Study of ICT adoption for building project management in the Indian construction industry

Automation in Construction 18 (2009) 415–423

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Automation in Construction j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s e v i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / a u t c o n

Study of ICT adoption for building project management in the Indian construction industry Vanita Ahuja a,⁎, Jay Yang b,1, Ravi Shankar c,2 a b c

Project Management Consultant, 204, Sector-A, Pocket-C, Vasant Kunj, New Delhi, 110070, India Associate Professor, Faculty of Built Env. and Eng., Queensland University of Technology, GPO Box 2434, Q4001, Brisbane, Australia Professor, Dept. of Mngmt. Studies, 205, Vishwakarma Building, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hauz Khas, New Delhi, 110016, India

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Accepted 27 October 2008 Keywords: ICT Building project management SMEs Indian construction industry

a b s t r a c t Building project management requires effective coordination and collaboration between multiple project members. It can be achieved through real time communication flow between all. In present scenario, it can be achieved through adoption of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Construction industry primarily comprises small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Also, ICT adoption has been slow in the industry. Research is required to assess the factors that affect ICT adoption at the three levels of industry, organization and people, with focus on SMEs. This paper discusses a component of the research undertaken to study these factors and issues in the context of Indian construction industry. A questionnaire survey was conducted and through quantitative data analysis the extent of adoption of formal Project Management processes, ICT adoption for these processes and factors including perception based factors affecting ICT adoption were studied. Results of data analysis includes identification of issues that require action at the three study levels. The results can be generalized for other countries with due considerations, specifically for countries where the construction industry is similar to Indian construction industry in terms of working methodologies or for large countries. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Successful building project management requires a combined effort of the project team. But, the most important person is the project manager, who has to plan, track and monitor the project and coordinate between the entire project team members for successful project delivery. This relates directly to the effective communication, which is widely believed to be crucial for further efficiency gain in construction [5]. Collection, analysis and real time communication of information is essential for the quick detection of time, cost, scope and quality deviations from planned performance and timely decision making for responding to problems, disputes and deviations detected from the planned performance. At present, the communication problems between the team members are often a cause for project delays, expensive reworking and building defects [5] and with traditional tools of communication, the project managers often lose the ability of timely change management. Use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) provides opportunities for real time access of

⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 9811472372. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (V. Ahuja), [email protected] (J. Yang), [email protected] (R. Shankar). 1 Tel.: +61 7 31381028. 2 Tel.: +91 9811033937. 0926-5805/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2008.10.009

information to all and improves coordination and collaboration between the project team members. Its benefits include an increase in the quality of documents and speed of work; better financial control and communications, and simpler and faster access to common data as well as a decrease in documentation errors [20] as use of incorrect data can compromise the scheduled completion of a project and lead to wastage of resources [14]. In the present scenario, organizations and project team structures in the construction industry are becoming increasingly complex. As a result, real time information flow is critical to an organizations' ability to be flexible, agile and competitive [11]. In relation to project management there is also a need for a system that provides shared project information, analysis tools to analyze the information, a collaborative infrastructure to handle the flow of information, a multidevice access to the pertaining information and a system that ensures the persistence of the underlying information among the participants [9]. ICT tools and technologies provide these facilities. But, construction industry has been slow in adopting ICT and often available and easily accessible technology is not being utilized to the full extent. This is reflected both in the literature and practice [3,23]. At all stages of a building project, information is generated, stored and communicated by all the supply chain members. So, to have effective communication, all the members should follow the accepted methods of communication or communication protocols. Also, at any time, each construction organization is involved in more than one

