Whitepaper

Christine MacFarlane
Summer 2007

ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT FOR CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES:

 

PUTTING AN END TO HEAVY LIFTING

Companies in the construction industry have long been at a disadvantage with regard to integrated management systems for their project-oriented businesses. Typically their historic inability to source affordable enterprise-wide solutions geared to their industry led to a reliance on non-adaptive niche solutions and the “duct tape” approach to integration.

In construction industry circles people sometimes joke that a bid is a wild guess carried out to two decimal places. And that the critical path method for construction resource scheduling is a management technique for losing your shirt under perfect control. These bits of gallows humor reveal construction management's longstanding 'agita' with regard to managing the complexity of their project-based businesses.

Yet the very survival of construction companies depends on productivity and the ability to manage ever more complex business processes. Their life blood is efficient management of dynamic projects to maximize value and minimize waste. In the past, however, without access to management systems with content for their project-based requirements, home-grown and single-purpose accounting, project management, and maintenance support applications were the norm.

Continued ---> Download the rest of the whitepaper here