Information sharing platform to support collaborative teamwork in construction

Abstract

Construction industry is one of the most challenging industries. It has many problems associated to its performance and the ability to satisfy the users’ requirements. One of the most critical issues that need to be addressed by construction is related to the lack of information sharing among the project stakeholders. Therefore this research has been undertaken to address this issue within the context of Collaborative Teamwork Environment (CTW) in construction. The aim and the objective of the research are to identify the important elements of project reporting towards establishment of communication framework to support collaborative teamwork information sharing in Malaysian construction industry. This research also developed the Matrix Measurement Guidelines (MMG-CTW) as a useful tool to gauge the level of collaborative teamwork achievement that was created by the communication platform. The different methodologies were employed to generate qualitative and quantitative data at different stages of the research. These methodologies were: literature review; single stage postal questionnaire survey; interview; and project case study analysis. The data collected using the triangulation approach with the stated methodologies from the expert industry player’s nationwide. The important elements and the current approach of project communication and the elements of the collaborative teamwork are the main variables that have been identified from the data collection and been used as the basis to develop the project communication platform. The research was divided into three main phases. The initial stage involved the evaluation of the current approach of the project communication and the collaborative teamwork environment in Malaysian construction industry. The second stage was the development of the MMG-CTW and the third stage was the establishment of the framework for the communication platform. This communication and information need have been integrated within the MS-SharePoint software and was tested its application on two selected case study projects and feedbacks generated from the users were used for improvement. As a result, the application of this groupware system is suitable for a medium size project because of its simplicity and user friendly. This research concludes that the implementation of CTW concept is still in the early stage in Malaysian construction industry. The practice of project reporting is still using simple tools such as email, telephone and traditional way of exchanging documents. The progress report, design concept, drawing and specification were identified as the top priority project reporting elements in project communication and information. There is an urgent need to improve the current communication system among project stakeholders. The groupware system developed in this research was validated by the expert panel can be a suitable tool for communication framework to support collaborative teamwork information sharing in Malaysian construction industry.