ITcon Vol. 12, pg. 337-346, http://www.itcon.org/2007/23

Rethinking communication in construction

SUBMITTED: March 2007
REVISED: April 2007
PUBLISHED: Maj 2007
EDITOR: Björk B-C

Örjan Wikforss, Professor
Project Communication, Department of Industrial Economics and Management (INDEK), School of Industrial Engineering and Management, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden
email: wikforss@kth.se, http://www.kth.se

Alexander Löfgren, Lic. Eng.
Project Communication, Department of Industrial Economics and Management (INDEK), School of Industrial Engineering and Management, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden
email: alexander.lofgren@indek.kth.se, http://www.kth.se

SUMMARY: In many of the industrialized lean construction efforts in the construction industry today, collaborative communication and its supporting ICT have been reduced to a secondary issue in favour of rationalizing the physical design and production processes, as if effective project communication practices and technologies are taken for granted. Often when ICT based communication is discussed and managed in construction it often only comprises the technical aspects of information handling, such as modelling, classification and standardization. This paper introduces the subject field of Project Communication, which considers the improvement of organization, group processes, work procedures, as well as the sharing and transfer of knowledge between different professional domains in projects and corporations. The subject area has a special focus on the concept of the integration of project organizations and the creation of an effective platform for collaboration through shared ICT business tools. One prioritized field of research in this area is the problematic issue of creating true usefulness, user acceptance and organizational adoption of ICT in project team work. The paper describes four indicative feasibility studies in Project Communication in the Swedish construction sector. It argues that to solve the practical problems that the industry is encountering, as described in the studies, the perspective must be widened so as to include information and communication technology from an organizational and management viewpoint.

KEYWORDS: project communication, design, production, organization, management, ICT usefulness.

FULL TEXT: file.pdf (75,496 bytes)

CITATION:

Wikforss Ö and Löfgren A (2007) Rethinking communication in construction, ITcon Vol. 12, pg. 337-346, http://www.itcon.org/2007/23