Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
of ad hoc teams and tacit knowledge exchange. From the aspect of a project, this
means a much smoother flow of information and, thus, a higher level of quality.
While the technology itself show positive effects for the improvement of project
communications, promotional efforts were still needed to minimize the clash
between culture and technology.
7.5 Conclusions
Communication and information exchange among actors in the construction
process are the areas where IT potential, especially mobile computing technologies,
can lead to the most effective results.
A quantum leap in project communication can only be assured by re-
conceptualizing organizational models and information systems: from application
towards context (user, location, etc.) oriented, from rigid hierarchical towards
dynamic network-oriented and from process and product towards person and
team-oriented.
For this reason, existing applications (including presence management, personal
calendar and communication software), common information sources (such as
project data and process models), and specific “terminal information” (such as
location) have been integrated to build a Dynamic Communication Environment
(DyCE) by measure of the human - the actor - involved in various projects and
tasks. In this way the mobile computer can become a sophisticated but helpful
personal digital assistant, which will provide the human with necessary information
for making good decisions and leave the human with more time for creative work.
From the aspect of a project, this means a much smoother flow of information and,
thus, a higher level of quality. The information demand is facilitating the use and
further development of other Construction Information Technologies, such as
product and process models. The proposed DyCE concept does undoubtedly
represent a much higher degree of IT use in the construction industry, which fits
well into the virtual enterprising of the future.
7.6 Future work
Construction companies are recognizing the problem of timely information and
putting lots of effort into capturing and analyzing activity data (McCullouch, 1997),
but in real situations too many construction projects sooner or later loose the
benefits of carefully prepared activity plans and degrade into improvisation. The
only solution to assure a consistent flow of relevant information seems to be
automation of data collection. Many attempts have already been made using
various approaches in order to control construction project performance (Navon
and Sacks, 2007). They are based on indirect indicators, like labor productivity
(Stauffer and Grimson, 2000; Navon and Goldschmidt, 2002), use of equipment
(Sacks et al., 2002), materials flow (Cheng and Chen, 2002; Ergen et al., 2007), or
direct measurement of activity progress, like some recent methods based on on-site
Search WWH ::
Custom Search