ARRANGEMENTS FOR ADMINISTRATING AND MANAGING A CONSTRUCTION PROJECT

• US 20130132440A1
• Filed: 11/22/2011
• Published: 05/23/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/22/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ebidletting.com
• Original Assignee: Ebidletting.com
• Inventors: Carlson, Alan, Duke, Dennis, Zaiser, Marc Eric, Bredar, Michael Norton, Miller, James William
• Granted Patent: US 9,152,934 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 707/792
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/951 Indexing; Web crawling techniques
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/00 Commerce
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/08 Construction
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/10 for controlling access to devices or network resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/306 User profiles

Abstract

In some embodiments, a construction project administration system and method are disclosed that queries an administrator as to ownership, construction specifications, bidding parameters etc. for a proposed construction project using active first, second and third level questions and accepts and stores replies to the active questions. The stored replies can be compared to predetermined answers, and questions that become irrelevant based on the answers can be deactivated and taken off a list of questions to be asked. After a sufficient amount of questions are answered, the system can auto-configure a process for online construction management. For example a website can be set up that can be used by all parties to the project to automate communications, the exchange of data, status updates etc. including the submission of bids, acceptance of bids, and the award of contracts and many more paperless construction management features.

Claims

1. A computer program product to facilitate the administration of a construction project including a computer readable storage medium including instructions that, when executed by a processor cause the processor to:

store questions in a relational database;

associate at least some of the questions with a first level, a second level, and third level;

store predetermined answers to the questions, wherein at least some of the first level questions relate to ownership of a proposed improvement to land, at least some of the second level questions relate to construction specifications and at least some of the third level questions relate to scheduling and bidding parameters for the construction project;

request responses to active first level questions;

accept and store at least one reply to the active first level questions;

compare the stored reply to the first level questions to the predetermined answers;

tag, as inactive, questions that have become irrelevant in the first, second and third level based on the compare of the reply to the first level questions;

request responses to active second level questions;

accept and store at least one reply to the active second level questions;

compare the stored reply to the second level questions to the predetermined answers;

tag, as inactive, questions that have become irrelevant in the second and third level based on the compare of the replies to the second level questions;

request responses to active third level questions;

accept and store at least one reply to the active third level questions;

compare the stored reply to third level questions to the predetermined answers;

tag, as inactive, questions that have become irrelevant in the third level based on the compare of the replies to the third first level questions; and

configure a management process based on the replies to the first, second and third level questions.

2. The computer program product of claim 1 further comprising configuring a bid process management format and automatically communicating data related to aspects of the construction project based on the configuration of the management process.

3. The computer program product of claim 1 further comprising automatically configuring the operation of a website based on the configuration.

4. The computer program product of claim 1 accepting electronic bids packages via the website and automatically rejecting bids that do not meet the criteria set by the configuration.

5. The computer program product of claim 1 further comprising automatically providing access to construction specifications to users in an electronic format based on the configuration.

6. The computer program product of claim 1 further comprising prioritizing at least one of the first, second, and third level question, giving a highest priority to questions that have a higher probability than other questions that an answer to the at least one question will render a largest number of first second and third questions irrelevant and presenting the questions based on the priority of the question.

7. The computer program product of claim 1 further comprising automatically notifying a bidder via an electronic message when an electronic bid is not in compliance with conditions based on the configuration.

8. The computer program product of claim 1 further comprising electronically posting in near real time on a website, the status of the project, when the data is available the data to include:

bids submitted, bids accepted and winning bid and loosing bids based on the configuration.

9. The computer product of claim 1 further comprising automatically sending electronic data defining construction data to one of a permitting agency or a regulatory agency to facilitate a permitting process based on the configured process.

10. The computer product of claim 1 further comprising automatically monitoring online activity to detect abnormal behavior regarding access to a website facilitating the process and to determine compliance with parameters based on the configuration.

11. A method for administrating a construction project comprising:

queering a user with questions in a hierarchal order, via a website providing an online user interface, to determine owner parameters, bidding specifications, asset management specifications, design parameters, procurement parameters and constructions specifications;

accepting and storing answers to the questions;

retrieving one or more process compliance templates in response to the stored answers;

automatically generating phases of the project, each phase having scheduling and compliance parameters;

configuring automatically an online project management process on a website based on the stored answers where the configuring to include at least one of configuring an electronic mailing list, project specifications, project parameters, access information, bid submission parameters, bid acceptance parameters and contractor compliance parameters.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the process compliance template includes one of a comprehensive project checklist, a bid process template, a construction specification process template, a financing process template, a government compliance template and a quasi-government compliance process template.

13. The method of claim 11 further comprising scheduling predetermined review deadlines and at said predetermined deadlines determining if the process, including user input including bids and compliance parameters meet a predetermined criteria and automatically generating electronic notifications for the appropriate parties per the configuration.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising querying and registering visitors to the website to receive visitor information and classifying a visitor based on the visitor information and providing and restricting access to predetermined webpages with data based on the configuration.

15. The method of claim 11 further comprising automatically awarding a bid based on acceptance of a bid submission and additional calculations based on the configuration.

16. The method of claim 11 further comprising generating metadata about a plurality of configurations and bid awards.

17. The method of claim 11 further comprising setting up an auditing configuration and auditing the process for compliance with the configuration.

18. A method for administrating a construction project comprising:

configuring a construction management process with parameters;

retrieving one or more process compliance templates in response to the parameters;

configuring a website to facilitate administration of the construction project in response to the process compliance templates;

automatically configuring a messaging system to send notifications to prospective partners in a construction effort;

registering a plurality of visitors to the website and querying the visitors with questions;

configuring features that will be available to each of the plurality of visitor based on each visitor'"'"'s answers to the questions;

parsing the construction project into sub-projects and requesting bids for each sub-project;

accepting data via the website to include paperless bids, proposals and correspondence;

deciding which visitor will provide services for each sub-project;

deciding which visitor will provide materials for each sub-project;

transmitting specifications related to the construction project to a permitting authority in a paperless manner.

19. The method of claim 18 further comprising automatically notifying one or more visitors prior to a bid deadline when the visitors input does not meet the parameters.

20. The method of claim 18 further comprising manually entering bid data from a paper bid received from a bidder.