.

Confluence, Juniper Hotels and a team of consultants in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, and North America use the Aconex online collaboration platform to access, distribute, track, and store all project information, documents and correspondence.

According to Anil Gautam, construction manager at Confluence, the Aconex platform has thus far enabled the project team to increase information management efficiency by approximately 30-45%. Related benefits include improved team communications, fast search and document retrieval, strong data security, and a permanent audit trail of all project transactions to resolve disputes and ensure accountability.

"I've previously been on projects that have used FTP (file transfer protocol), which is essentially a big, open folder that everyone can see and access," said Gautam. "It's also possible to delete files, which is a big risk. With Aconex, there's a thread of all communication, showing who did what and when, and because there are no file size limits, nobody can say that their mail has bounced."

Gautam added that Confluence recommended Aconex for the Andaz New Delhi project because of its success with the platform on the Marina Bay Sands development in Singapore and several large projects in the Middle East. Aconex is also being used by some of India's industry leaders, including L&T, Reliance Infrastructure and Tata Power.

Andy Lake, general manager of Asia at Aconex, commented: "Andaz New Delhi is an important win for us in India's rapidly growing hospitality infrastructure. Online collaboration for project management is showing solid traction in the regional construction market, and we look forward to capturing our full share of new business."

About Aconex

Aconex provides the world's most widely used Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for managing information, processes and people throughout the lifecycle of construction and engineering projects across multiple industries. The Aconex suite of solutions -- secure, neutral and centralized -- enables owners, contractors and project managers to reduce the cost and risk inherent in capital projects of all sizes and improve efficiency, productivity and accountability for all project participants. Aconex has served projects valued at more than US$700 billion, with over 300,000 users.