ABSTRACT
The increasing scale and complexity of construction projects along with specialization of stakeholders has resulted in complex construction supply chains (CSC). The collaboration and coordination among these stakeholders is challenging, and requires project teams to be agile and redesign systems and processes for the CSC, beyond organizational boundaries. There is also a need to efficiently manage both intra- and inter-organization CSCS information flows. Fortunately, with the advent of technology, near ubiquitous available of connectivity, mobile devices, and computing power, a new generation of cloud-based collaborative solutions are becoming feasible and is receiving increasing attention from the industry. Such solutions provide an end-to-end view of the project and have the potential to take project management beyond its current boundaries into more integrated and proactive project controls. They are designed to be more predictive that prevent project delays and provide decision makers with more time for mid-stream course correction.
This chapter focuses on potential and application of such cloud-based collaboration solutions for improving delivery of projects. The chapter begins by describing the evolution of the construction industry and project management, and postulates the inadequacy of traditional project management tools to deal with the project management problems of today. The chapter then discusses the need for a collaboration framework and development of data and process standards, and legal enablers to manage the CSC information flow. The chapter also discusses the tandem evolution and gradual shift of processes towards greater level of transparency, team working and coherence in project processes across the CSC leading to the evolution of collaborative project management and construction information supply chain solutions. The chapter then covers a survey of available solutions and the barriers to adoption of these solutions. The chapter also provides a set of criteria for decision makers who are looking to transition their project management to such cloud-based collaboration solutions. Finally, a roadmap through a maturity model is discussed and the way ahead for decision makers to adopt to make the transition smooth and the efforts of transition successful so that they can reap the benefits in their projects is discussed.