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project and is a part of more than one supply chain [1]. This unique nature of the construction industry necessitates that the communication protocols are adopted by the industry as a whole and do not remain project specific. Thus, in multiple enterprise scenario of the construction industry, ICT adoption for building project management would be effective if all the project team members uniformly adopt it and the methodologies or protocols are defined for its uniform uptake in the industry. People, who are a part of different project team organizations, manage projects and the project team organizations are a part of the construction industry (Fig. 1). So, the communication protocols have to address technical, managerial and people issues and are to be implemented at the levels of industry, organizations and projects or people. The protocols are required to be specifically aligned for requirements of SMEs as construction industry primarily comprises small and medium enterprises (SMEs). One of the most important issues that hinders the growth of SMEs in a globalized scenario is that of access to appropriate technology when technology upgradation is the key to face global competition [19]. It is easier for large firms to be involved in the development and adoption of the emerging technology [29], whereas SMEs have difficulty in dedicating resources to research, development and training [28]. In many SMEs, the use of IT will depend upon whether or not the firm has recruited a recent graduate with IT skills. The large companies on other hand, would invariably have staff with IT skills and would have invested in the necessary technology [14]. Consequently requirement is to study the factors that affect ICT adoption by SMEs for building project management. These issues can be addressed by global research, but also require clear understanding of the management and communication processes followed by SMEs of each distinct regional area or country. The research discussed in this paper studies these issues with respect to the Indian construction industry. 2. Literature review Construction is an information dependent industry. The amount of information generated and exchanged during a project lifetime is substantial. Thus, it is essential that the information exchange is managed as efficiently as possible [12]. Experts in academics and the industry have highlighted the benefits of adopting ICT for construction project management like: richer information to aid decision making, project information obtained quicker, improved communication, closer relationships, improved information flow, greater management control and getting geographically dispersed groups to work together [3,4,7,23]. However, much of the building information is still exchanged by conventional human communication and hard copy drawings and documents, leading to errors in drawings and documents, since such a communication is not real time communication. In a survey conducted in a leading construction organization, it was found that 30% of all the questions that came from the construction site managers to the designers were related to the inconsistencies in drawings from the architectural, structural, and mechanical designers [10]. A survey in the UK construction industry showed that most project information is currently stored using a mix of paper and electronic

Fig. 1. Relation between industry, organization and people.

media, with only one in six projects surveyed, using electronic systems as the primary medium for information storage. The survey also highlighted some variations in the level of IT awareness in different parts of the supply chains of the construction projects [14]. Factors affecting ICT adoption have been studied. In a survey conducted to assess the status of ICT adoption in the Australian construction industry, it was found that annual turnover of an organization has an effect on the uptake of ICT and training performance in ICT for an organization. Also, not having an ICT professional at site or within ready access was a strong influential barrier to the uptake of ICT on projects [27], since adequate support to construction site processes is important for collaborative use of ICT in the construction projects. Onsite work conditions may sometimes permit only the use of wireless or portable devices. However it must be recognized that portable and handheld devices simply cannot handle computationally heavy jobs due to their specific hardware configurations [9]. Internet helps in effective collaboration and coordination between project team organizations. Its use as a communication medium can help information-transfer occur faster and more effectively and can provide new opportunities for the development of distributed systems that can cross organizational boundaries and can offer a unique opportunity for teamwork and workflow automation [20]. E-mail services have been considered an important communication method. But, in a survey 65% respondents maintained that although e-mail does enable some degree of global teamworking, it can never replace interpersonal teamworking [2]. In a way that also explains why telephone calls sometimes follow the e-mails. Networks are important components for implementing integrated technology solutions. Internet or Intranet gains importance not only for organizing, storing, searching and retrieving information but also for sharing information in an organization in all the directions, i.e. upward, downward and laterally [31]. In this scenario, ‘Infrastructure surety' including safety, security, reliability, integrity, authentication, protection and operational assurance assumes significance [11]. Web based project management system combines the power of project management systems with the Web, making the details of the project available to anyone from anywhere and overcoming the problems of timely updates, multiple copies and real time project schedule updates [9]. Most of the organizations are adopting these services because their competitors are influencing them or they are being forced to adopt it by their clients [21]. Utilization of these technologies in the construction industry and primarily in the multi-enterprise scenario of project management requires readiness not only within one organization, but also within all the organizations involved in the construction processes [20]. Researchers have highlighted that effective utilization of these technologies requires equal consideration of people issues along with the technological issues [5,11,14,15,21]. It has also been found that 80% to 90% of IT projects in general do not meet their performance objectives, with the main reasons not related to technical issues [21]. Also, any ‘new’ connections and networks (social and technical) that develop as a result of the introduction of individual ICTs will be far more effective if they are somehow interconnected with existing, locally appropriate systems and structures [15]. Empirical research is required to holistically study the factors affecting ICT adoption in the multi-enterprise scenario of building project management. Pena-Mora and Tanaka [10] have identified Environmental Scan and Internal Scrutiny as the first two steps for such a study. ‘Environmental Scan’ would include understanding of the factors, issues and industry drivers for ICT adoption at the industry level and would provide the basis for strategic planning and implementation of ICT at the organization and industry levels. It would also identify the possible benchmark practices for organizations. ‘Internal Scrutiny’ is at the organization level. It involves analysis of organization structure, relevant project management processes and

