E-Government for Construction: The Case of Singapore's CORENET Project

In 1999, the Singapore Government envisioned a need to transform the construction industry through the Construction 21 Blueprint by a strategic vision. In line with the broader plan to develop Singapore into a knowledgedriven economy, this industry aspires to become ‘a World Class Builder in the Knowledge Age’. And earlier, as part of the IT 2000 master plan for Singapore, the Construction Real Estate Network (CORENET) project has been set up in July 1993 to serve as a major information technology (IT) initiative. The goal of CORENET is to “re-engineer the business processes of the construction industry to achieve a quantum leap in turnaround time, productivity and quality.” Specifically, its efforts are targeted at developing a set of infrastructure and industry projects, involving various government agencies and other industry players, to meet this goal. On the infrastructure projects, one thrust looks at providing Government to Business infrastructure to facilitate electronic building plans submission, checking and approval processes. Applying the concept of process re-engineering through the adoption of IT to the traditional building plans submission, checking and approval processes, the CORENET has now an infrastructure for: (i) One-stop Submission (OSSC) of building plans for approval; (ii) Buildable Design Appraisal (eBDAS); and (iii) Integrated Building Plan (IBP) and Integrated Building Services Plan (IBS) checking. The prevailing success and benefits of the three implemented projects are examined and discussed in relation to their re-engineered IT-enabled processes as well as feedback from a survey of the industry.