Information management/sharing problems during the inspection stage of construction: A case study in Australia

Information is one of the vital assets to the organizations irrespective of its industries. If information is utilized effectively in the construction process, it will allow users to plan, operate, and make decisions to maximize benefits. This paper reports the information management practice problems among stakeholders during the inspection stage in a building construction project in an Australia urban-based university. The study explores how specific information was generated, recorded, disseminated, used and stored during the inspection stage in the construction process through the roles of architects and builders. Data was collected over 14 week period through document analysis, shadowing, observations, photography, and one-on-one interviews with builders and architects involved in the project. The research shows that information was recorded, stored and reused through both personal and enterprise information management; that stakeholder's tacit knowledge played an important role affecting how the information was generated, stored and reused; and that the complexity of information and dynamic nature of procurement method used in this project had an impact on how information was utilized during the inspection process. The paper concludes with suggested methods to record unstructured information generated on-site and better ways to utilize and reuse information in construction.