THE USE OF WEB BASED TOOLS IN PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Abstract

The IT (Information Technology) 2000 master plan for Singapore was initiated in 1991 and the Construction and Real Estate Network (CORENET) is part of the plan for leveraging IT to reengineer and streamline the fragmented work processes in the construction industry to achieve a quantum leap, especially in quality and productivity (Goh, 2005). With the Building and Construction Authority (BCA), tasked to push ahead the CORENET programme to promote construction industry to embrace IT in their work; over the years, other government agencies like Housing and Development Board (HDB) and Ministry of Finance (MOF) have subsequently launched respectively IT initiatives to help the industry to adopt IT. However, relatively little research has been done related to what had happened in the past in this field, the current situation of the IT adoption of Web-based Project Management System (WPMS) in the local construction industry via government IT initiatives and the reasons of slow IT adoption in the industry. The purposes of this study are firstly, to summarise the IT developments here, secondly, to provide an updated overview of existing features of WPMS via government IT initiatives aforementioned. Thirdly, to highlight the possible reasons for slow and limited adoption of IT, and lastly, to recommend measures to achieve greater promotion of IT adoption based on the review findings of current WPMS adoption via government IT initiatives. Data analysis and discussion were based on the 22 questionnaire responses (attributing to 38 usable survey sample size due to treatment of responses from companies playing dual or more roles as if it was done by separate companies) using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 12.0 statistical tools like one-sample t-test, one-way (Analysis of Variance) ANOVA, etc to verify research hypotheses and to examine the relationships between variables. One out of four hypotheses was validated and it was found that length of working experience of respondents have a significant relationship with the hypotheses but tendering limit of company, respondent’s designation, years of company’s establishment were found insignificant to have any relationship with the hypotheses.