The research assignment deals with the use of Information Technology to control Costs in the Construction Industry. The broad geographical area of reference being Asia Pacific this assignment concentrates on selected economies of East and South East Asia. China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan make up the list of chosen countries. The study has been broken up into discrete sections and begins with economic rundowns on the chosen countries, selected growth parameters and their economic progress after the Asian meltdown of 1997, the SARS outbreak and the Avian Influenza scare.
An in depth analysis of individual construction costs, their incidence and bearing on total costs and the essentiality of controlling them, particularly in the context of the current high demand and volatile cost scenario has been used to focus on the reasons for the current instability in prices and the imperative need for cost control in this highly competitive, easy entry, middling margin industry.
Information Technology has a number of easy to use tools, which lend themselves for facilitation of tracking, monitoring, analyzing and controlling costs. A number of reasons have led to a piece-meal, scattered and at best fragmented adoption of this technology by players in the construction industry. Country surveys reveal that the use of IT started very basically with the use of email and the internet and gradually progressed to simple accounting and payroll functions.
The use of CAD for design was adopted early enough primarily because of their use by skilled professionals who service the industry from the outside and not as integral divisions of construction companies. The study analyzes the reasons for this tardiness in implementation, the newer technologies coming into play and the way forward for the adoption and use of IT in controlling costs.