The use of ICT to re-engineer purchasing in Irish construction

Abstract

The process traditionally adopted in the purchasing of materials in the construction industry is investigated. There are millions of trading documents, such as orders, delivery notes and supplier invoices, currently exchanged on paper, each having to be re-keyed as they pass between different locations and computer applications. Traditional paper-based purchasing processes in construction are wholly inefficient, with a high dependency on manual tasks, re-keying of information into standalone software packages, extensive reproduction of paper documents and mislaid documentation is commonplace.