Construction Innovation 2005; 5: 71–82

Managing information flow in construction supply chains

Silas Titus Yoel Systems Inc., Staten Island, New York, USA and Jan Bröchner Department of Service
Management, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden

Submitted 29 June 2004; accepted 9 November 2004

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of construction

procurement within the supply chain management framework and develop a model for
information flow. This paper adheres to the supply chain perspective and integration as
theoretical point of departure, typically the role that information plays in a complex network
such as construction procurement. The co-ordination within partners and the integration
across partners are critical in effective project management. Sharing information is a key
component for tight integration to optimize the chain-wide performance. It helps produce
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highest quality, low cost and minimum time to service. The tender offer from the procurer or
invitation from a supplier triggers the requirement process. In response to the requirements
there has to be an opposite flow of information, termed the fulfilment flow in the model
described. The requirement information from a procurer is broken down to the project
requirements for various partners in the project. Once the supply chain is identified in the
postcontracting phase, information regarding specific tasks, materials, and so on, are
communicated to the project partners. Information must be managed to bring in value.
The quality of information received, the timeliness of the manner it is received and the cost-
effectiveness in obtaining the information determine the efficiency of a project partner.
Another classification considered is that of the changing role of the partner with regard
to information handling, i.e., the project partner as a recipient, decision-maker and
communicator of information. All these factors jointly contribute to increasing efficiency in
construction procurement. This framework needs to be explored in future research to define
subsequent steps in construction supply chain management, as the challenge is to adapt a
totally integrated supply chain.

Key words: construction; information flow; information management; procurement

process; project management; supply chain management

Introduction

Information plays a profound role in a construction environment whether it is during the

preconstruction period or during the project implementation. Such information is vital not just
to the procurer but to all the suppliers and parties involved in the project. Procurement within
the construction context applies to a combination of goods and services defined to meet
specific requirements. The basis of procurement depends on the specific needs and objectives
of the project. In a procurement project the parties involved have decisive roles based on the
information available or communicated to them. Therefore, information needs to be captured
and communicated efficiently between relevant parties during a construction project. Better
means of managing the information flow results in enhanced productivity of projects.

Address for correspondence: Silas Titus, Executive Associate, Yoel Systems Inc., 195 Llewellyn Place, Staten
Island, New York 10310, USA. E-mail: stitus@yoelsystems.com

# 2005 Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd 10.1191=1471417505ci089oa

 72 S. Titus and J. Bröchner

However, inefficiency in handling information does not depend solely on the industry process
or the technologies adopted. Several other factors are identified within the framework of this
paper.

Background

The economic value of a construction project depends on its size, the number of entities
involved and distances. A typical construction project could engage dozens of distinct com-
panies, including architecture firms and construction companies, working closely together in
an intense environment over a period of months or even years. Enormous numbers of
documents come into play, from technical drawings and legal contracts to purchase orders,
permits, requests for quotes (RFQs) and schedules. The building industry has traditionally
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been process-bound and paper-intensive. The projects are often slowed by workflow issues
that are unusual or not found in other industries, for instance, building code compliance,
union and prevailing wage concerns and bad weather. Many times subcontractors for large
construction projects will bid based upon insufficient information due to inefficient commu-
nication channels. If a discrepancy is not resolved at the bidding time, then it might later cost
the owner greatly in terms of changes and extras, which are usually priced at a much higher
level.
The benefits of Internet technologies targeting construction project management focus on
providing value to the clients in different ways: deploying collaboration and document
management that enables sharing of work between architectural firms, engineers, owners and
other contractors, helping to enhance bidding and contracting. Timely sharing of information,
reduction in errors and waste, facilitated better reuse of information, reduction of life-cycle
costs and improved capturing of knowledge have all been facilitated by information
technologies in construction procurement and project management.

