Survey of Benefits of a Construction Collaboration Tool for Contract Change Management

摘要

The Contract Change Management (CCM) system is an Internet based collaboration tool, which supports the contract change process clearly defined in the NEC/ECC form of contract. It is currently being used by a wide range of clients on civil, power and building projects. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that the system helps projects reduce risks and save costs. There is a need to ascertain the key benefits of the system. To achieve this, a questionnaire survey has been conducted. The aim is to establish the views of different types of users, such as clients, contractors, or consultants, about the main benefits of using CCM in their projects. The questionnaire was sent to 260 users, and 85 valid replies have been received to date. Prior to the survey, a list of 43 anecdotal evidences was identified under 8 categories: (1) Process improvement;(2) Business improvement;(3) Risk management;(4) Communication;(5) Management information;(6) Efficiency;(7) Collaboration;and (8) Traceability. For each benefit, the respondents were asked to choose one of 4 possible answers -'Strongly agree', 'Agree', 'Disagree' or 'Strongly disagree'. The results have shown that the users' responses are very positive and consistent. 41 or 43 benefits received positive feedback with a mean score higher than the median value. Process supports, such as audit trail and communication records, received the highest percentage of positive replies. The answers to benefits related to cost saving and business improvement are more mixed.