Niche Software Inc. announced the addition of Interstate Highway Construction (IHC) Inc., Englewood, Calif., to its family of BID2WIN users at ConExpo-Con/Agg 2002.
IHC's estimators had previously performed work using a homegrown system of spreadsheets and a database.
IHC has served the Rocky Mountain and Midwest regions of the U.S. as a leading highway and airfield construction contractor since 1956. Between locations in both Colorado and Michigan, nearly 500 employees report to work each day on IHC projects.
"We always saw the value in computerized estimating and liked having an internal system," said Pat Nolan, IHC's vice president of estimating and marketing, "but we're in the business of construction, not software development."
Niche is looking to improve its popular BID2WIN package and unveiled a new strategy at ConExpo-Con/Agg. "The Epiphany Project" will include such technologies as Microsoft's .NET and an SQL Server 2000. The SQL Server 2000 is a database designed for speed, flexibility and scalability. With .NET, cross-department communication over the Internet will be available. In other words, web services will allow communication between other software packages.
The project is still in the works and Niche hopes the rebuilding will be complete by first quarter 2003.
