TOWARDS INTEROPERABILITY: ICT IN ACADEMIC CURRICULA FOR SUSTAINABLE CONSTRUCTION

Sustainability has been regarded as a key issue in both process and product development in industries, e.g., manufacturing, production. The construction industry has recently recognized the importance of sustainable processes in achieving overall sustainability. Demands for cheaper, faster and better products coupled with the globalisation of the economic markets are forcing the construction industry to move towards an integrated business process. In order to achieve this integration, information and knowledge sharing are considered vital to reduce waste of resources hence fostering sustainability. Integration of process and information in a diversified, multi-disciplinary workforce like construction depends mostly on the individual’s level of expertise. Efforts at producing interoperable information standards by a growing number of alliances changing the information flow from horizontal to vertical and from sequential to cyclic. This implies that the actors in the industry must be proficient with the current and emerging Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Recent surveys show that, there is a widening gap between required ICT skill in the workplace and those taught in academic institutions. This paper establishes the need for ICT in construction education emphasizing interoperability as a concept among processes to achieve sustainability. INTRODUCTION The 21 century has seen a new demand for sustainable constructed facilities (Wenblad, 2000). Despite the building industry fundamentally operating the same way for decades (Bazjanac and Crawley, 1997), customer dissatisfaction, waste mismanagement, inefficiency, management crises (Saxeina and Ally, 1995)(Howard, 2000) and unsustainable project delivery (Arnold, 2000) are some of the many factors that have led to increased pressure for sustainable construction products. This has resulted in the introduction of a range of systems and software tools aimed at addressing sustainability at various stages to facilitate construction business. Examples include environmental management systems (Wenblad, 2000). Demand for sustainable product development has, among other things, increased competition and altered the corporate scenario for construction business worldwide (Ibid). Sustainability in construction, as an attitude rather than a topic of instruction, has been identified as another key driver of change in the modus operandi of business in the AEC/FM industry (Egan, 1998). Sustainability pressure has exacerbated heavy business constraints of time, complexity and operational disintegration (Vadhavkar and Pena Mora, 2000) forcing enterprises, small and large, to incorporate Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) into business processes (Hassan and McCaffer, 2002). ICT technologies are aimed at supporting information sharing among individuals (Hassanain et al, 2000). The construction industry of today and of the future demand the use of sustainable systems enabled by information and communication technologies.

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