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The Blue Book of Building and Construction Streamlines Document Distribution with New Functionality and Increased Focus on Reprographer Relationships
Westchester, N.Y. — The Blue Book of Building and Construction, a leading provider of tools and information for the construction industry, is working to solve an industry need for easier, faster communication of project plans and specifications.
Noting significant growth in the use of online plan rooms, including their own private online plan room which is available as part of the company’s online bid management system, BB-Bid, The Blue Book is expanding its reprographer network nationwide and adding new functionality in order to facilitate communication of project documents.
The Blue Book recently built new functionality into the BB-Bid Private Online Plan Room to accomplish this mission. This new ‘Invitation to Print’ feature allows BB-Bid users (General Contractors, Government Agencies, Developers) the ability to assign their own reprographer or add reprographers from The Blue Book database to their project’s bid invitations and private online plan room. This enables these users to establish multiple printing locations for their invited vendors within the project’s vicinity, enabling convenient same day ordering and pick up.
When general contractors send an Invitation to Bid to subcontractors and suppliers, the selected reprographer(s) will automatically be notified with an “Invitation to Print.” This notification lets the reprographer know that the project’s plan room is ready and print orders for that project should follow shortly.
The general contractor can identify whether partial sets can be purchased and who will pay for the printed documents. The reprographer will have the option to provide their pricing, store hours and delivery methods. These details would be included in the general contractor’s project message and within the private plan room’s “print ordering screen.”
To further streamline this process, GCs, subcontractors and suppliers can easily send a “Print Request” message to the reprographer directly from the project’s plan room, which will include the PDF files of the requested documents. In addition, to monitor the activity of their private plan room, BB-Bid users can generate detailed reports identifying visitors and the documents they viewed, downloaded and ordered as well as the reprographer who fulfilled those print orders.
“We are continuously looking for ways to improve communication, especially during the time-sensitive bidding stage of a project. This new ‘Invitation to Print’ functionality is just another example of The Blue Book’s mission to bridge the gap between buyers and sellers in the industry!” added Ed Haege, BB-Bid’s Product Manager. “We recognize the importance of including reprographers in our network and are working hard to maximize the benefits of this new functionality and leverage these relationships.”
“Invitation to Print” is currently available within BB-Bid and the number of users taking advantage of this new functionality is steadily growing. The Blue Book has received positive feedback from both the contractor and reprographer communities and is planning to make further enhancements to their online plan room in the upcoming months.
For more information, please contact Ed Haege, BB-Bid Product Manager at 800-431-2584, ext 3307.
About The Blue Book…
Since 1913, The Blue Book of Building and Construction has provided the industry’s most comprehensive database of general contractors, subcontractors and suppliers working within the building and construction industry. Each year, over 750,000 copies of The Blue Book are distributed – free of charge – to buyers of construction-related products and services throughout the United States. Online, thebluebook.com features over 1,000,000 company listings, display ads and profiles in 560 ‘Industry Classifications’ and is searchable by keyword or company name. BB-Bid, the company’s free online bid management system, delivers over 250,000 project messages weekly.
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