CONSTRUCTION PLANNING PROCESS IMPROVEMENT USING INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TOOLS

ABSTRACT: For the last ten years, Computers have been used extensively in the development and procurement of construction projects. This is due to the relatively cheap hardware and software and most importantly the availability of skilful engineers and technicians to use computers effectively and efficiently. Construction site planning and management, however, is largely paper driven and computers are used for administration work rather than planning and managing the process. This paper describes a collaborative research study being undertaking between the University of Teesside and an international contracting organisation based in the UK. The prime objective of the research is to analyse and develop a formalised construction process model with integrated Information Technology Tools (ITT) as enablers for productivity and performance improvement of the site management processes. Other objectives are: to develop an understanding of the production processes (managing type contracts) and identify key areas in which computers can be used as enabling tools to improve and stream line the processes. In order to achieve the objective a number of tasks have been set, these were: identifying current processes using semi-structured interview; map out processes using IDEF0; benchmark processes and identify key areas in which computer can be used; and development and implementation of an IT based methodology to be used in managing the process. The paper concludes that the one of the major areas within the production process, which could enormously benefit from IT, is change orders due to design change, client variation, etc. The paper discusses the development of an IT based tool for site planning and change order management as a first phase of the project.