Critical success factors for ICT mediated supply chains: implications for project managers

This paper reports on the findings from a major study conducted by the Australian Cooperative Research Centre for Construction Innovation and the University of Newcastle that sought to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) for ICT uptake and integration into businesses across all tiers of the project supply chain. The project built upon the latest research, extending this using various processes including a Delphi study of ICT and supply chain management (SCM) experts from around the world, a national survey of attitudes and opinions from experience practitioners across four sectors of the construction industry (CI), and detailed case studies of three project supply chains. There was broad consensus as to the challenges facing practitioners wishing to use ICT in their SCM activities. However different emphases emerged amongst the various tiers of project participants. It became apparent that strong leadership was desirable from those who ‘dictate’ supply chain protocols in order to optimise the large number of flexible and willing supply chain ‘followers’. The study also revealed that considerable benefits were possible if issues of trust and transparency could be overcome, and strategic relationships formed and maintained to the mutual benefit of the partners over a number of projects. It also appeared to be the case that the use of certain technologies such as e-mail, which had been thought of as a comparative rarity as recently as 1999, were now widely adopted across all sectors, although still possibly under utilised. The paper concludes with a range of suggestions directed to project managers that might enable them to extract better performance from their supply chain partners in construction projects