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functions at inter and intra organization levels, and present ICT adoption for these processes and functions. The results of the Environmental Scan would help in establishing benchmark practices for continuous monitoring of ICT adoption within an organization and at the industry level. The construction industry predominantly comprises SMEs, which are typically defined by the number of people they employ [21,23]. SME sector is highly heterogeneous comprising tiny unorganized enterprises to modern and more organized enterprises. Globally there is no clear definition of SMEs. For the construction industry, Love et al. [23] have identified SMEs as employing less than 250 staff and Sturges and Bates [14] have identified SMEs as having staff up to 299. The definition adopted by the Indian government is based on the level of investment in plant, machinery or other fixed assets whether held on an ownership, lease or hire purchase basis. It seeks to keep in view the socio-economic environment in India, where the capital is scarce and the labour is abundant. “However, a definition exists only for small-scale industry and the medium enterprise definition is of more recent origin. A comprehensive legislation, which would enable the paradigm shift from small-scale industry to SMEs is under consideration in the parliament” [19]. The organizations which are neither small nor large are treated as medium enterprises. The construction organizations in India had their origins as start up ventures by entrepreneurial individuals and over a period of time, they grew in size [24]. Still, most of the organizations are SMEs and proprietary/individualistic in nature with 90% of the total construction work being executed by them [26]. Indian construction industry has many strengths including manpower with high level technical and management skills, and construction experience of every type of construction in all types of terrains and climates [13]. But, one of the identified weaknesses of the Indian construction industry is that it is not seen as an IT savvy sector [13,26]. It is felt that the information age has done little to transform the SMEs in the construction industry as IT benefits users in the automation of processes, systems, data collection — all of which are issues faced by the larger organizations. The requirement is that organizations should realize the true value of IT and of reengineering of traditional systems of working [18]. With respect to ICT, one of the major barriers is that formal reporting is not practised in these organizations [24]. The requirement is to have an industry level initiative for studying the factors affecting present ICT adoption in the industry, and building up the industry for future requirements. But, the literature review did not indicate any such industry-wide initiative in India. 3. Research methodology The research aim of the study reported in this paper was to develop protocols for effective adoption of ICT for Building Project Management by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the Indian construction industry. It required identification of the formal Project Management processes adopted and the extent of ICT adoption for these processes; study of factors including perception based factors affecting ICT adoption and study of causal relationships between these factors. The study is in relation to SMEs, since they constitute a critical and major role in the construction supply chains. Some of the factors could be measured quantitatively, but some factors like people level factors required qualitative assessment. Thus, the research methodology divided the research into quantitative and qualitative research and the research focused on collecting and analyzing both, quantitative and qualitative data in the study in a sequential manner (sequential mixed methods approach). Such a methodology helps in using different methods for different purposes in the study and enables triangulation to take place at the results formulation stage [17]. The purpose of this sequential mixed methods study was to start with pragmatic assumptions; obtain statistical, quantitative results from a broad sample of organizations to analyze or study research

