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AODocs

Enterprise Knowledge Platform for Capital Projects

From 3D model to purchase order
One platform your teams, and your AI, can trust

Project tools handle drawings. Document management systems handle contracts and invoices. On a capital project, you need both under the same rules: AODocs governs every document, technical or commercial, with one lifecycle, and lets your teams use AI on it safely, under pressure.

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When a wrong answer is not an option.

Technical and commercial project documents, governed in one AODocs recordSix documents of the same capital project arrive: on one side technical documents, a 3D model, a P&ID drawing and a weld certificate; on the other commercial documents, a purchase order, a supplier invoice and a contract variation. All of them enter one AODocs register for the LNG terminal, unit 300, where each gets a revision and a status written on a stamp: the 3D model and the weld certificate are in force, the purchase order and the invoice are approved, the P&ID drawing revision 4 and the contract variation are in review. The same versions, approvals and access rules apply to every document. AIDA, the AI assistant in AODocs, is asked which revision of the P&ID is approved and answers from the governed record: revision 3 is approved, revision 4 is in review and not yet in force, citing its source.TECHNICALCOMMERCIAL3D modelMDL-U300 · REV CP&ID drawingP&ID-U300 · REV 4Weld certificateWC-0412 · REV APurchase orderPO 4500-2231Supplier invoiceF-2026-1187Contract variationVO-017 · REV 2PRJ-4471 · LNG TERMINAL · UNIT 300AODocs3D model · MDL-U300Rev CIN FORCEPurchase order · PO 4500-2231Rev 1APPROVEDP&ID drawing · P&ID-U300Rev 4IN REVIEWSupplier invoice · F-2026-1187Rev 1APPROVEDWeld certificate · WC-0412Rev AIN FORCEContract variation · VO-017Rev 2IN REVIEWSame versions, approvals and access rules for every document.ASK AIDAWhich revision of the P&ID is approved?Rev 3 is approved.Rev 4 is in review, not yet in force.SOURCE · P&ID-U300 · REV 3 · APPROVED

Every capital project is now urgent. The record was not built for that.

Data centers waiting for power, grids waiting for substations, plants waiting for a turnaround window: the pressure to complete is immense, and the timelines are often set before the design is. Teams are asked to go faster with the same people, and the first thing that gives under pressure is the paperwork nobody governs.

Millions of documents, governed by hand.

Method statements, weld maps, permits, vendor data books, contracts: owner, engineers, contractors and suppliers share the asset, not their tools, and each keeps its own copy of the record. Engineering document control covers drawings and tags; everything else lives on a shared drive, held together by naming conventions and a document controller who remembers the retest. Under deadline, that breaks first: four copies of one specification and no version in force is the ordinary state of a project drive.

Faster means new tools, not more people.

Nobody will staff a 2027 schedule with 2019 document control. Commissioning planned over eight weeks and squeezed into four is now the ordinary case, and the people are the same. The teams that hold their dates are the ones where a document is checked, routed and retired without a person remembering to do it.

Under pressure, your teams will use AI to go faster.
Make sure it reads the right document.

When the schedule is tight, people stop walking to the document controller and start asking an agent. That is the right instinct. An agent has no hesitation, though: asked to confirm commissioning status, it can find a signed certificate, miss the one that superseded it after a retest, and report the system complete in the same confident register it uses when it is right.

Operations engineer, two days before energizationIs substation feeder 12 cleared for energization?
Agent reading a shared driveYes. Commissioning certificate CC-0412 is signed and dated 14 March.

Revision B, the one in force, sits in another folder.

The agent read a real document. It was not the version in force.

Speed with AI is only as good as the record it reads. AODocs removes the largest cause of wrong answers on a project record, an invalid source: AIDA reads the current approved revision, with a valid approval state, and says so when the answer is not in the document base. It reduces that risk; nobody can promise to eliminate it.

Four moments where the project plan slips. None of them is the model.

Delays pile up at four predictable moments, one per phase. Each one turns on a document, and each one is where a governed record buys the schedule back.

