Worcester Business Journal Special Editions

2015 N.H. Book

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188 NE W HAMPSHIRE: First in the Nation • Profiles in Excellence A nyone who's engaged in a simple home renovation knows how prone to problems construction projects can be. Magnify those challenges exponentially for more complex buildings – such as hospitals, skyscrapers, and power plants – to understand why so many construction projects run over-budget, finish late, or end up in dispute. Consider these disappointing projects: • Chicago's Millennium Park was completed three years behind schedule and $258 million over budget. • e British Broadcasting Corporation's new head- quarters in London came in four years late and £110 million over budget. • e New York Metropolitan Transit Authority's East Side Access project finished 10 years late and $4.4 billion over budget. • Closer to home, Boston's Central Artery/Tunnel project – the "Big Dig" – was completed nine years be- hind schedule at a cost nearly three times the original estimate! ese problems are the legacy of a long history of inefficient practices in what's known as the AECO industry – architecture, engineering, construction, and ownership. For example, the AECO industry has been marked by adversarial relationships between team mem- bers and poor methods of communication, such as ship- ping rolls of printed plans among team members instead of sharing drawings electronically. ese were the problems Newforma's founders set out to address when they formed the company in 2004. Why are design and construction projects so subject to problems? ere are many reasons, but consider this challenge that all projects have in common: Dispersed teams that possibly never worked together must coordinate overwhelming volumes of information to bring into being a one-of-a-kind structure on an aggressive schedule with a set budget. Newforma set out to create soware that would address two primary components of this challenge: collaboration among team members, and management of those overwhelming volumes of project information. Design and construction projects truly generate massive quantities of information. e 50-some people on a design team for a modest project – say, a middle school that costs $25 million to build – will file 7,000 Newforma Building and infrastructure projects have been notorious for cost overruns, schedule delays, and litigation. This Manchester- based software company set out to change all that. Newforma seed investor Jesse Devitte, shown at Portsmouth's Harbour Place, is a cofounder and managing director of Borealis Ventures, a VC firm specializing in design and engineering software, as well as all things New Hampshire. S I R I B L A N C H E T T E / B L I N D D O G P H O T O A S S O C I AT E S

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