ICT in the Australian Construction Industry: Status, Training and Perspectives

This paper outlines the results of a survey conducted as a part of the CRC Construction Innovation research project ‘2001-008-C Project Team Integration: Communication, Coordination and Decision Support’. The survey conducted through this research aimed at investigating the Australian construction industry’s current performance in ICT related issues including the current status of ICT, training trends associated with ICT and the perceptions surrounding enablers/drivers and barriers/limitations to the introduction and use of ICT. The survey was implemented on a national (Australia) basis within the construction industry and targeted the non-building, building (commercial/industrial), and residential sub-sectors. The most significant observations from the survey results were: • ‘Annual turnover’ has an effect on the uptake of ICT and training performance in ICT for an organisation. • Interoperability issues (incompatibility of ICT systems) and not having an ICT professional on site (or within ready access) were found to be strong influential barriers to the uptake of ICT on projects. • The overriding driver for ICT uptake for respondents was to improve operational performance through improved productivity - at both personal and organisational / team levels.