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variables at industry and organization levels and then to follow up with selected organizations and projects to study the research variables at the levels of organization and people. This paper discusses a component of the quantitative analysis stage of research conducted to assess extent of ICT adoption in the Indian construction industry for administrative processes as well as Project Management processes. Data for quantitative analysis was collected through a questionnaire survey conducted in the Indian construction industry. Data analysis identified issues that require action at the three study levels of industry, organization and people and other issues that required qualitative study. 4. Questionnaire survey The unit of analysis for the survey was an organization managing building projects and the sample population was small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the Indian construction industry. Based on the literature review, for the research study, an SME was defined as an organization with staff up to 250. Survey was conducted across India to minimize the regional bias. Survey sample was selected from the Yellow Pages and the Notified lists of Professional bodies and falls under the group of Purposive Sampling. In order to generalise the results, it is necessary to select a sample that is a true representation of the population. Thus, those organizations were included in the sample, which were either managing building projects after being appointed as the Project Managers or had the authority to manage their projects if a Project Manager was not appointed formally. Therefore three groups of organizations were included in the sample: builders including contractors who construct and manage their own projects; project management consultancy organizations which are formally appointed as project managers on building projects, and architectural organizations which manage small to medium size building projects since on many such projects, project managers are not formally appointed. Targeted respondents were the senior level executives in the organizations. Questionnaire structure was as discussed below: Section I of the questionnaire contained questions that assessed: • the organization size in terms of turnover and staff strength, • organization's area of expertise and primary mode of project execution, • project team structures in terms of geographical separation of project team organizations, • ICT maturity of the staff and the organization, and • mode of communication adopted for general administration processes. Section II was a tool for mapping: • building project management (PM) processes adopted by the organizations, • assessment of IT tools and technologies adopted for these processes, and • extent of ICT adoption for each identified PM process. The PM processes were divided under four groups: Time Management, Cost Management, Project Administration and Resource Management, and Communication Management processes. Section III assessed the perception of project managers regarding following factors affecting ICT adoption for building project management: • • • •

benefits, barriers, enablers and industry drivers.

Qualitative perceptions analysis is converted into quantitative values with the help of a five point Likert scale.

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Fig. 2. Distribution of the respondent organizations with respect to the size of organizations.

Section IV provided the data regarding respondent's profile. Exhaustive options were given for each question, but to get the accurate data, for some questions, respondents were also given an option to provide answers different from the options given. Nominal, ordinal and interval scales were used in the representation of options for different questions. Some questions were represented through interval scale and for some questions yes/no option was given. In the subsequent sections along with each discussion component, data representation and measurement methodology is explained. Content validity of the questionnaire was supported by an extensive literature review, discussions with experts from the industry and academics and pre-test of the questionnaire through a pilot survey. 149 usable responses were received for a response rate of 40%. For postal surveys in the construction industry, 30%–40% response rate is considered satisfactory [22]. Out of 149 responses, 75 were from Builders, 49 from Project Management Consultancy Organizations (PMCOs) and 25 from Architectural organizations. Fig. 2 shows the distribution of the respondent organizations with respect to the size of organizations. 51 organizations (primarily builders) had staff up to 240 and rest of the respondent organizations had less number of staff. Thus, all the respondent organizations can be categorized as SMEs. The responses were received from the metropolitan cities across India like New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangaluru, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad and also from medium size towns/cities. Thus the regional bias within India was also minimized.

5. Analysis Responses of each group of data from the questionnaire were tested for reliability through Cronbach's alpha. The values were greater than 0.7, which is acceptable ([8] cited in [6]). Levin and Rubin [25] have indicated that there is no single standard or universal level of significance for testing the hypotheses [16]. Level of significance used for data analysis in this research is 0.05, which is the most common level used, or the confidence level is 95% i.e. p b 0.05. All the organizations perceived that ICT adoption for building project management leads to significant benefits. 31 perceived benefits were identified from the literature review and after discussions with the experts in the industry and academics. Perceived benefits were grouped under measures of project success, effective

team management, effective use of technology and increased efficiency of the organization. Perceived importance of the identified benefits was measured at a 5 point Likert scale, with 1 and 5 corresponding to ‘not important’ and ‘most important’ respectively, whereas 3 corresponded to ‘moderately important’. Scores for identified 31 benefits were aggregated and t-test was conducted. All the four groups of benefits were considered equally important.

