Implementing information management in construction: establishing problems, concepts and practice

Abstract

Information management practice falls under various themes: vision and policy, change implementation, alignment of strategies to information technology (IT), business process re‐engineering, the review of new systems and IT infrastructure. It has been found from exploratory case studies in the construction industry that the current management of information is characterized by systems in which: (1) information exchange between project parties is limited to paper, a medium in which retrieval is very slow and inefficient; (2) functional departments maintain their own data structured to suit their particular needs; (3) most information searching and transfer between project parties and clients are paper based, providing constant source of delays; (4) no efficient interfaces exist between departmental systems to access information electronically;and (5) the impact of IT investment to date has been limited. These characteristics can be first traced to the general lack of coherent management policy and vision on information management. Also, although construction is a distinctly collaborative business environment, for historical, cultural and legal reasons, there is no desire to consider seriously the use of collaborative IT tools. Thirdly, although there is a degree of knowledge of business process evaluation and improvement techniques such as business process re‐engineering (BPR), it appears there is less confidence for management to adopt such tools in its drive to solve information management problems. Finally, the lack of progress in adopting IT to widely improve communication is related to the fact that until now stand‐alone departmental systems have been the norm. Above all, the culture of the industry dictates that each function maintains total independence in all aspects including information retrieval and exchange. The result is that experience of implementing corporate IT systems is lacking and it is clearly affecting the ability to examine the potential of emerging IT or appraise current infrastructure.

Study of SME Innovation in Two Queensland Industries

“…One of the important results from the research into residential builders was that although it is contended by a number of researchers that larger firms have more capacity to innovate than smaller ones (Arias-Aranda et al, 2001;Gopalakrishnan & Santoro, 2001), there was considerable innovation in the firms in the study. The research described in this chapter also indicates that the small size of the firms studied is likely to enhance their ability to develop, test and implement innovations.…”

E-Commerce in the Textile and Apparel Supply Chain Management: Framework and Case Study

“…In summary, the past research reviewed in the above have shown that while e-commerce technologies may be perceived as important tools to textile and apparel companies, these research have been mainly focused on some perspectives as classified below: IT development perspective (Weippert 2003) [6]; government sector and client perspective (Dooley and Purchase 2004) [7], manufacture perspective (Gyampoh-Vidogah and Moreton 2003), [8] small or sub contractors perspective and industry perspective.…”

Key Adoption Factors for Collaborative Technologies and Barriers to Information Management in Construction Supply Chains: A System Dynamics Approach

“…Lack of information quality [32] 0.12 Interoperability issues [32] 0.12 Issues related to notification processes [32] 0.04 Security issues [32] 0.04 Authorization [32] 0.04 Communication issues [32] 0.20 Implementation costs [32] 0.12 Project-specific needs taking precedence [33] 0.12 Lack of leadership skills [33] 0.12 Limited resources [33] 0.12 Complicated taxonomies [33] 0.12 New forms of content [33] 0.12 Inconsistencies in the use of metadata [33] 0.12 Lack of guidance [33] 0.12 Shortage of skills [33] 0.12 Complicated nature of construction projects [33] 0.12 Resistance to change [33] 0.12 Fear of being driven by technology [33] 0.12 Lack of cost monitoring and control [8] 0.20 Lack of information flow from customers and sales [8] 0.20 Issue of information storage [8] 0.12 Bespoke office applications [8] 0.12 Transition from 2D numbering to 3D modeling [8] 0.12 Lack of information identification, location, and organization [8] 0.12 Lack of information completeness and accuracy [8] 0.04 Lack of quality systems implementation and operation [8] 0.04 Information duplication [8] 0.04 Lack of information currency concepts [8] 0.04 Lack of an information management system [34] 0.20 Inability to develop information management policy [35] 0.12 Cultural issues [35] 0.12 Barriers to IT adoption [35] 0.12 Unconsidered business process techniques [35] 0.12 Inability to reassess information [35] 0.12 Inability to adopt new systems and infrastructure [35] 0.12 [43...…”