Theoretical considerations

Compared to other industries, the construction industry has been viewed as a ‘slow-learning’
industry. Kumaraswamy and Dulaimi (2001) point out that innovations are an inevitable
response to the realities of modern construction procurement. The procurement methods
in the construction industry have not been sufficiently deployed to raise the capacity of
handling project participants that come from multiple disciplines. Supply chain integration
(Palaneeswaran et al., 2000) is identified as a key issue to be considered in re-engineering
construction procurement. Clients are the most significant factor for achieving integration in
the supply chain (Briscoe et al., 2004). Construction procurement is highly transaction
oriented but at the same time it needs to be managed within its supply chains. This paper shall
adhere to the supply chain perspective and integration as the theoretical point of departure,
emphasizing the role that information plays in complex network such as construction
procurement.
Literature review, semi-structured interviews and observations are the qualitative methods
used here for empirical information. Findings from studies of similar supply chains in other
industries as compared to the construction environment provide insights to the model
 Managing information flow in construction supply chains 73

described. The theoretical framework provides the basis for interpretation and focus during
observations. The data collected include the context of the construction industry and project
management in order to address the issues particular to this industry. The model is further
developed in the light of the functionalities of information systems deployed in the
construction procurement industry, seen in a case study setting.

Construction supply chain

The parochial view of construction, where the industry is considered as a separate entity
operating by its own rules, has largely disappeared today. Most of the construction
efficiency issues that are currently addressed, such as innovation and sustainability, point
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to supply chains and not just the individual firms. In fact, the construction industry is
characterized by more highly integrated supply chains than the manufacturing and process
industry. There could also be found resemblances in the process and products of these
different industry supply chains. As a consequence, Tookey et al. (2001) suggest that
construction could learn and implement ideas from outside industries, especially from
manufacturing.

Supply chain management

The definition of supply chain used in this context is as laid out by Peter Drucker in
Management’s New Paradigms (1998): ‘Supply Chain Management is the integration of key
business processes from the end user through original suppliers that provides products,
services, and information that add value for customers and other stakeholders.’ From this
perspective, it is not one firm but a network of different firms that enables the raw materials to
be transformed from the point of origin to the finished product to the ultimate consumer
(Titus, 2001). Each industry has its own product characteristics and builds networks on its
own standards. The sophistication of the supply chain that needs to be managed depends on
several factors such as complexity of the product, availability of raw material and suppliers
(Lambert and Cooper, 2000). Apart from the primary members in a supply chain there are
supporting companies that simply provide resources, knowledge, utilities, or other assets for
the primary members of the supply chain (Ibid.).

Construction process. By working as directed by the vision of supply chain management,

the direction of the development for individuals as well as companies can be changed. A
process is defined as ‘a repetitively used network of orderly linked activities using
information and resources for transforming inputs to outputs, extending from the point of
identification to that of the satisfaction of the customer’s needs’ (Ljungberg, 1998). A specific
type of process is what is termed the ‘construction process’. In this paper the term refers to the
processes that are associated with construction projects. It is typical for a construction
company to carry out production in projects. For almost every new project a new organization
is set up that can be understood as a one-of-a-kind product (Turner and Muller, 2003). Client
needs in construction projects are unique and consequently each project that meets those
needs has unique characteristics. Construction activities are not ongoing beyond the terms of
the project, and the team assembled for a project usually disbands upon completion.
 74 S. Titus and J. Bröchner

Construction procurement. The term ‘Construction Procurement’ or ‘Procurement Process’

is used in this paper to describe the process required to supply equipment, materials and other
resources required to carry out a construction project. Unlike most forms of procurement,
construction procurement generally involves a lengthy process from conception to final
delivery of the project. This process usually involves subprocesses such as acquisition,
purchasing, logistics, monitoring, quality assurance and contract administration (Stukhart,
1995). Construction procurement is a key activity within the supply chain associated with the
provision of construction works and forms an integral part of supply chain management
functions. Procurement as such is an integral part of construction projects and occurs at any
point in a project cycle where external resources are required to provide supplies and services
in any combination. The primary consideration for all procurement strategy is usually
understood as the need to obtain overall value for money and resources during the whole
life of the facility. Value should be judged against all the specified outcomes, some of them
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more quantifiable than others.

The Construction Industry Development Board of South Africa1 broadly regards procure-
ment as being the sequence of activities that creates, manages and fulfils contracts, the
principal activities being:
1) Establish what is to be procured.
2) Decide on procurement strategies.
3) Solicit tender offers.
4) Evaluate tender offers.
5) Award contract.
6) Administer contracts and confirm compliance with requirements.
The construction industry has developed many different contractual arrangements and
procurement routes for carrying out construction works. They include both traditional
practices and new initiatives. Single stage tender, multistage tender, negotiation with prefer-
red parties, management contracting, Design and build, Construction management, Design,
Construct and maintain=Maintain and operate, Design-build-finance and operate, Prime
contracting and Project team partnering are examples of procurement routes. Following
the choice of procurement route an appropriate form of contract should be selected for each
project being undertaken with regard to its size, complexity, the nature of the team and the
outcomes required. Examining each of these procurement routes is beyond the scope of this
paper, since we concentrate on the supply chain issues.