5.1. Status of ICT adoption in the industry IT infrastructure at site has been perceived as an important enabler for effective ICT adoption for building project management. But, data analysis showed (Fig. 3) that even though in majority of the surveyed organizations, more than 80% of office staff had access to computers, in only about 20% organizations more than 80% site staff had access to computers. Study of the above data distribution led to the study of relation between ‘percentage of site staff with access to computers’ and ‘extent of use of ICT’. One-way ANOVA test was conducted to assess the significance of ‘Change in level of use of ICT’ with ‘Change in percentage of site staff with access to computers’. The results were found significant. This analysis further supports the perception that adequate IT infrastructure at sites is an important enabler for effective ICT adoption for project management. Rate of increase of ICT adoption in last 5 years has been found significant. But majority of the respondent organizations did not have a communication management strategy and data analysis summarized that SMEs use of ICT for building project management has not reached a high maturity level, since their use of ICT is primarily project specific and not organization specific. It was found that in 53% (79) of the surveyed organizations, extent of ICT adoption varied between different projects. Out of these 79 organizations, in 45 (30% of the total) organizations it was primarily due to the variable requirement of clients for use of ICT on projects, in 11 (8% of the total) organizations it was primarily due to the variable ICT capabilities of associating project team organizations and in 23 (15% of the total) organizations both the factors were equally dominant. Distribution of the organizations for variable use of ICT is shown in Fig. 4. This result was found significant through nonparametric Wilcoxon Signed ranks test. This analysis highlighted the

Fig. 3. Percentage of office and site staff with access to computers.

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Fig. 4. Distribution of organizations (in %) for variable use of ICT.

issue that the extent of ICT adoption on the building projects is primarily defined by the clients’ requirements and this factor was studied further. Effective adoption of ICT for Project Management requires collaborative use of ICT between different organizations. But, it was found that the collaborative use of ICT is less as compared to internal use of ICT within the organizations. Data was collected for communication methods utilized for each identified Project Management process. Communication methods were categorized as through hard copy, hard copy and e-mail and only e-mail with scores 1, 2 and 4 respectively. Communication was categorized into four groups: • • • •

within office between office and site between office and clients or consultants between office and contractors or material suppliers.

Further, to represent the usage of multiple communication methods for a process, respondents could identify different communication methods utilized for different percentage of projects, through a five-point interval scale. Use of ICT was found in decreasing order among the 4 categories of communication as listed above and the ranking was found significant through Non Parametric Freidman test. Further, results of the first two groups were summarized as ‘Internal use of ICT within organizations’ and the results of the last two groups were summarized as ‘External or collaborative use of ICT’. It was found that only in about 3% (4 no.) of the surveyed organizations, external or collaborative use of ICT was more than the internal use of ICT. But, in rest 97% (145 no.) of the organizations, internal use was significantly more. Through Wilcoxon signed ranks test, this analysis was found significant. Increase in use of ICT in the construction industry is driven by industry requirements. 9 perceived industry drivers were identified and the respondents were asked to rate the importance of each perceived industry driver on a five-point Likert scale as described earlier in the paper. Table 1 shows the mean score, standard deviation and ranking of the perceived drivers. All the identified industry drivers have mean score greater than 3 and have been considered important. The most important perceived drivers are ‘increased requirements of clients for more project information resulting in increased use of ICT’ and ‘increased requirements for adoption of ICT by larger organizations when SMEs execute projects as subcontracting agencies of larger organizations’. In the second case also ICT adoption is driven by clients’ requirements since in this situation larger organizations act as the clients for SMEs. This analysis validates the analysis discussed above that variable use of ICT in the projects is due to the ‘variable requirements of clients’. ‘Increased involvement of multiple agencies’ is also an important driver with the mean score of 4.01, but ‘increased geographical separation of these multiple agencies’ is perceived as a more

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important driver. The middle level ranked drivers; ‘increased construction activity in the country’, ‘education of upcoming construction students towards ICT’ and ‘widespread availability of IT tools and technologies in the country’, show that the industry is getting prepared for the increased use of ICT. ‘Dynamic changes in information requirement during project execution’ is also an important driver but is ranked low in comparison to the other drivers. Three drivers have std. deviation greater than 0.9. It shows that for some respondents ‘increased construction activity in the country’, ‘education of upcoming students for use of ICT’ and ‘dynamic changes in information requirement during project execution’ are not important drivers, but for some respondents these are highly important. After studying the responses it was found that the organizations having higher use of ICT have communication management strategies drafted for their organizations and do not consider these as important drivers, but these factors drive higher use of ICT in other organizations. ‘Increased competition with overseas construction organizations executing projects in the Indian construction industry’ is also ranked low and has least std. deviation, since primarily large size overseas organizations are entering the Indian construction industry and majority of the SMEs are not directly in competition with these organizations. The overall impact of the industry drivers has been perceived as significantly important. t-test was conducted to test the significance. For each organization, scores of all the 9 perceived industry drivers were aggregated (drivers) and significance of the variable ‘drivers’ was tested through one-sample t test. The results were found significant. 5.2. Status of use of ICT tools and technologies at the levels of organizations and people In 93% of the surveyed organizations, all the computers within office were connected through LAN. But, only 37% of the organizations had established Intranet facility for connecting all office and site staff and providing them access to centralized information and databases. Data analysis showed that personal or face-to-face meetings are still preferred over teleconferencing and video conferencing for project administration. Only 7% of the surveyed organizations had conducted meetings through videoconferencing. After discussion it was found that each of these organizations had conducted videoconferencing only for one or two projects and primarily for discussions with overseas material suppliers since material procurement from overseas has increased for the projects. Extent of personal meetings

