Collaborative working and its effects on the AEC organisation

摘要

The 21st century is the time for the construction industry to embrace new ways ofrnworking if it is to continue to be competitive and meet the needs of its ever demandingrnclients. Collaborative working is considered by many to be the basis for newrnmanagement paradigms such as concurrent engineering and lean production and isrnessential if architects / design and construction teams are to consider the whole lifecyclernof the construction product.rnMuch of the recent work on collaborative working has focused on the delivery ofrntechnological solutions with a focus on web (extranets), CAD (visualisation), andrnknowledge management technologies. However, it is now recognised that goodrncollaboration does not result from the implementation of information technologyrnsolutions alone. The organisational and people issues, which are not readily solved byrnpure technical systems, need to be resolved. However, approaches that exclusively focusrnon organisational and people issues will not reap the benefits derived from the use ofrntechnology, especially in the context of distributed teams which are the norm inrnconstruction.rnWork currently being undertaken at Loughborough University aims to bring togetherrnthe benefits enabled by the technology, with the organisational, and its people issues tornprovide tools and methods to enable high level strategic decisions to be made tornimplement effective collaboration. This paper reports on the initial studies carried out inrnthe project, the literature review and survey in the topics of collaborative workingrn(existing technologies and methods), organisational culture and change, implementingrnICT into the organisation, and there effects on business processes.