The construction industry has often been characterised as being slow to
adopt modern technology and particularly modern Information Technology.
In some respects this reputation is undeserved by an industry that in
reality is often flexible and remarkably innovative. Construction
companies were among the first to make wide scale use of the computer
bureaux services of the 1960's and were early adopters of modern
communications technology such as the mobile phone. However, in the area
of electronic data collection for process control and quality assurance
the constructinon industry has certainly not reaped the same benefits
that manufacturing industry has. There a number of reasons for this, not
least the manor in which the construction industry is organised and
operates and the nature of the construction site itself. This work
considers these issues and looks at ways in which particularly small to
medium sized contractors may overcome them and successfully leverage
manufacturing-style information technology.