Table 1 Mean and standard deviation of the perceived industry drivers. Rank Industry drivers

Mean Standard deviation

1

4.25

0.77

4.18

0.87

4.13

0.77

4.11 4.10 4.08

0.95 0.98 0.81

4.01

0.80

3.97

0.93

3.69

0.64

2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Increased requirement of clients for more project information resulting in increased use of ICT Increased requirement of adoption of ICT by larger organizations when SMEs execute projects as subcontracting agencies of larger organizations Increased involvement of geographically separated agencies and information centers in a Project Increased construction activity in the country Education of upcoming construction students towards ICT Widespread availability of IT tools and technologies in the country Increased involvement of multiple agencies in construction projects Dynamic changes in information requirement during project execution Increased competition with overseas construction organizations executing projects in the Indian construction industry

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and teleconferencing for each organization were compared and it was found that only in one organization extent of teleconferencing was more than the personal meetings. Through Wilcoxon signed ranked test, this analysis was found significant. Use of mobile phones is a norm for communication in the country and in the construction industry. But mobile internet had been used only by 15% of the surveyed organizations for project management. Radio frequency identification devices (RFIDs) and barcoding had not been used by any of the surveyed organizations for materials management. Also, no evidence of use of these technologies was found through Literature Review and through discussions with experts in the industry. Internet enabled communication technology is in use in the industry, but comprehensive web based project management solution had not been adopted by any of the respondent organizations. About 1% of the surveyed organizations had partially adopted web based project management for one or two projects. It was primarily due to the clients' requirements. The method of communicating electronic information was assessed. It was found that in 13% organizations, it was primarily through data storage media like floppies/CDs etc., in 46% it was primarily through e-mails and in 41% both the methods were used. But, for communicating electronic information between office and other project agencies, only 4% organizations primarily communicated through data storage media, 38% through internet/extranet and 58% utilized both the methods. Thus, it can be summarized that electronic information is communicated not only through Internet, but also through the data storage media. Primarily the international standard software are used in the industry for general administration and project management processes. Like MS Office for administrative functions, MS Excel, MS Project and Primavera Project Planner for time and cost scheduling processes. Only 19 surveyed organizations (about 13%) utilised customized software for ‘Bill of quantities preparation, Comparative analysis of bids received, Tender preparation and Contract management’. Questions were included in the questionnaire to assess the perceptions of respondents regarding importance of ‘availability of indigenously developed software incorporating the specific construction industry requirements of the country’ and ‘availability of multilingual software and web portals’ as enablers for the increased use of ICT for Project Management. Data analysis showed that respondents did not consider these as important enablers. Generalization of the above results for the entire industry indicates that there is standardization in use of software within industry and since primarily international software are used for the different processes, technically work interface with national and international organizations with respect to the use of software is not difficult. E-tendering is not a norm in the industry. Data for assessing this feature was collected through Section II of the questionnaire as ‘method of receiving bids’ and ‘method of conducting tender meetings and negotiations’. For each process, the respondents could give multiple responses in five categories as shown in Fig. 5. Data analysis showed that 49 (33%) organizations received bids only as hard copies (in 80%–100% projects), 12 (8%) as hard copies as well as e-mails and 4

Fig. 5. Distribution of organizations for the method of receiving bids.

