Management of Information Flows during Construction Projects

The right management of information is crucial in construction projects and has been studied by many researchers. This paper begins by defining and discussing some information management concepts. In particular, it proposes a reflection about the pull-push model for transferring information and links the resulting ideas to some generic issues of information management, namely information overload, information retrieval and information asymmetry. On the basis of these theoretical elaborations, it presents a prototype tool for construction project management that is based on original technologies. Instead of setting up a project specific web site, the approach consists of mixing pull and push transfer modes on the basis of an enhanced messaging system. This prototype may thus be considered as a proof-of-concept approach that new technological solutions may be explored if the conceptual analysis of generic problems takes precedence over default choices in terms of technology.