Econstruct : Expectations , Solutions and Results

SUMMARY: The IST 10303 " eConstruct " project (eCommerce/eBusiness in the Building and Construction industry: preparing for the new Internet) is now (November 2001) in its second and final year. The objective of eConstruct is to develop, evaluate and demonstrate how the next generation Internet can be used to improve meaningful communications in the European Building and Construction industry, supporting future eCommerce and eBusiness. The paper presents the goals of the project, discusses the chosen solution, evaluates the results obtained so far and recommends directions for further R&D. Though the paper globally presents the results of the project as a whole, typical eCommerce aspects will be dealt with in more detail (other papers describing other eConstruct results in detail have already been published, or will be published shortly). The European BC industry is suffering from its fragmented and multi cultural organisation. Especially in large-scale one-of-a-kind construction, costs of failure form a substantial part of the total project costs, certainly if costs of failure is seen in its broadest meaning-exceeding the common failure costs due to construction errors, time delays and requirement changes-to include those cost elements that are outside the responsibility of the project partners, i.e. inefficiency due to communication problems, or outside the scope of the project, i.e. costs by others due to traffic jams, health problems and accidents, environmental pollution, juridical hassling, and client dissatisfaction.