Building slowly

Citation

(1999), "Building slowly", Work Study, Vol. 48 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/ws.1999.07948dab.004

Building slowly

Research commissioned by the organisers of A/E/C Systems - the UK version of the World's most successful IT event for the architecture, civil engineering and construction market (June 99) - suggests that the civil engineering sector spends only one and a half per cent of its turnover on IT compared to two per cent for general industry. The research states that enterprise-wide systems are where the real investment is being made, with over half of the sector investing heavily in these integrated systems. IT consultancy accounts for less than ten per cent of spend. Companies in the civil engineering sector are slowly beginning to use IT to change the way they do business. Communication is a key issue in this sector and something that has significantly improved the way companies of all sizes do business. The research reveals that nearly half (47 per cent) of the respondents state that the Internet and email have enabled them to share work and transfer data. Information sharing is particularly important due to the many disparate locations civil engineers work from.