My Paper

Stephen Mak, Associate Professor, Department of Building and Real Estate, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Email: bssmak@polyu.edu.hk

Lennon Choy, Lecturer, Department of Building and Real Estate, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Email: bslennon@polyu.edu.hk

Keywords

construction, management, real estate, survillence, valuation

Abstract

The construction industry does not use IT intensively. On the one hand, the nature of the industry is labour intensive although much mechanization has been used. On the other hand, a project generates a huge amount of documentation including drawings, correspondence, instructions, monthly accounts, and so on. The use of IT is still piecemeal in the form of islands. A wider perspective of the construction industry encompasses not only the construction of a building. The life cycle of the built environment starts from creating land, acquisition of land, planning, designing, tendering, building, marketing, selling, leasing, maintenance, management and demolition. Each of the above process is handled by a separate organization. For example, the landlord acquires land; contracts an architect to design the building and get all the legal matters cleared; contracts a builder to construct the building; contracts yet another organization to sell the product, maintain the building until its life cycle ends. iScream is a system that pinpoints 2 of the major processes in the building life cycle: (i) the construction process, and (ii) the selling and reselling process.