Role of information in the supply chain

Supply chain management in construction deals with the management of materials, informa-
tion, and financial flows in a network consisting of general contractors, subcontractors,
suppliers, and distributors. The co-ordination and integration of these flows within and across
companies are critical in effective supply chain management. Sharing information is a key

1
Construction Industry Development Board of South Africa is a government led initiative to roll out best practice
procurement and contract procedures within the public sector (www.cidb.org.za).
 Managing information flow in construction supply chains 75

component for tight integration to optimize the chain-wide performance and sharing has been
facilitated due to the recent advances in information technology (Sandelands, 1994; Lee and
Whang, 2000). The total amount of information to handle is considerable during a
procurement process, often being buried under a mountain composed of sedimentary layers
of bureaucracy. The traditional approach to project management in construction has been
based on activities to monitor each subcontractor’s activities against the schedule (Howell,
1999). When learning from the manufacturing industry, the strategies and techniques
introduced in the construction industry should be accepted with appropriate modification
(Ballard and Howell, 1998). Furthermore, the large number of participants in a construction
supply chain and its complexity make it difficult to facilitate information sharing. The
difficulties in information sharing can be derived from the nature of construction, where each
project is one-of-a-kind, temporary and behaves as a multiorganization (Turner and Muller,
2003). Thus, the organization of a construction project usually consists of temporarily
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designed teams from different companies to produce a unique product. Since each of the
team members has not necessarily worked together before, it is difficult although necessary to
set up information channels to exchange data and knowledge. In addition, divergent goals and
objectives of project participants deter from information sharing. In terms of process patterns,
the flow of material and information in construction is entangled across a supply chain and
each of the process segments is not tightly coupled (Schmenner, 1993). These phenomena
increase information lead-time by making the flow of information stagnate in some points of
the supply chain. As the structure of the supply chain becomes intricate, it is also unlikely that
a single person would be able to deal with the entire information and material flow.
In the literature, several techniques are proposed for implementing supply chain manage-
ment. They include maintaining long-term relationships with supply chain members (Buzell
and Ortmeyer, 1995), working cooperatively with fewer suppliers to reduce chain-wide
inventory levels and cycle times (Davis, 1994), information sharing with supply chain
members (Lee and Whang, 2000), and strong commitment at all levels of the organization.
Although these approaches seem to reflect different strategies, they emphasize a basic
common principle: the importance of communication and collaboration. In this context,
information sharing is a fundamental approach that underlies both communication and
collaboration. Existing tools in the manufacturing industry are often intended to provide
information sharing to help supply chain managers. Such tools are targeted for large
manufacturers and retailers which have relatively stable supply chains. Further, their
implementation and configuration is complex and take much time. From the construction
point of view, however, it is not obvious whether these applications are suitable outside the
manufacturing industry. The construction industry has project based temporary supply chains:
that is, its supply chains keep changing from project to project in most cases and participants
can not afford to spend much time in configuring a system. Therefore, an application for this
industry has to be flexible enough to accommodate project based supply chains efficiently.
Although many engineers, construction managers and contractors do not consciously
recognize a supply chain, they all interact with it and make supply chain management
decisions on a daily basis. As the current practice across industries indicates, having real-time
information available at any time can reduce lead-time as well as increase accountability for
tracking purposes. However, real-time availability is not an easy task: information is not
easily accessible; it takes too long to have; and no single person can handle all the information
in a supply chain because one has to deal with thousands of products, numerous requirements
 76 S. Titus and J. Bröchner

on production, and many types of interactions. Myopic control of supply chains combined
with traditional trading and noncooperative relationships reinforces the problems and
complicates their resolution (Vrijhoef and Koskela, 1999).

