Introduction to the Special Issue on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in AEC Organizations: Assessment of Impact on Work Practices, Project Delivery, and Organizational Behavior

Abstract

Information and communication technology (ICT) has changed and continues to change almost every aspect of our daily lives. Our personal lives, social interactions, educational systems, business atmosphere, and corporate culture—everything has changed in one way or another due to advances in the field of ICT. The construction industry is no exception. ICT provides an unprecedented opportunity as well as enormous challenges to the construction industry. Only 25–30 years ago, a photocopy machine was considered the most important ICT tool used in a construction office. Things have changed vastly and dramatically. What happened during the last two decades cannot be characterized as mere evolutionary dynamics. It is no less than a revolution. From computing technology of the past to what we now know as ICT is a huge leap. The AEC (architecture, engineering, and construction) industry cannot afford to be just a spectator; the industry must take a proactive role in reshaping its own culture and systems in order to get the most out of the ICT revolution. That was the motivation behind this special issue. We attempted to present to the readers of the Journal of Management in Engineering the latest state of ICT as being applied and incorporated in the AEC industry, advancements in the ICT over the last two decades and their impact, current research topics being pursued by the researchers on ICT in construction and engineering project management, and above all we wanted to explore opportunities and challenges ICT presents to the AEC industry. ICT encompasses all forms of computing technologies (hardware, software, telecommunications, social media, etc.) that can be used to create, store, exchange, and utilize information in various forms. The AEC industry already embraced many ICT techniques and tools in the area of visualization, data analysis, communications and collaboration, information sharing and management, and information modeling (Williams 2007). Rapid adoption of smart phones and tablet devices in the AEC industry not only confirmed the need of quick information sharing but has also changed the mode of work practices at construction jobsites and offices. Similarly, building information modeling (BIM) has changed the way the buildings are conceived, designed, constructed, and operated. The use of BIM has encouraged the integration of the roles of all stakeholders in a project. This integration has brought greater efficiency and harmony among players who all too often in the past saw themselves as adversaries (Azhar 2011). The AEC industry, generally believed to be fragmented and labor-intensive, now has an unprecedented potential of being integrated by the use of ICT (Azhar 2007). The proposal for the special issue was approved by the JME editorial board in September 2012. The response to the special issue request for proposals was overwhelming and far exceeded our expectations. We received 95 proposals from academic researchers and practitioners. After careful review, authors of 18 proposals were invited to submit full-length manuscripts. Each submitted manuscript was reviewed by three to five experts. Based on the reviewers’ feedback and discussion, we finally selected 12 papers for the special issue. This special issue can be grouped into four themes as follows: (1) Review of ICT applications in the AEC industry; (2) ICT’s role in planning, decision making, and productivity enhancement; (3) ICT’s impact on organization and project-level communication and collaboration; and (4) Opportunities and challenges in ICT’s implementation. An in-depth review of 145 journal articles on ICT published between 1998 and 2012 is presented in the paper written by Lu, Li, Skibniewski, Wu, Wang, and Le (theme 1). This review paper provides detailed insights to help understand the general trend of ICT adoption, the most influential factors in ICT application, popular ICT technologies, and ICT-induced organizational outcomes. Four papers fall under theme 2 that discusses the role of ICT in planning, decision making, and productivity enhancement at project and organization level. Inyim, Rivera, and Zhu present an economic and environmental impact analysis ICT utility to aid in the decision-making process during the design stage of a construction project. Wu and Issa create a framework for facilitating holistic and systematic green BIM practices in LEED certified projects. Jiang and Leicht demonstrate an automated, rule-based constructability checking system with the help from BIM. Finally, Fan, Xue, and Li propose a framework to retrieve project-wide asneeded information from AEC documents that can be used for strategic and operational planning and decision making. Theme 3 has three papers with focus on ICT’s impact on organization and project-level communication and collaboration. Dossick, Anderson, Azari, Iorio, Neff, and Taylor discuss technical, social, and cultural challenges faced by engineering teams collaborating in virtual environments. Zekavat, Moon, and Bernold propose a holonic construction management (HCM) model able to integrate stand-alone information sources and syncs sinks flexibly into a collaborative production network. Finally, Solis, Howe, and O’Brien use a model of cognitive work of a field manager to understand how information tools have been adopted in the field, and how they affect field managers’ work approaches. These papers present divergent views on understanding the communication and collaboration issues at various levels within an organization.