  4. Operations
  1. Design and kickoff

    Design and kickoff

    The reference set has to be assembled: specifications, standards, the contractor's deliverables list, the numbering rules. On a folder tree it takes weeks and a person who knows where everything is. In AODocs, the register is imported, placeholders are created, numbering and overdue tracking are generated, and a project set up on last month's template starts in hours.

    The master document register, 2,400 placeholders, 38 overdue

    Design and kickoff
  2. Construction

    Construction: change

    A permit condition or a revised drawing has to reach every affected work package. Missed once, it is found at inspection, and the crew waits. In AODocs, the condition is linked to the packages it binds, the superseded revision is retired, and the people who hold the old copy are told.

    A variation order with its three linked packages

    Construction
  3. Construction

    Construction: third-party exchange

    A version leaves the system as an email attachment and starts a life of its own at the supplier's. In AODocs, contractors and suppliers work inside the process, through controlled portals, with the same traceability as internal users.

    A transmittal, with its acknowledgement

    Construction
  4. Handover

    Handover

    Somebody has to live with whatever record exists, for thirty years, and the first audit finds out what is missing. In AODocs there is nothing to hand over between systems: the record is in the same environment before, during and after commissioning.

    The as-built record, with the version in force of each certificate

    Handover

Specialized project platforms handle schedule, cost and design coordination well. They were not built for text documents or for document-centric processes. That is the other eighty percent of the record, and where the plan slips.

Go fast without going wrong. Here is what keeps the record straight.

Speed comes from not checking twice: when every team, every contractor and every agent reads the same version in force, nobody stops to ask which revision is right. A single source of truth is what makes that possible. Every platform on this market claims one; here is the sequence that produces it in AODocs, for every document type and every phase.

  1. Submission is checked before review.In review

    AI Quality Control reads each incoming document against the project rules: numbering, revision conformity, metadata, completeness. What fails does not enter the queue; the submitter sees why, and fixes it the same day.

  2. Status binds rather than advises.In review

    Draft, in review, approved, in force, superseded: a status is a state of the document, with the roles and evidence each transition requires. No new revision while a comment is left without a recorded answer.

  3. Review happens in one place, with every party inside.Approved

    Multi-party approval, comment sheets reconciled to the original comments, contractors and suppliers working through controlled portals. Human approval stays where your process puts it.

  4. The superseded revision is retired, demonstrably.Superseded

    When a revision is approved, the previous one leaves circulation, search and AI. Anyone holding the old copy can see it is retired.

  5. Everything is on record, for the life of the asset.In force

    Who approved what, when, on which revision; retention rules applied per document type; a history that survives the project team.

One drawing through the five steps that keep the record straightThe drawing P&ID-U300, revision 4, goes through five steps. One: AI Quality Control checks numbering, revision and metadata, finds the title block date missing and returns the submission to the submitter; it comes back complete and enters the review queue, in review. Two: the status binds; comment C-12 has no recorded answer, so a new revision is blocked until the answer is recorded. Three: the owner, the EPC contractor and the valve vendor, through its portal, approve in one place, and the comment sheet is fully answered; the drawing is approved. Four: revision 3 is retired, struck through as superseded, removed from circulation, from search and from AI answers, while revision 4 is in force. Five: everything is on record, with dated approvals and retirement, and retention per document type for the life of the asset.12345Checked before reviewThe status bindsOne review, every partyThe old revision is retiredEverything on recordP&ID-U300REV 3SUPERSEDEDP&ID-U300REV 4FIIN REVIEWAPPROVEDIN FORCEAI QUALITY CONTROLNumberingRevisionMetadataCompletenesstitle block date missingresubmitted, completeReturned to the submitterEnters the review queueSTATUSDraftIn review ← hereApprovedIn forceSupersededComment C-12no recorded answerNew revision blockedComment C-12answer recordedRevision allowedREVIEW · ONE PLACEOwnerapprovedEPC contractorapprovedValve vendorapproved through its portalComment sheet4 comments, 4 answersREV 3 RETIREDOut of circulationOut of searchOut of AI answersON RECORD12 OCT · REV 4 APPROVEDOwner, EPC contractor, vendor12 OCT · REV 3 RETIREDSuperseded by Rev 4RETENTIONPer document typeKept for the life of the asset

Deciding which documents are authoritative is a business judgment we cannot make for you. AODocs provides the platform and the mechanics.

