For several years, AGC has been behind this important industry initiative called the agcXML project.  As the nation’s leading construction industry association, AGC is always identifying, leading and promoting initiatives that are good for our contractor membership and the industry as a whole.

Acknowledging the lack of integration and standards within construction software, AGC of America is championing an initiative that would truly revolutionize our industry – allowing contractors to operate their businesses and projects more efficiently by enabling the electronic exchange of project information across multiple platforms thus reducing the need to re-enter data into multiple software applications.This initiative, called ‘agcXML’ creates the framework and platform for system interoperability within the construction industry and between contracting businesses. The mission is to develop and maintain technology standards for the commercial construction industry and promote adoption of such standards. Many other industries have accomplished this goal but none have achieved this on this scale within the construction industry. This initiative is consistent with AGC’s mission and its commitment to the industry.

The goals of this initiative are: 

• Interoperability within construction software
• Seamless data exchange and integration
• Establish accepted standards for construction software
• Adoption of standards

Data standards for various common construction transactions (e.g., RFI, Submittals, Change Requests)

Benefits of agcXML 

• Deploying agcXML ensures easier data exchange between themselves and other members of the construction supply chain from owners down to suppliers. Interoperability standards will help to strengthen those relationships and speed up decision making ultimately allowing the contractor to be more profitable and competitive.
• Contractors of all sizes can participate in the standard data exchange regardless of sophistication of their back office systems. A contractor can use unsophisticated technology (e.g., Microsoft Excel) and still leverage agcXML thereby removing one aspect of technology as a potential barrier to working on the project.
• Contractor’s IT departments can focus on developing value-added projects such as business intelligence instead of having to constantly maintain data integrations or massage data from one system to another.

• Having an agcXML standard greatly simplifies the technical challenges associated with software acquisition strategies in the industry, allowing vendors greater flexibility in their acquisition approach.
• Third-party vendors who currently have to maintain multiple interfaces to different ERP and project management solutions will be able to focus more of their development budget on function improvements instead of integration issues.
• Vendors will be able to leverage agcXML to quickly build web-based and mobile functionality for their platforms, increasing the value of their product to the construction industry.
• Vendors currently faced with replacing their existing systems because of a missing requirement in one area will be able to more easily replace that one functional area instead of a whole system providing vendors the opportunity for better longevity with their customers.

AGC engaged Burger Consulting Group (BCG) of Chicago, Ill., to work closely with AGC to advance construction technology via this initiative. As a testament to the importance and significance of this project, AGC and Burger Consulting Group invited prominent AGC member contractors and software developers to join a recently formed agcXML Advisory Board (AB).  The Advisory Board’s purpose is to act as rainmakers for this project encouraging their peers to adopt the standards. The AB software vendor members bring a variety of software types to the table.  This creates a great synergy since the AB, consisting of both software vendors and contractors, gets to experience both perspectives and the nuances of each and will help in the development of the schema to support various construction processes such as RFIs, Submittals, Scale tickets and so on.  As mentioned earlier, adoption is the ultimate goal – and these representatives can work together and demonstrate the value of adoption.

Funding for this initiative: 

AGC is very grateful to the following software vendors who are supporting us on this journey with monthly sponsorship contributions. The following vendors are gold sponsors of this initiative: 

• The Bluebook Construction Network
• Coins 
• Maxwell Systems
• Sage 
• Viewpoint Construction Software

There will be a Live XML Demo using Request for Information (RFI) transaction to demonstrate the ease of data exchange and interoperability.  This demo will be held on Tuesday March 4, 2014 from 10 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. PST at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, Room: Tower Ballroom 5.

For more information on this project, visit www.agcxml.org