Summary: |
"This paper aims to clarify future direction of strategic exploitation of information technology (IT) for management of large scale construction projects, such as super high-rise office buildings, condominiums and amusement facilities. More and more construction companies are finding IT to be their most strategic option in meeting increased competition. However, in the same way that there are many different perceptions of the problem, there are many different viewpoints regarding the strategic exploitation of IT. Many of the research efforts in this direction have been carried forth in the context of benchmarking the best practice among different industries, companies and processes. The benchmarking is a methodology to assist construction firms by evaluating the performance of existing processes, functions, technologies and organizations in which they operate currently. Current IT applications in the field of project management are divided into four major areas:1)Process management based on scheduling systems, 2) Product management based on CAD systems, 3) Technology Management using integrated planning systems, and 4) Real-time construction management by monitoring systems. Since large scale construction projects have particular characteristics such as complexity in environmental conditions and diversity in projects participants, efficient planning and management systems are relevant. Major findings in IT strategy through comparison of several types of large scale construction projects are :1)Function oriented approaches to establish planning and management functions as IT centers such as material transportation management center and machine control center, that can communicate each other via Intranet, 2)Performance of IT systems are well depend on the levels of integration of IT and construction technologies such as automated construction systems and industrialized production systems and 3) Communication systems for daily project management using meeting system and IC card system are widely applied. Since these implies future directions of IT applications and project management methodology, further discussions are described to establish a framework for intentional comparative analysis among them." |