Contracting phases

Construction procurement is divided into two phases within a project environment: the
precontracting and postcontracting phase. The precontracting phase is the early development
of a project where negotiations and one or more bidding processes take place. It is also the
phase when the supply chain is identified between the procurer and the supplier (bidder) for
whatever is required. Depending on the procurement route and contractual arrangements
adopted, the duration of the precontracting phase varies. Since each construction project has
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unique requirements, the supply chain identified or selected tends to vary from project to
project.
The postcontracting phase includes the activities and flows in the supply chain that take
place based on the contractual agreements between the procurer and the supplying partners.
During the precontracting phase, sharing of information is the main activity that takes place
while negotiating for a contract and identifying requirements. In the postcontracting phase,
the flow of materials and services is added along with the managing information among
supply chain partners. Information related to material supply, financial information, schedul-
ing of tasks for timely delivery all need to be managed for the proper completion of the
project. Supply chain integration, which depends on the easy flow of project information with
the partner suppliers, is obviously significant during the postcontracting phase. Again, the
complexity of construction procurement lies in the temporal supply chains formed for each
specific project requirement compared to the supply chains in other industries where products
are more or less standardized.

The information flow model

The purpose of the model is to understand the information flow that takes place
throughout the construction procurement supply chain both during the precontracting and
postcontracting phases. An abstract view of information flow was earlier analyzed in the
manufacturing and process industry (Titus, 2001). This model is developed here to
accommodate the project-based approach of the construction environment and further explain
the flow of information among supply chain partners.
The procurer identifies different actors that form the supply chain: the architecture firms,
main contractors, specialized subcontractors, and engineering firms. The construction supply
chain with its multitier customer and suppliers has less of a linear pattern compared to what is
known from other industries. The production methodology adopted in a manufacturing setting
cannot be immediately transferred to a construction project. Firms that participate in a given
construction project are segregated due to the project nature in itself. Initiatives such as
Design Build are intended to reintegrate segregated construction partners to enable more
efficient use of resources and more timely completion of projects. Such initiatives bring the
several firms in a project to work closely and early during the project. This project-centred
 Managing information flow in construction supply chains 77
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Figure 1 Project model depicting information flow in construction supply chain

approach enables increasing collaboration and communication as seen in the model

(Figure 1). The two arrows represent the bidirectional information flow: the requirement
information that a partner receives, and information that the partner releases.
The requirement from the procurer initiates the procurement. This mostly takes place with
the tender request from the procurer or could even be in response to a spontaneous offer from
a supplier. The requirement is then communicated upstream (Ngowi, 1998). Unidirectional
communications from downstream (customer side) to upstream (supplier side) are dominant
to control and monitor the activities (Christopher and Towill, 2000). The information flow is
considered bidirectional at the level of each partner firm though it needs to communicate
further upstream to suppliers in order to cause the fulfilment flow. The procurement
requirement is the intended purpose of the procurer that needs to be converted to information
and communicated. This information is broken down to the project requirements for
various partners in the project model. Once the supply chain is identified as in the post-
contracting phase, information regarding specific tasks, materials and other resources are
communicated to the project partners. Based on the requirement flow at each partner,
a fulfilment flow is initiated that also needs to be timely communicated in the reverse
order. A fulfilment flow is nothing but a response to each instance of the requirement flow
initiated by the partners at various phases of a project. The fulfilment flow of information
downstream to the procurer is the net effect of the fulfilment flow between the project
partners. This generic information model presented in Figure 1 shows how information will
flow between the requirement and fulfilment. Both flows jointly constitute the supply chain
integration.
In the customer-oriented approach the purpose of information flow is initiated from the
customer and is directed towards the fulfilment of needs of the customer (Titus, 2002).
The requirement information is complemented with the responses to the requirement in the
opposite direction. The material, labor and financial flow in the supply chain is dependent on
the efficient strategies adopted for the information flow.
 78 S. Titus and J. Bröchner

