Abstract
Information
and communications technology (ICT) is rapidly changing the way for
construction companies in implementing their businesses within the
construction industries. The construction industry is currently
evolving the approaches which were mainly focused on human resources,
materials and equipment to a more improvement within the processes
through the deployment of sophisticated technologies and tools.
Enhanced collaboration with construction parties in supply chain and
with the project stakeholders is significantly vital to maximise the
productivity, enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness, maximising
the profitability and achieving competitive advantages both locally and
globally. Furthermore, construction projects require intensive efforts
and processes which is often a challenge to provide the parties within
the construction industry to access the accurate information and
efficient communications through the reliable, competent and
appropriate technology with responsive communications networks.
Additionally, the construction project delivery is mostly involved with
relationships between many organizations and processes with the
evolution of many specialised roles and embedded relationships.
However, the fragmentation and adversarial relationships among players
in the construction industry has been one of the main barriers of the
successful construction project delivery contributing to negative
influence on project objectives in terms of predetermined objectives
that are mostly within the time, specified budget and standard quality.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the construction
collaboration tools along with concepts of cloud computing and
context-awareness. The findings in this research are based on a
thorough review of the comprehensive literature on IT, computing and
construction. Consequently, this study sets out to introduce and
develop the concepts of potential innovative collaborative tools, such
as Context-Aware Cloud Computing Information Systems (CACCIS), for
facilitating the construction supply chain processes and networks by
enhancing the opportunities for achieving better competitive advantages
within the construction industry. Firstly, it is hoped that this study
will lead to improved construction collaboration to enhance the
competitive advantages and opportunities for the internationalisation
and globalisation of the construction industry. Secondly, it presents
the new visions of construction industry integration and most
significantly collaboration in an efficient way that will ultimately
improve the productivity, efficiency and the effectiveness of
construction industry.
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