Editorial - Next generation construction IT: technology foresight, future studies, roadmapping and scenario planning

The construction sector is characterised by delivery of one-of-a-kind product and service delivery through competence sharing between different organisations, many of whom are SMEs of which some may have never worked together. ICT (information and communications technologies) usage in the sector is however still limited and lags far behind other manufacturing sectors (e-Business W@tch (2005). At the same time however, there is growing evidence (as reported in the papers featured in this special issue) that there is now a growing paradigm shift in thinking by the construction industry as it embraces itself to take-up and implement next generation construction IT that has been researched and reported in pioneering journals on the subject like ITcon (www.itcon.org), and proposed through numerous strategic national and international roadmapping initiatives such as those by Department of Trade and Industry (DTI, 2001), ROADCON (Hannus et al, 2003), FIATECH (2004), CRC for Construction Innovation (Hampson and Brandon, 2004), UK National Platform for the Built Environment (2006), Strat-CON (Kazi et al, 2007), European Construction Technology Platform (ECTP, 2008), etc. Some questions that emerge include, “what now?”, “what next?”, and “what in the future?”. The portfolio of the 23 refereed papers in this special issue of ITcon address these questions and provide answers that are expected to serve as value propositions to the industry for technology take-up; provide guidelines to ICT providers on what needs to be further developed; and equip researchers and academia with new research topics and ideas on relevant emerging ICTs for the construction sector.