ICE - Institution of Civil Engineers - Virtual Library

The UK construction industry has been fairly enthusiastic in its adoption of information and communication technologies to improve collaborative working. For example, recent research shows that the industry is currently using over 20 internet portals to share project information online. However, this paper concludes that a radical, top-down reappraisal is now needed to identify the systems really required to support true collaboration.

Information technology has had a huge impact on the civil engineering industry but, to date, the possibilities for collaborative working have not been fully exploited. This paper reports on a 2001 survey of the leading 150 civil engineering companies in Europe and the USA. It reveals that more collaboration across sites and with partners is seen as critical to success but that sharing information is an increasingly big problem. Better information technology is urgently needed.

The use of email and project collaboration websites for construction project communications is now relatively common. However, these communications generally operate without contractual support, resulting in a number of potentially serious legal implications—such as validity of contract notices, ownership of data and intellectual property rights. This paper reports on findings from eLEGAL, an EU-funded research project to enable the legally admissible use of information and communication technology in construction projects.

The recent EU-funded ProCure project was designed to encourage the usage of available information and communication technology to large-scale engineering construction. The industry and research partners to the project believed that sufficient information and communication technology was already available for use in real projects, albeit with care and an acceptable risk of failure. This paper presents part of the work undertaken within the project to collate information on commercial engineering software and its usage, the results of existing research projects and emerging technologies.

Roadcon is a new twelve-month EU-funded research project to develop a ‘roadmap’ for implementing information and communication technology in the construction industry during the next 20 years. It is aiming, and less has the potential, to lead to an ‘Integrated Initiative’ under the sixth European framework programme for research involving a critical mass of practitioners, researchers and academics across Europe.

Stockton's highway design team are experienced users of three-dimensional computer-aided design software. However, they are all too well aware that communication breakdowns can occur when they start sharing the underlying three-dimensional model data: a single unreported change can have a significant financial impact. This paper reports on the council's successful introduction of a new collaborative system that ensures everyone—wherever they are—is working to the latest data.

UK water company Severn Trent recently set out to explore how web technology could be used to streamline business processes and improve relationships with external suppliers. Initiatives to date include provision of a password-controlled website for the supply chain, project websites for sharing documentation and access to internal company procedures via web-enabled databases. This paper summarises the use of web technology within the company's £2 billion capital investment programme and the benefits it has brought in terms of efficiency, standardisation and team working

The construction industry's drive towards using information and communications technology to enhance collaborative working seems to have left site staff behind. This paper examines the information needs of site staff and shows there are several technology solutions currently available to support them. Based on a recent site trial, it also shows that, contrary to general perceptions, site staff are more than ready to adopt modern technology and should be included in all future strategies for collaboration systems.

Software is critical to the success of Swiss-based power and automation technology giant ABB. It is the ‘glue’ that holds the £15 billion company's systems together—which means a high level of consistency is required in development and application. This paper describes the company's approach to harmonising and expediting software processes through the group—including the establishment of a common framework for software development and maturity, an online experience database to share lessons learned and a ‘decision gate’ model to expedite projects.

Computer-based techniques for pre-planning and tendering design and construction work would enable construction professionals to assess the real impact of decisions they make at the early stages of a project. This paper presents work being undertaken to explore the potential of using software agents to replicate individuals involved in pre-planning and tendering. The emerging approach could be the basis for collaborative problem-solving and decision-support systems for the multi-disciplinary supply networks involved in construction.

Expert judgement studies are a relatively new way of quantifying technical uncertainty in engineering design. Unfortunately they can be time-consuming and costly because they require physical meetings between a group of possibly widely dispersed experts. This paper investigates how web-hosted collaboration or ‘virtual teaming’ can be used to carry out such studies. It shows in particular how the functionality of commercially available web-hosted project spaces can be enhanced to meet the flexibility, democracy and transparency required for such studies to work.