Capital CareCapital Care

Using new application development tools from IBM Lotus Software, the University of Illinois plans to significantly expand the capabilities of a Web-based application to manage capital improvements at its three campuses. School officials say Lotus' recent integration of the Domino development environment with Java 2 Enterprise Edition and IBM's WebSphere tools will let the university step up collaboration efforts for managing capital-improvement projects that range in cost from $500,000 to $50 million.

The app, called Przm, was built on Domino and is used for real-time management and tracking of processes such as project bidding and design, materials acquisition, contractor payment, and construction. Now the university wants to add the real-time collaboration functionality of Lotus' QuickPlace and Sametime tools. It also wants to establish links between Przm and other apps for managing capital programs, as well as other universitywide software used to manage finances and space inventory, says Clark Wise, director of technical services for the university's office for capital programs.

Sametime's instant-messaging and presence capabilities, combined with QuickPlace's ability to rapidly build secure online workspaces, will let architects, engineers, contractors, and university officials address pressing questions faster. "This is going to add quite a bit of speed during design and construction," Wise says. So far, about 25% of the $1.2 billion capital-improvements budget is managed through Przm.

That will grow as the university builds new tools into Przm using the Domino integration with J2EE and WebSphere. "We can more rapidly roll out new items and populate them with Java-type script in a way that we've never done," Wise says. Przm should help the university clarify project expectations, he says, resulting in more-straightforward planning, faster construction, and lower costs.