August 2008: A typical building project could involved submitting more than 700 forms to 16 government agencies, and taking as long as three years just to process. Thankfully, it’s a thing of the past.

Today, processing time has been reduced by 30-40 percent, as forms are consolidated to about 200,and there is a standardisation of terminology used among all the agencies involved.

This is the result of the initiative of the Building and Construction Authority (BCA), the collaboration of the agencies and the adoption of the PAVO e-Government collaborative framework, a proprietary solution by novaCITYNETS.

novaCITYNETS was awarded the contract to provide an e-submission and approval system for the construction and real estate industry in June 2000.

BCA launched the CORNET (Construction and Real Estate Network) e-submission system in November 2001.This electronic submission system is a nation-wide B2G and G2G portal, facilitating electronic submission and approval of all types of application made to the government agencies throughout the property development lifecycle.

Mr Wong Wai Ching, deputy managing director, Training and Professional Development (then director of BCA’s Building Plan and Management division that managed CORENET during the implementation), said: “It facilitates office management and helps track the processing of projects. The firms are able to access the system any time and anywhere.”

Challenging task to create awareness

But in 2001 it was a challenging task to entice the industry to use the system when it was launched. However, with the collaborative efforts of BCA and novaCITYNETS in education and awareness, the CORNET e-submission system take-up rate eventually gained momentum especially during the SARS outbreak in February 2003. About 90 percent of users volunteered to use the system even before the mandate for e-submission was passed in 2004.

There was an estimated annual savings of $160 million for the construction and real estate industry with the adoption of the online submission and approval system.

Now, architects filing the plans need to key in data only once and indicate which authorities the plans should be sent.

Mr Steven Chan, chairman of novaCITYNETS said: “The CORENET e-submission system allows easy sharing of information, communication between multi-agencies, ease in submission and security in user access controls.”

PAVO is the platform product that is scalable to meet different types of collaborative transactions over the Internet between organisations in the government or private sector. As such, PAVO is packaged with the necessary workflow and document management, access control management and secured transmission features.

With more than 5,000 users worldwide, it is also the platform integrating novaCITYNETS' other products – OCTANS (a specialised management application system designed to meet the needs and requirements of city and town management) and FORNAX (the world‘s first automated plan checking system with built-in intelligence to assist decision-making).

After the successful launch and implementation of the CORENET e-submission system, BCA awarded novaCITYNETS a contract to develop and maintain an Integrated Submission Processing System (ISPS) in August 2003.The objective of ISPS is to automate the in-house day-to-day and approval work processes.

In 2007, BCA awarded a multi-million-dollar contract to novaCITYNETS to manage, support and enhance CORENET as a mission-critical electronic service to the construction and real estate industry and the 16 participating government agencies. The award is for five years with an option for another five years.

In addition, novaCITYNETS was also granted the rights to market commercial value-added services, including training, consultancy, online promotion and e-Services, via the CORENET system and novaCITYNETS' own business portal.

Secret of success is domain expertise

The vendor attributes its success to its domain knowledge, IT management and planning and development of proprietary platform products and applications. It positions itself as a specialist provider and consultant in e-government solutions with the focus on local council and municipal government agencies.

To date, novaCITYNETS has developed a suite of e-government solutions such as e-Submission System, Approval Management System, e-PlanCheck System, Development Control System, Building Control System, Property Valuation, Land Transport Management and Case Management System, to assist local and overseas government agencies to manage application processes such as submission through the internet, evaluation through automated works processes and decision making through decision support systems.

Legal management system

In April 2008, the Attorney-General's Chambers awarded novaCITYNETS a contract to supply, install and maintain the Enterprise Legal Management System (ELMS). The new system replaces the manual process of managing and administrating legal matters.

Once ELMS is fully implemented, it will bring about fundamental changes and a whole new experience to the way the AG Chambers is currently managing and administering its legal matters, where manual processes will be automated. ELMS will also facilitate the sharing of legal knowledge and collaboration on legal processes with partners and client agencies.

The Enterprise Legal Management System will be developed on Nova's PAVO Collaborative Framework.

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