Current state of construction enterprise information systems: survey research

The paper's purpose is to describe and examine the level of utilisation of construction enterprise information systems (CEIS) and to identify critical success factors and benefits from their implementation.

A survey was conducted to quantify the current situation of CEIS. The population consisted of stakeholders with reliable working knowledge of their firms' information systems. Statistical tests were conducted to draw conclusions from the data.

A total of 48 per cent of the firms use enterprise resource planning packages, but only 4 per cent of these firms chose to implement the project management modules that are commercially available. Only 16 per cent of the respondents were satisfied with their current level of integration due to CEIS. There was no evidence to suggest a tendency for the integration level due to CEIS to increase together with the business geographical dispersion.

The rate of response to the survey was low (9 per cent), maybe due to the unavailability of CEIS in all the firms that were contacted. Further, research is needed to study the dynamics between management practices and their effect on CEIS adoption and level of integration.

Integration efforts and software that are currently in use still do not fully address the concerns of industry practitioners. Associations found between the level of integration and project characteristics can be used to help IT stakeholders decide on the CEIS functions to adopt.

The strategic, operational and organizational benefits found from the implementation of CEIS are based on current data obtained from a targeted survey of construction related firms.