EFFECTIVE APPLICATIONS OF E-COMMERCE TECHNOLOGIES IN CONSTRUCTION SUPPLY CHAIN: CURRENT PRACTICE AND FUTURE IMPROVEMENT

摘要

The development of e-commerce technologies in relation to construction management have been improved significantly in the recent years and are perceived as a mainstream to improve productivity and information flow as well as communications. However, until now, not much evident research has been conducted to pursue successful applications of e-commerce technologies to the construction supply chain. This research aims to understand the current state of e-commerce technologies applications in the construction supply chain and provide recommendations for future improvement. Both survey and semi-structured interviews were conducted with the construction supply chain members to obtain sufficient and useful research data. The results showed that while everyone agrees on the importance of implementing e-commerce technologies in the construction supply chain, the major barriers lies with the reluctance or inability of the subcontractors/suppliers to adopt the technologies and lack of in-house technical expertise as well as lack of integrated information management systems. The results also showed that increased awareness of company's objectives and more user-friendly, cost-reduced, standardised and integrated e-commerce systems, together with a positive organisational culture on top management supporting continuous IT training and learning and knowledge-sharing are needed in order to promote better use of e-commerce technologies.