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The need for knowledge chains in construction
Konukcu, Selda, Loughborough University, UK; Anumba, Chimay, The Pennsylvania State University, USA; Carrillo, Pat, Loughborough University, UK;

Construction is a project-based industry and construction supply chains generally work with a unique product in every project. Commonly, repeated project organizations are reconfigured for each project. This means that construction supply chains are characterised by adversarial practices and disjointed relationships, with the result that construction supply chain members generally have transient relationships rather than long term partnerships. A consequence of this is the lack of trust between construction clients, designers, main contractors and subcontractors. Because the construction supply chain works as a disparate collection of separate organisations rather than as a unified team, the supply chain suffers from lack of integration. Besides this, there is still an unwillingness to share knowledge between the supply chain partners, thus, there is poor knowledge flow. These characteristics of the construction supply chain are the main reasons of its low efficiency and productivity in project delivery. It is believed that construction supply chain management (SCM), when integrated with knowledge management (KM), can successfully address the major problems of the industry and its clients. There is a need for the development of appropriate systems to ensure the effective diffusion of knowledge such that each sector of the supply chain adds value to the project delivery process. This is expected to result in the creation of knowledge chains in construction. This paper first reviews the current SCM issues in the construction industry and highlights the potential of KM to improve construction SCM. It argues for the transformation of construction 'supply chains' to 'knowledge chains' and identifies the key considerations for making this happen. The potential benefits of these are discussed in the concluding part of the paper.

Keywords:
construction, supply chain management, knowledge chain, knowledge management,

Rotterdam (Netherlands) in-house publishing 2008 , appox. 13 p. , figs.,refs.
Language: English

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