Adoption of Mobile IT

Project Manager: Neill Pawsey, pawsey@fiatech.org, +011-44-7813-919854

If you are a FIATECH member and would like to participate in this project, email us!

Project Participants

Andrew May and Val Mitchell, Ergonomics and Safety Research Institute, Loughborough University, UK

Overview

In order to provide business benefit, the increase of the acceptance and uptake of new mobile technologies, within the construction industry, is needed. Key barriers and enablers to the adoption and diffusion of innovative mobile IT, and in particular to the ‘point of activity’ worker, are being identified. By increasing the attractiveness of the industry to new entrants, particuarly graduates, further development of mobile technologies will flourish.

Business Case

Increase success rate for expensive IT projects.
Provide direct business benefit through improved processes.
Increase organizational learning.
Retain skilled staff through increased skills training.
Attract high calibre staff to the industry to address skills shortages.

End user acceptance of technology has been identified within COMIT and FIATECH as a critical factor affecting the success and failure of mobile IT projects. Despite increasing awareness of the
business benefits, the construction industry still lags behind other industries with respect to realising the full commercial potential of mobile IT. An identified problem is the fragmented and dynamic nature of the supply chain within construction projects leading to transient work teams and barriers to cultural change.

The project will use a case study approach to analyse the adoption and diffusion (or lack thereof!) of innovative mobile IT within the construction industry. The project will identify the key barriers and enablers involved in the process of mobile IT being introduced successfully within the industry, and used by ‘point of activity’ workers. These barriers and enablers will relate to user, technology, process and organizational issues.

A detailed case study analysis will enable both key success factors, and potential barriers to be identified, for each case study. The project will then collate these and produce an industrially-focused guide to enable innovative mobile IT solutions to be introduced successfully within the industry.

Deliverables

A detailed analysis of case studies to result in best practice guides that can be used directly by the construction industry.

Activities

We are currently working on a future collaboration within Element 4, particuarly the Smart Chips project, and will be conducting case studies within RFID.

Status

We are currently setting out and clarifying the project scope and deliverables. Findings will be discussed at the next team meeting in mid May, 2008.