ITcon Vol. 11, Special Issue e-Commerce in construction , pg. 75-87, http://www.itcon.org/2006/6

E-PROCUREMENT IN THE ATLANTIC CANADIAN AEC INDUSTRY

SUBMITTED: July 2005
REVISED: December 2005
PUBLISHED: April 2006
EDITOR: Ruikar K

Jeff H. Rankin, Associate Professor
Department of Civil Engineering, University of New Brunswick, Canada
email: rankin@unb.ca, http://www.unb.ca/

Yongjie Chen, Graduate Student
Department of Civil Engineering, University of New Brunswick, Canada
email: b1aeg@unb.ca, http://www.unb.ca/

A. John Christian, Professor Emeritus
Department of Civil Engineering, University of New Brunswick, Canada
email: jchristian@unb.ca, http://www.unb.ca/

SUMMARY: Based on the success achieved in other industries, there is the potential for the Architectural, Engineering, and Construction industry to achieve significant improvements in efficiency through the adoption of e-business methods and solutions. There are a variety of issues that must be considered in steering the industry toward these improvements. The issues stem from the root characteristics of the industry including: fragmentation, highly pragmatic, cost conscious, little institutional leadership, and no standards in technology and business models. This paper examines e-procurement as a subset of e-business in an effort to identify the issues surrounding the development of a critical mass of participants required to overcome the organizational and technology challenges. The issues are discussed in some detail followed by the presentation of some preliminary results from a survey which quantifies the current status of the industry in an attempt to support a strategy for progress.

KEYWORDS: e-business, e-procurement, technology penetration, adoption issues, industry survey.

FULL TEXT: file.pdf (103,520 bytes)

CITATION:

Rankin J H, Chen Y and Christian A J (2006) E-PROCUREMENT IN THE ATLANTIC CANADIAN AEC INDUSTRY, ITcon Vol. 11, Special Issue e-Commerce in construction , pg. 75-87, http://www.itcon.org/2006/6