Yet another "eplanroom" software product for Construction Document Management, etc. (FASTTAC)

Quite some time ago, I put up a post on this blog that contained a list of vendors who’ve developed and offer “eplanroom” services. At the time I did that, I was unaware of the company I’m going to now mention in today’s post, FASTTAC.

I don’t know how much progress FASTTAC has made since 2008, which is when the A/E/C industry – and reprographers – began to experience a slowdown in business. (Yes, that’s putting it mildly.) I did notice that FASTTAC signed up a few reprographers as “resellers”, but, apparently, FASTTAC has not made much progress on that front since early in 2010.

What I found interesting about FASTTAC is that it was developed by a former Vice President and General Manager of Turner Construction. Turner is, of course, one of the largest GC’s active in the United States.

Here’s some information about FASTTAC, per the company’s web-site:

Executive Team

Ray Steeb

Founder, President and CEO

Ray Steeb, Founder, President and CEO of FASTTAC, has worked on this project from its inception when it began as a research project at Carnegie Mellon University. Ray is a twenty-eight year veteran of the construction industry having been Vice President and General Manager of the Pittsburgh Office of Turner Construction Company and President of his own commercial construction and program management companies from 2002 to 2007.

Ray began his career in field supervision on projects ranging in value form $3 million to $150 million where he obtained various levels of project responsibility. He then moved into middle management where he had total responsibility for profit and loss at the project level. Ray became the VP and General Manager of Turner's Pittsburgh office in late 1997 where he took on P & L responsibility for the business unit. This unique experience in field operations, project management and business unit leadership provides FASTTAC with the insight and guidance of an industry insider providing solutions that address the specific challenges and risks of the construction industry.

Here’s the company’s most recent Press Release – you will see that this Press Release announced that BW Reprographics became a “reseller” of FASTTAC:

FASTTAC® Announces Reseller Partnership with BW Reprographics

31 MAY 2010 
POSTED IN PRESS

Partnership Expands Company's Market Presence in New York City and Northern New Jersey

Pittsburgh, May 31, 2010 - FASTTAC®, an industry leader in simplifying the complexities of drawing distribution, control and collaboration in the A/E/C and Facilities Management industries, announced today that it has expanded its Reseller Program to include BW Reprographics. BW Reprographics, a comprehensive reprographics and document management solution provider, can now sell FASTTAC directly to its clients. This partnership expands FASTTAC's market presence and complements BW Reprographics' other products and services by creating an end-to-end digital document tracking and distribution solution that enables the sharing of drawings and documents by all team members on a project.

"This agreement advances our partnership with BW Reprographics and acknowledges our market leading position as the only effective digital alternative for easily distributing construction drawings and documents." said Ray Steeb, CEO of FASTTAC.

Steeb continues, "FASTTAC is so intuitive and easy to use that all project team members, regardless of their computer skills, can immediately use and share digital construction drawings. Our decision to partner with BW Reprographics was based on their experience with providing digital document management solutions in combination with their tradition in delivering innovative and progressive solutions to address the needs of architects, contractors and building owners. We are pleased we have established this partnership in this market and look forward to working together to introducing their clients to the FASTTAC solution."

The FASTTAC Reseller Program supplies its partners with the tools and resources required to deliver the high level of excellence experienced by FASTTAC's direct sales customers. The impact of BW Reprographics' long standing relationships with their local customer's combined with FASTTAC's ability to simplify and automate the drawing distribution process will result in improved communication, productivity and reduced project risk for owners, general contractors, sub contractors and facility managers.

"This partnership gives BW Reprographics an innovative digital document distribution system that complements our existing digital printing, plan room and document management and archiving services which we sell and market today," remarked Bruce Wiener, President, of BW Reprographics. "We only introduce solutions to our customers that have a high level of ease of use and that can address complex document management problems while delivering quantifiable business results. FASTTAC is a solution that meets these criteria and enables us to continue to deliver enterprise level document management solutions to our customers."

With FASTTAC's patented technology, all project team members instantly benefit from the automated distribution of digital drawings and documents which were historically distributed in a paper form on an as needed basis by the construction manager and/or general contractor. FASTTAC users obtain a complete set of contract documents and ongoing updates by simply clicking one button that automatically places updated drawings and documents exactly where the user found the previous version on the user's PC providing system management of the database of project information. These capabilities enable FASTTAC to go far beyond other simple electronic user managed access methods for construction drawings and documents such as shared drives, FTP sites and Plan Rooms. The ease-of-use and speed with which FASTTAC users can access and navigate between drawings quickly results in FASTTAC becoming the "go-to" location for contract documents used on construction projects greatly improving productivity and reducing project risk.

About FASTTAC
Founded in 2005 by industry veteran Ray Steeb in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University, FASTTAC products enable the construction and facility management industries to offer fast and easy access to project drawings and related documents created during the planning, design, and construction phases of a facility through its operation and maintenance. FASTTAC is the only product designed to centrally manage and maintain the contract set of project drawings and related documents while automatically distributing all needed content to the user's local computer. The entire set of project drawings, specifications and approved revisions can quickly and easily be distributed to everyone on the project team. FASTTAC's products are targeted at construction managers, owners and project managers that want to reduce costs and risk while improving productivity and profitability. FASTTAC software products are being used by contractors and building teams on projects throughout the United States. FASTTAC can be found at www.fasttac.com.

Established in 2003, BW Reprographics (BWR) provides commercial and onsite reprographic services in supporting our client's largest construction projects now underway in the New York Tri-State area. With commercial locations in New York and New Jersey, each operation maintains significant capacity, an experienced team, and virtual connectivity. Our growing customer base includes numerous members of New York's largest and most successful firms in the following industries: architectural, construction, development, engineering, real estate and financial. Our Web interfaced state-of-the-art processing centers located in New York City and Wayne, NJ, generate millions upon millions of printed and electronic documents across a wide variety of applications. For more information on BWR, please go to www.bwrepro.com.