(3%) only as e-mails. Multiple responses were received from the remaining 84 organizations, out of which, 41 (28%) organizations primarily (in 60%–80% projects) received bids as hard copies, 4 (3%) as hard copies and e-mails and 39 (26%) as e-mails. Thus it can be summarized that about 61% (33% + 28%) organizations are primarily receiving bids as hard copies only and only 29% (3% + 26%) organizations are primarily receiving bids as e-mails only. All the respondent organizations conduct tender meetings and negotiations only through personal meetings. ‘Non-dependability of IT infrastructure’ is not considered as an important barrier for effective adoption of ICT. But, • The communication in which e-mail is followed by phone calls is significant. • Hard copy storage of data and documents is substantial even if electronic copies are also kept as a backup. Data analysis showed that all the documents and schedules are primarily saved as hard copies as well as electronic copies at head offices. But, there are some organizations, which keep only hard copy backups. At site offices, more organizations keep only hard copy backups. Also, • Most of the e-mails are followed by hard copies, and • Personal meetings are still proffered over teleconferences and other e-meeting solutions for managing building construction projects. This is a people level issue and a reflection of the Indian society. Gudykunst [30] suggests that members of low-context and individualistic cultures tend to communicate in a direct fashion while members of the high-context collectivistic cultures tend to communicate in an indirect fashion [16]. Indian society falls in the second category and indirect communication could be understood as communication substantially transmitting tacit information and achieved through personal meetings. Thus, in the present scenario, with dependable IT infrastructure available, substantial paper information is communicated through e-mail, but personal meetings are still preferred over teleconferences and other e-meeting solutions for managing building construction projects. 5.3. Factors affecting ICT adoption As discussed in the earlier sections of this paper, IT infrastructure at sites was analyzed as an important enabler for effective ICT adoption for project management. Data analysis showed that SMEs with higher turnover have higher adoption of ICT. Also, data analysis showed that these organizations do not perceive ‘initial cost and cost of updating IT infrastructure’ as high ranked barriers for effective adoption of ICT for building project management. Though, these are perceived as high ranked barriers by other SMEs. Data analysis also showed that extent of ICT adoption for building project management differs for three groups of sample organizations i.e. PMCOs, Builders and Architectural organizations and decreases in this order. One of the reasons for this, identified after data analysis is the difference in the extent of formal project management processes adopted by these groups of organizations. Fig. 6 shows the percentage of three groups of respondent organizations executing identified time and cost management processes and Fig. 7 shows that there is more variability among builders for adoption of formal project management processes as standard deviation of aggregate values for all time and cost management processes is maximum for the Builders. More factors affecting use of ICT have been identified and categorized as factors affecting at Industry level, Organization level and at the level of people managing the projects. These factors and their relation have been studied separately with the help of other relevant data analysis techniques.

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Fig. 6. Distribution of organizations for formal time and cost management processes adoption.

5.4. Issues to be addressed Respondents were asked to list any capacity, functionality or performance issues, which need to be addressed for head office and site office IT systems. It was an open-ended question included in the questionnaire to identify issues other than those addressed in the questionnaire, but required to be addressed regarding use of ICT tools and technologies. 30% organizations identified issues for head offices and 30% for site offices. Table 2 shows the identified issues. Study of the identified issues indicates that managerial or strategic planning issues as well as technical issues require attention at the organization level, for effective use of ICT infrastructure. 6. Discussion Questionnaire survey was conducted at the organization level. But the survey was conducted across India. Thus, the results can be generalized at the industry level. Above discussed analysis led to the identification of issues that require action at the levels of industry, organization and people (Fig. 8). Study indicates that even though within SMEs, organizations with higher turnover have higher adoption of ICT, still extent of use of ICT is primarily defined by the clients’ requirements, which could be the project clients or the large organizations sub contracting SMEs. Large organizations and professional bodies need to take a pro-active approach, to establish methods for adoption of higher ICT technology and to establish benchmark practices for use of ICT for building project management, so that extent of ICT adoption by SMEs becomes organization specific and does not remain project or client specific. As the study of Industry drivers shows that at present there is increased construction activity in the country driving high use of ICT

Fig. 7. Mean and standard deviation values of respondent organizations for scores for formal time and cost management processes adoption.