Time, cost and quality

Various authors have identified several objectives that clients wish to achieve during a
procurement process. Masterman (1994) identifies and develops five significant customer
‘wants’ including active involvement throughout construction: final cost certainty, completion
date certainty, value for money, and finally, having the lowest possible tender for work. Some
of these themes and ideas tend to repeat each other. Some authors focus on limited
scope objectives, such as designing in quality assurance and TQM2 (Lam et al., 1997).
The procurer objectives focus on three fundamental factors critical to construction project
which are outlaid as quality, cost and time (Walker, 1996). All possible ‘wants’ of a procurer
in a project normally come under these three headings. Another identification of what clients
wish to be fulfilled by construction includes more than 36 objectives (Kumaraswamy and
Dissanayaka, 1998). Simplifying, the literature indicates that client core objectives can be
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summarized as: highest realistic quality, lowest realistic cost, minimum realistic time into
service, high prestige for the building (within what is affordable) and minimum conflict
during the process. However, aside from ‘core wants’, there is a huge variety of ‘noncore’
client requirements that a construction project has to assimilate.
Based on the fundamental factors of time, quality and cost a number of initiatives and
strategies have been proposed and that are at least marginally important in the supply chain
perspective. Supply chain management together with principles such as lean production and
lean enterprise derive from the material supply approach pioneered by Toyota (Womack and
Jones, 1994). The factors of improvement are basically the same in supply chain management
but the strategies applied should be expected to vary depending on the industry. There have
been studies carried out that analyze the Procurement Process from a Lean Construction
perspective (Alarcón, 1997), by generating strategies to improve the procurement process in
projects. In a project environment the industry goal for procurement is claimed to be to
deliver satisfaction to the procurer while making a profit for the suppliers in a project (Tookey
et al., 2001). In accordance with what we have already found, the efficient information flow
between partners is identified as the key to improving the time, quality and cost factors.
Meeting the customer objectives satisfactorily depends on co-ordination of information that
helps produce highest quality, low cost and minimum time to service.

Managing information

Nobody would deny that proper management of information brings in value. The value is
obtained when information enables people and systems to efficiently perform actions and
make decisions. Thus, the purpose of managing information is to provide and optimize the
application of services needed across supply chains. Managing information is particularly
valuable in the procurement projects in that it provides timely information in decision making
among the member firms within the supply chain. Those decisions may be good or bad,
brilliant or inept, but the decisions are largely driven by the information as presented.

2
TQM (Total Quality Management): a philosophy of total organizational involvement in improving all aspects of
the quality of product of service provided by the organization.
 Managing information flow in construction supply chains 79

Figure 2 Three types of interaction

Managing information is not just information processing in pure system terms but also
includes decision making by various actors involved in enhancing the information flow. Such
decision makers can either be systems or people, based on the type of information and type of
decision. For example, a firm that has an online order entry system can directly receive and
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process or make decisions without direct human interaction, only following the set of
instructions fed to the system. Here the order taking system might be considered the decider.
Most of the critical decisions are taken by human deciders in the firm, based on the related
information with the help of other partners and systems. Hence, for managing information
flow among partners in supply chain there needs to be interaction between various deciders.
Three types of such interactions between deciders are identified: Human to Human, System to
System, Human to System, and vice versa (see Figure 2).
According to the project model described above, the requirement and fulfilment flow is
based on the decision making efficiency associated with each individual partner or firm. Thus
a request for material with specific project requirements when sent to a subcontractor triggers
a decision making environment in the subcontractor organization. Based on the decision
made, the subcontractor causes the fulfilment flow as information is sent to the required
parties. The requirement flow generates a request at a partner which triggers a decision
making environment and eventually a response generates a fulfilment flow.
Each participating firm in the project supply chain has a decision making role in managing
the information flow within the network of the construction project. The deciders in the
decision making process sense the environment they are in (here environment is the instance
when a partner firm needs to make decision based on the information received or possessed).
The decision making process generally is modeled or understood as a feedback loop. The
resulting information is combined with the decider’s motivations, goals, experience, and
understanding of the problem. Thus, reacting to the perceived environmental state, decisions
are made and actions are taken to effectively change the environment. The process then repeats.
Several models have been proposed for describing the decision making process. Boyd’s
(1996) Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA) loop for managing information extends the
Stimulus-Response paradigm of classical behaviorist psychology to explicitly deal with
uncertainty. We may understand managing the information environment as support for the
following activities: 1) Observe: collecting facts about the world, 2) Orientate: recognizing
and defining the problem to be solved, and 3) Act: affecting the plan, either directly or
indirectly (through other deciders). Based on this model it is understood that proper
information flow involves both sharing of information between partner firms and mana-
ging information by proper decision making within each partner firm in the supply chain.
Obviously, communicating relevant information between partner-firms is not purely
based on communicative means or processing capabilities such as through information
 80 S. Titus and J. Bröchner

