Meet the New Newforma: Evolving By Design

by IAN HOWELL, CEO, Newforma | Jul 17, 2015

Launched this week, our new website represents much more than simply a new design. It announces a new chapter in our evolving Newforma story, as we continue on our mission of transforming project delivery for building and infrastructure design and construction.

Since our founding in 2004, we’ve been developing practical ways for architects, engineers, construction teams, and owners to better collaborate and manage project information. In doing so, we created an entirely new category of vertical industry software – that for project information management.

For it is information – and how it is used – that continues to drive what we do. The amount of data generated in this industry is staggering. When we began in 2004, a large project had 100 gigabytes of data. Today, a similar-size project has 6.5 terabytes – 65 times as much!

“When we began in 2004, a large project had 100 gigabytes of data. Today, a similar-size project has 6.5 terabytes – 65 times as much!”

And this data is typically distributed in multiple locations. Not only do companies file project documents on multiple servers in multiple offices, but the rapid adoption of cloud storage has created even more places to file information.

Why is easy access to this information so important?  Collaboration.

From the start, we’ve provided project team members with ways to collaborate within their organizations and with outside members of project teams. Today, with the industry embracing lean design, lean construction, integrated project delivery, and building information modeling, the pressure to collaborate more effectively has reached diamond-producing levels of intensity.

But perhaps the most complicating factor influencing collaboration and project information management has been the now-widespread use of apps on smartphones and tablets. They create more places for information to hide or be lost, more ways to collaborate, and higher expectations of how software should work.

To keep up with evolving technologies, methods of collaboration, and project information needs, Newforma has offered new products for the cloud and on mobile devices. Our new look is one way of showing the world that we are re-dedicating ourselves to meeting our customers’ ever-changing business needs.

More apps, more clouds, more connections

The new Newforma builds upon everything we know, everything we’ve done, and everything we’ve learned, and adapts our business to the evolving needs of our customers and the industry. The new Newforma is marked by these three emphases:

• We’ll provide more apps to make individuals more productive as they quickly and easily capture and consume project information away from their desks;
• We’ll expand our use of the cloud to enable project teams to share and collaborate for more timely, informed decisions;
• We’ll enrich our enterprise software’s ability to connect disparate sources of information for the purpose of optimizing organizational performance, analyzing data, and managing information for greater compliance, transparency, and accountability.

       CEO Howell

Newforma, with its neutral or “Swiss” attitude toward authoring systems, is ideally suited to this work. We’re not married to a design software or tech platform that would influence our direction.

Instead, we can do as we’ve always done: Talk to you, our customers and customers-to-be, to determine what may be hampering your project delivery, then develop the tools you can use to surmount those problems.

With this sharper focus on what you need to deliver more successful projects, we’ll be announcing continued new developments over the coming months and years. Watch this space!

To hear Newforma execs discuss the larger trends driving new product development and greater customer service, watch the short video embedded on the company web site here. Below, an image from the video.

Dan Conery, Newforma VP of Business Development, demonstrates interactive features of one of the new products.

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