Assessment of the Level of Technology Adoption in Construction Industry in Nigeria
CHAPTER ONE
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
The aim of the study is to assess the level of technology adoption in Construction Industry in Nigeria. Against this background, the objectives of the study are to:
- Assess the impact areas and the level of used of technology by construction companies in Nigeria.
- Evaluate the benefits (strategic, tactical and operational) of adopting technology in construction.
- Evaluate the cost implication of adopting technology in construction.
- Assess the risk factors associated with the adoption of technology in the construction industry.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
ICT APPLICATIONS IN THE GLOBAL CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY
During the 1980s PCs were only used in few construction companies. Throughout the 1980s, although most building firms were using computer technology for many of their core functions such as accounting, wages and salaries, very few of them evolved formal polices or strategies concerning the use of information and communication technology.
By the latter part of the 1980s, about eight years after the introduction of reliable PC equipment, some companies had reached a situation in which their staff on many of their larger projects were experiencing the advantages of the new technology through the use of planning, drawing, spreadsheet and word-processing software packages.
Today, a large number of software packages are available to all the disciplines of the construction team at every stage of the construction process. They provide support for a broad range of activities such as computer aided design and drafting, building visualization, design appraisal, project management, information storage and retrieval, cost estimation, structural analysis, on-site management, facilities management etc.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF TECHNOLOGY IN CONSTRUCTION
The use of technology in the construction industry is generating new opportunities for collaboration, coordination and information exchange among organizations that work on a construction project. Complex technical systems do not evolve fully formed, but rather as localized developments. In the development of automated systems for transfer and transformation of materials, this unbalanced evolution leads to the problem of “Islands of automation”, where highly automated materials flow is mixed with completely manual ones. The same problems exist in the development of computerized information systems. The development of computing technology has meant that tools for analysis involving data manipulation have tended to develop earliest and in isolation. These tools show the enormous strengths of computer in the rapid analysis of complex data sets-analysis which is frequently impossible if manually attempted. Thus standalone applications dependent on numerical analysis, ranging from finite element analysis to critical path analysis, had been developed by the 1960s. Information flows between these types of applications continued to use traditional information technologies such as the paper-based engineering drawing.
During, the 1970s, a new form of graphical manipulation was developed to aid the creation of engineering drawings-computer aided design (CAD). Again, the output from these systems largely relied on traditional technologies for communication between different applications. The construction industry was at the forefront of these developments. By the fourteenth century scaled technical drawing, probably the most important information technology of the last millennium after the printed book itself were well established for use on religious and royal building projects.
During the 1970s, large public sector projects-usually relying on extensive standardization and prefabrication offered the opportunity to develop CAD system. However, the demise of the large public sector construction programmes which have been essential to the development of technology applications in every industrial sector meant that this initial momentum was lost (Howard 1998).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
RESEARCH METHOD
A research method in the form of questionnaire was adopted for the purpose of generating data. The work reviewed and analyzed the various aspects of technology applications in construction. The themes and issues covered in the research include: ICT application areas, strategic, tactical and operational benefits, Technological implementation costs (both direct and indirect costs) and Technological implementation risks. Data analyzed were both descriptive and quantitative. The result was used to establish rankings of the benchmark indices among various issues.
AREA OF STUDY
The research work studied ICT applications in construction companies in Nigeria. To this effect, effort was made for the study to cover construction companies domiciled in each of the six geo-political zones in the country. This is to make the work as representative as possible.
SOURCES OF DATA
To realize the objectives of this study, the following two main types of data were employed; primary and secondary data.
- Primary Data: Primary data were derived from questionnaire, which were distributed to engineers and managers of different construction companies. This was designed to gather valid and reliable information through the response of the interviewee to a planned sequence of questions. The structured interview was to gather valid and reliable response while the unstructured interview was used in desiring more precise generalization.
- Secondary Data: Secondary data were collected mainly from review of published and unpublished materials including relevant textbooks journals and magazines.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA COLLECTION, DATA ANALYSIS, RESULTS, CONCLUSION, RECOMMENDATIONS
RESULT PRESENTATION
From the 226 questionnaires that were distributed to construction companies, a total of 63 completed questionnaires were returned after follow-up communications with the organizations and professionals the questionnaires were given to. This gave a response rate of 27%. The response is very low as, according to Ellhag and Boussabaine (2019) and Idrus and Newman (2012) a response rate of 30% is good enough in construction studies. This is attributed to lack of adequate funding for the research and restrictions to fieldwork in the northern part of Nigeria due to current crisis.
As indicated in question 1 of the questionnaire, the responses on the number of people currently employed in the respondent’s offices are shown table 4.1.
The result shows that 13% of the respondents have less than 10 people employed in their offices, 40% employed from 11 to 30, 23% employed from 31 to 50, 10% employed from 51 to 100 and 14% employ from 101 to 250. This indicates that the respondents include small, medium, and large-sized organizations.
CHAPTER FIVE
REFERENCES
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