Digitally enabling the construction virtual enterprise

Wilson, IE

Abstract

The construction industry is highly fragmented, consisting of a large number
of very small companies that come together as members of non-collocated teams to
complete building projects, and who subsequently may never work together again.
The industry still faces various challenges in terms of human and organisational
issues. The Virtual Enterprise (VE), and other variations of the paradigm, relies on
networking organisations as elements forming an alliance or aggregation towards
some specific purpose or opportunity. Rather than the VE being a completely new
organisational form, the construction industry has adopted many of its characteristics
in its modus operandi for some considerable time. The construction industry does not
operate effectively as a VE and in consequence faces many problems. These problems
could be addressed by the development of ICT solutions geared towards digitally
enabling the VE.
The success of collaborative work, and the successful design and uptake of
such ICT tools to support that work relies not merely on the introduction of different
technologies, however, but also on critically analysing `human' aspects of
organisation. Using applied research and drawing on a central case study in which a
VE solution was developed, tested and evaluated in the context of `real world'
scenarios, the thesis addresses the socio-organisational aspects of technological
intervention and seeks to answer four research questions dealing with the above. The
main results include recognition that whilst ICT are advanced enough to offer adapted
solutions to digitally enabling the construction VE, the technology alone is not
sufficient. The construction industry is not yet ready to move to an approach
employing latest ICT development, due to the need to manage human and
organisational issues central to technological intervention. The thesis finally offers
business recommendations highlighting and mapping the critical human and
organisational decisions that need to be considered.

Citation

Wilson, I. Digitally enabling the construction virtual enterprise. (Thesis). University of Salford, UK

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Jun 23, 2009
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 23, 2009
• Additional Information: Additional Information : PhD supervisor: Professor Yacine Rezgui
• Award Date: May 1, 2003