and there is also increased involvement of geographically separated agencies, this is the scenario in which benchmark practices for use of ICT should be established. Also, National level bodies should set up forums for providing consultancy to SMEs for adopting appropriate technological solutions for the remote project sites. Building project management requires collaborative working and collaborative use of ICT. But, data analysis shows that the collaborative use of ICT is significantly less as compared to the internal use of ICT in the Indian construction industry. ICT adoption for building project management differs for three groups of respondent organizations; and majority of the SMEs perceive ‘initial cost and cost of updating IT infrastructure’ as a high ranked barrier affecting ICT adoption for building project management. These issues require action at the Industry level as the supply chain issues for collaborative working are required to be addressed at the national level. Through education programs and training facilities, ICT capabilities of SMEs need to be improved; SMEs need to be trained in formal project management processes; and cost of IT infrastructure should be made affordable for SMEs through incentives. But, some of these issues also require strategic initiatives from the senior management of the SMEs. SMEs should strategically plan for the future use of ICT by their organizations. The plans should be aligned with their business plans. Methodologies should be developed for quantifying benefits of ICT

Table 2 Identified issues that need to be addressed. At head office Managerial issues Systems should be periodically upgraded Software should be periodically upgraded

At site offices Systems should be periodically upgraded Software should be periodically upgraded Key site staff should be more IT aware and proficient

Technical issues Faulty telephone connection in far-off Latest virus scans required to counter the problem of viruses getting in the systems project sites through Internet Data security system should be adequate Connectivity through Internet is poor in remote project sites and downtimes are very high Online access of large drawings requires Data security issues need to be addressed attention Frequent slowdown of server needs to be addressed

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Fig. 8. Identified issues with respect to ICT adoption by SMEs for building project management and required action levels.

adoption as data analysis shows that organizations perceive that ICT adoption for building project management leads to significant benefits. Also, senior management should champion the cause of ICT adoption in their organizations. For each building project, communication management plans should be developed, defining formats and periodicity of the reports, meeting schedules and communication methods to be used for each process. Some respondents have identified managerial or strategic planning issues as well as technical issues, which require attention at the organization level. IT infrastructure at project sites should be improved and E-tendering should be adopted strategically by the SMEs. Strategic initiatives are required at the industry level to minimize the effect of people level issues by educating and training people. It would help in modifying work processes and increasing inter-sectoral interaction of professionals with other sectors or industries having similar work practices. The results of the component of the research study discussed in this paper or the issues that require action at the levels of industry, organization and people were identified for the Indian construction industry but can be generalized for other countries with due considerations, specifically for countries where the construction industry is similar to Indian construction industry in terms of working methodologies or for large countries. Data analysis also included study of perception based data as well as study of causal relationships between quantifiable factors. Qualitative stage of research included case study analysis and studied identified issues in depth. Triangulation of the results of all the research components led to the development of a benchmarking framework for measuring ICT adoption for building project management and protocols for enhancing effective adoption of ICT for Building Project Management by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the Indian construction industry. Further research compo-

nents and results are discussed by the authors in other supporting papers. As discussed earlier in the paper, literature review did not indicate any industry wide initiative in India to study ICT adoption by the construction industry. Thus, these results provide a guideline at the national level.

7. Conclusions Building project management requires effective communication management between all the project team members leading to required coordination and collaboration. In the present scenario when organizations and project team structures are becoming complex and project team members are geographically separated, use of ICT provides the ability to achieve effective communication. But, effective utilization of these technologies requires its adoption at the industry level. Majority of the organizations in the construction industry are SMEs and research is required to study the factors affecting ICT adoption by SMEs. Above study utilizes ‘environmental scan’ at the industry level and ‘internal scrutiny’ at the organization level to study these factors with respect to Indian construction industry. Data collection has been done through a questionnaire survey conducted in the industry and data analysis has been done through parametric and non-parametric statistical analysis. Results identify and categorize issues that require actions at the three study levels of industry, organizations and people and also suggest actions to be taken at the levels of industry and organizations. The issues identified after discussed quantitative analysis are technical, managerial and people issues and have been further studied by the authors in depth through qualitative analysis conducted through case study analysis. The results are applicable for Indian construction industry, but can be generalized for other countries after due considerations.

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