THE EFFECTS OF COMPUTERIZATION ON THE BUILDING INDUSTRY

The introduction of computerization into the operations of the building industry began in the late-1950s. The earliest applications of computer technology in the building industry were related to project scheduling. Computerization of the quantity surveying function did not begin until the late-1970s. Quantity surveying is the formal process of determining quantities from drawings and specifications, and is a part of the broader process of estimating wherein costs are associated with such quantities.

The effects of computerization on the building industry are reviewed in this research. A special emphasis is placed on the application of computer technology to the quantity surveying function within building industry operations.

Computer Applications in the Building Industry

The scheduling and control of large construction projects have been major tasks of construction management since the advent of large construction projects in the pre-Christian era. Although a great deal is known about many of these early projects, very little (nearly nothing) is known about how these projects were managed during their construction. As strange as it may seem, little is known about the management of large construction projects that were completed right up to the beginning of the twentieth century (some data are available from the late-1890s).

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d by CPM in very large and complex construction projects. Many of the basic procedures of PMIS were first used in the 1960s; however, the computerization of the system was developed and refined in the 1970s. In the 1990s, both PERT and CPM are widely used in project management. CPM, however, remains the preferred computerized project scheduling procedure for large construction projects, and, consequently, is applied most often in the management of very large and complex construction projects in all parts of the world. Computer Effects on Quantity Surveying In the late-1970s, a computerized system to administer and control construction projects was developed as a financial management tool, and was applied effectively from issuance of preliminary drawings up to completion of projects. The common denominator for implementing unit-price contracts is quantity surveying. Under this computerized system, dimensional data from the blueprint was recorded and was used together with designated formulae to compute quantities of work items. These quantities formed the basis for further computations throughout the life of a project. Unit-price data was added to compute estimates. As soon as a unit-price contract was awarded, the awar
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Approximate Word count = 3236
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)

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