Costain Launches Cloud Mobile Apps for Civil Engineering Projects in United Kingdom

LONDON and STOCKHOLM, September 3, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

EC funded MobiCloud project makes the construction industry more efficient

Costain, a leading engineering solutions provider, and Appear, the European leader in mobile cloud platforms, announced today the deployment of innovative workforce applications for the construction industry, as part of the MobiCloud project.

MobiCloud is a corporate app-store infrastructure supported by the European Commission, consisting of an application container deployed in a smartphone or tablet connecting to corporate systems via a cloud-hosted platform. MobiCloud applications address a broad range of construction use cases, such as managing safety permits, access to policies and site procedures, incident reporting and asset management.

The first MobiCloud application deployed by Costain is a tablet-based site diary, replacing the cumbersome paper-based records where engineers record all the events taking place on a site. "The average value of construction disputes in the UK rose to £6.5M, while they have become more time-consuming, taking an average of 8.7 months to resolve," says Jason Scott, consultant for COMIT, an industry association promoting the use of mobile technologies in construction. "The MobiCloud site diary enables Costain to quickly search for the relevant records and matching pictures, but also to make sure that the information is more accurately documented by its engineers. As a result, it can substantially reduce the frequency, cost and duration of disputes."

Tim Embley, Group Innovation & Knowledge Manager at Costain, comments: "Costain has a commitment to innovation and the application of new technology and MobiCloud enables us to explore how mobile and cloud technology can help us improve our operations and deliver better service to our clients. Following the deployment of the MobiCloud site diary, we have received a large number of internal requests for new mobile applications, some of which will be rolled out in the coming months."

The MobiCloud consortium is led by Appear (Sweden) and includes Nettropolis (Germany), EsperantoXL (the Netherlands), Costain (UK) and COMIT Projects (UK). The project's focus is to stimulate mobile services in the cloud and to support the emergence of a European ecosystem of mobile cloud application developers.

The MobiCloud Partner Program allows any organization to access an infrastructure to develop and run its own corporate app-store, or evaluate an existing MobiCloud application.

Media Contacts:

Tim Embley,Costain
[email protected]
+44(0)7825533825

Mia Falgard, Appear
[email protected]
+46(0)709559356

SOURCE Costain