The Organization of Information Standards in the Chinese Construction Industry

Like many other countries that had already experienced before, the Chinese construction industry recently faced a challenge to develop an effective and efficient organizing system for its large number of information standards. Such an organizing system, including standard categorization and classification, as well as rules and procedures of managing a standardization project and revising existing standards, serves as a blueprint for existing and future standardization efforts. Addressing the characteristics of the Chinese construction industry while maintaining compatibility with existing well-accepted international standards, the organizing system needs to satisfy requirements that can make it unique, comprehensive, systematic and extensible. Although the subject, as well as its methodology, is not new and may seem less innovative, the introduction of the organising system itself, together with the discussions on issues related to the development of the system, provides valuable information to researchers and practitioners because of the unique social, technical and political context reflected through the organizing system. To this end, the major objectives of this paper are to provide a systematic introduction of the organizing system and share major issues related to the development and implementation of the system, so that readers may have better understanding towards the standardization efforts in the Chinese construction industry, as well as the social, technical and political implications associated with the efforts.