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.