Keep your project platforms. Speed up everything around them.

Autodesk Forma, Procore, Oracle Aconex, Primavera and SAP each answer one question well: how do we design this, build it, schedule it, buy it. AODocs answers a different one: how do we govern every document those systems produce and consume, across the whole life of the asset, so the teams using them stop waiting on the record. It layers on top of them. It goes wider than engineering document control, which keeps the drawings and tags in order and leaves the rest of the record on folders and email. It replaces the legacy ECM that was built before the cloud and before AI.

CapabilityYour project platformsAODocs
Model coordination, construction management, scheduling, procurementYesPartner
Document governance across every type and phaseLimitedYes
Controlled sharing with external partiesLimitedYes
Retirement of superseded revisions, retentionPartialYes
AI that reads only the version in forceNoYes
Replacement of legacy ECM (OpenText, Documentum, FileNet)Not applicableYes

Integrations with Autodesk BIM 360 and Autodesk Forma, SAP and Microsoft 365, and an API-first platform on your cloud, your storage and your LLM. Model coordination stays where it is.

Specialized project platforms are stronger for schedule, cost, RFI and submittal management, field workflows and model coordination. We do not replace those functions.

How AODocs works with your project stack

Owners and builders who deliver faster on AODocs.

Before AODocs, it took us weeks to find the right content, and we weren't sure of the quality. Now the process takes minutes and sometimes even seconds, and you're sure it's the right taxonomy and right files every time.

Ron Goodwin, Global Manager, Knowledge Management, Google

Weeks of document collection down to seconds, data center after data center.

Read the story
It's a big risk not to have any document control, that companies don't necessarily see directly, because a lot of time passes between when the document is generated and when the problem happens at the site.

Nicolas Tourneur, Deputy Director for Projects, Veolia Water Technologies

Setting up AODocs for a new project now takes a few hours.

Read the story

Built for the projects being built now.

  • Data centers

    Hundreds of thousands of documents per campus, and hall four needs to know what was approved in hall two.

  • Utilities and grid

    Substations, transmission lines and the permits that decide when they energize.

  • Energy and renewables

    Generation, storage, wind and solar portfolios across regions.

  • Oil and gas

    Turnarounds, LNG terminals and the vendor data books behind every certificate.

  • Water

    Treatment plants delivered by Veolia Water Technologies on AODocs.

  • EPC and engineering firms

    One document control standard across every client project.

Questions we hear from teams on a deadline.

Can your AI be wrong?

It can. What AODocs removes is the largest cause of wrong answers on a project record, an invalid source: AIDA reads only the current approved revision, with a valid approval state, and reports when the answer is not in the document base instead of assembling a plausible one. Anyone promising elimination is overselling.

Our project platform already covers document control. Why add AODocs?

It covers the model and the project data well. Ask where the contracts, permits, certifications and transmittal correspondence live, and how a superseded revision is retired in that location. In the evaluations we have run, the general-purpose document record usually sits outside the project platform, on folders and email, and that is where the schedule waits.

We will sort the record out at handover. Why start earlier?

Handover is where the gap surfaces, not where it can be closed. Reconstructing status after the fact costs more than carrying it forward, and the contracts that could have compelled it have expired. Starting narrow, with one document class on the current project or with the next project, is a method, not a shortcut.

Will governance slow the project down?

Ungoverned projects are the ones that lose weeks at kickoff and at handover. Veolia Water Technologies sets up a new project in a few hours and has controlled routing from initiation. Fewer steps, named: no manual numbering, no chasing overdue deliverables by email, no reconciling comment sheets by hand.

More questions and answers

See how much faster one document class can move.

In a one-hour session, we take one document class from one of your projects, a commissioning certificate, a permit, a vendor data book, and show how it is checked, approved, retired when superseded and read by AIDA, without a person remembering to do any of it. Bring the folder it lives in today.

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Start with the next project, or with one document class on the current one. Fast setup assumes a defined document control configuration to start from; the first project is where that work happens.