The development of a construction project goes through several stages and requires a wide range of services (Clough et al., 2008). During any project, there will be reciprocal interdependencies between different stakeholders, such as financing bodies, authorities, architects, engineers, lawyers, contractors, suppliers and tradesmen (Ibid.). Another driver in the project-management domain causing an increase in reciprocal interdependencies is the rise in concurrent engineering [CE] (Williams 1999).To this inherent complexity of stakeholders we must add that construction projects are becoming much more complex and difficult (Chan et al., 2004; Williams, 2002; Alshawi and Ingirige, 2003). The big size of projects is traditionally seen as the cause of project complexity (Williams 2002) although it is argued that it is not the size itself but aspects derived from the size of the project - like number of stakeholders or number of project management tools and methods – that contribute to project complexity (Bosch-Rekveldt et al. 2010).
On the other hand, studies show that while productivity in other industries has increased considerably in the last 40 years, the productivity of the construction industry has actually been steadily decreasing.
Fig. 1.1 – Construction and Non-Farm Labour Productivity Index (Teicholz, 2004)To cope with the increasing complexity of projects, information and communication technology [ICT] has been developing at a very fast pace (Taxén and Lilliesköld, 2008). This uptake in ICT did not bring yet all the expected benefits to the Architecture, Engineering and Construction [AEC] Industry (Majer et al. 2010), such as an important increase in Labour Productivity. This could be because the human ability to cope with these complexities has not developed at the same rate as ICT (Taxén and Lilliesköld, 2008), or because the implementation of ICT alone is not enough and the industry needs a shift into a new way of working.
In any case, understanding what ICT can do to help industry professionals cope with the increased complexity of projects is key to reach successful project outcomes and could be the key to increase the overall productivity of the industry. Any changes in tools and also in processes that may help the Construction Industry shift its tendency towards higher productivity should be considered and studied in detail.
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