Information Exchange: Publications

Enabling Technologies for Project Supply Chain Collaboration

Author: Dr. William O'Brien

"This paper describes a research agenda for enabling technologies to support supply chain collaboration in the construction industry. Its intention is not to provide a broad-based survey of research needs in construction for infrastructure applications; papers by others in this workshop perform that role admirably. Rather, the purpose of this paper is to set an agenda for technologies that will enable effective, computer supported sharing of knowledge among the many members of the project supply chain. It is the view of this author that improving the cost and time performance of infrastructure projects will necessarily come through improvements in supply chain performance. And while today there exist various tools and paradigms to effect performance improvements, implementation of these require data from the diverse members of the project supply chain. Obtaining this data is one of the most difficult challenges on projects due to dual challenges of heterogeneous information systems and knowledge that is not currently represented on-line. Thus this paper outlines enabling technologies including mechanisms to automate extraction of data and knowledge and mechanisms to enable local knowledge to be formalized and represented on-line so it can be shared. While specific in scope, the recommended research agenda is not narrow. Collectively, the technologies envisaged in this paper provide the basis to enable the next generation of supply chain collaboration tools."

Date Created: October 2001; Date Posted: March 2002

Projects:

• Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems (ICIS)

Events:

• First Annual Conference on Infrastracture Priorities: National Infrastructure Research Agenda (NIRA)

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