technologies. The opportunistic use of information by each partner clearly affects decision
making. The flow of information in supply chain management depends on the tradeoffs each
partner firm is willing to make in terms of information sharing with the other partner firms in
the project. A partner can exercise control over both the information received from other
partners and the information that it possesses within the firm. One of the most difficult tasks
within projects in the decentralized construction industry is obtaining information from the
firms that has the potential to provide useful results (Brien and Hammer, 2001).
In the information flow between partners, effectiveness depends on the required processing
and decision made within each partner firm related to requirements or fulfilment. Efficiency, on
the other hand, depends on a partner’s ability as a recipient, decider and communicator of
information. The nature of information received, the decision made and the information
communicated are inter-related within the context of each partner firm. The value of
information can be analyzed according to the three underlying factors that cover the objectives
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of the procurer: quality, time and cost. The quality of information received, the timely manner it
is received and the cost-effectiveness in obtaining the information determine the efficiency of
the partner as a recipient of requirement flow. Ambiguity of requirement information degrades
the quality and thus the value of information received. When firms optimize the factors of
quality, time and cost-effectiveness in obtaining such information, an efficient decision making
is achieved within the project partner. Organizations deal with minimizing costs of processing
and communicating information (Gann, 2000). Vice versa, the cost-effective communication of
high quality and timely information increases the value of project partner as a communicator of
information within the project. Receiving, decision making, and communicating execute the
loop enabling the fulfilment flow in the project model. The inter-relatedness of the value of
information to efficiency in information flow is presented in Figure 3.
What has been said about the information flow model has been restricted to a single project
considered as a supply chain and interaction between its partners. The managing of
information and the overall efficiency is a result of information handling capabilities
within each project partner as illustrated in Figure 3. It is also a fundamental fact that each
partner within a single project can be part of several other projects and supply chains. The
industrial network approach studies such networks and relationships between firms (Gadde
and Håkansson, 1993). Any subcontractor or architect, to take two examples, may be part of
different supply chains and projects at the same time. The environment of supply chains also
depends on the nature of the project and the firm.

Figure 3 Efficiency in information flow from a project partner’s perspective

 Managing information flow in construction supply chains 81

Constraints

Functional fragmentation, self-protective pressures and adversarial attitudes have worked

against the multidisciplinary teamwork needed to generate synergistically creative solutions to
client needs (Kumaraswamy and Dulaimi, 2001). The barriers are generally associated with
the way in which building projects are organized and the poor scope for learning from project
to project (Johnson and Clayton, 1998). Employees’ background, competences and attitude to
using enhanced technologies are also a barrier (Love and Irani, 2001). One of the significant
constraints in this area is the adversarial culture of the construction industry (Anumba et al.,
1995). The adversarial culture impedes innovation, increases complexity and emphasizes the
unique characteristics of each project, altogether making the construction industry a slow
adopter of supply chain information strategies from the manufacturing sector.
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Conclusion and remarks

This paper presents a model for better understanding the information flow in complex
construction projects. Though the construction process in many ways is dissimilar to what is
typical of production in the manufacturing industry, several conclusions can be drawn from
both the theoretical viewpoint of supply chain management and the managing of information.
The supply chain of a construction project identifies the partners involved and their respective
roles in handling the flow of information. The procurer initiates the project and the require-
ments are broken down and communicated between the participating partners. On an abstract
level, each instance of information triggers bidirectional flows to and from each partner, flows
that are identified as a requirement and a fulfilment flow, respectively. Once the information
flow is considered, the factors of time, cost and quality need to be analyzed with the partner firm
decider’s capacity to handle information to cause the requirement and fulfilment flow.
The quality of information received, the timeliness of the manner it is received and the cost-
effectiveness in obtaining the information determine the efficiency of a project partner.
This framework can be used as a tool to examine information flow efficiencies and
implement better supply chain strategies, developing the appropriate metrics. It has implica-
tions for users and developers of construction procurement related information systems and
supports managers in better decision-making while adopting new technologies for procure-
ment process. It helps identify the information gathering and retrieval among various partners
in the procurement process and thus design better procurement systems. This framework
leads to an impetus to further explore the areas of information management and to define a
next step in construction supply chain management, the continuing struggle to adapt the
principle of a totally integrated supply chain in other industries to the construction industry.

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