Information Technology Planning Framework for Japanese General Contractors

Developments in information technology (IT) continue to have a significant impact on the architectural/engineering/construction (A/E/C) industry. However, the issue of whether A/E/C organizations are receiving adequate returns from their IT investments remains an important managerial concern. Recently, Pe?a-Mora, Vadhavkar, Perkins, and Weber introduced a strategic IT planning framework for construction projects that includes four steps: environmental scan, internal scrutiny, IT diffusion analysis, and IT investment modeling. It analyzes the external and internal IT conditions of a project/firm, identifies the diffusion phase of IT in the project/firm, and finally evaluates the effects of IT investments on the project/firm. Although this framework was originally intended to plan future IT investments, we assume that the framework can also be used to evaluate ongoing or past IT investments in projects/firms. Following this idea, this paper presents an application of the Pe?a-Mora et al. framework to an ongoing IT project in Kajima Corporation, one of the largest Japanese general contractors. Kajima is currently developing an IT system called LINCS (Linkage of Information for a New Construction System). This synthetic information network system has been designed to share building data among design and construction stages and streamline design/build activities. By using the framework proposed in this paper, we analyzed how LINCS is justified in terms of its strategic and operational value for Kajima and its construction projects.