Assessment of the use of Digitalization to Manage Construction Projects and its Perceived Effect on Project Success
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Date
2021-06-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Any country's socioeconomic growth is aided considerably by the construction industry. Due to
the interdependencies of various diverse stakeholders, Construction projects are getting more
complicated and harder to manage. The state of the building construction sector demands increased
efficiency and digitalization, yet it is resistant to technological change, particularly in developing
nations. In addition, how many companies are now using it and what areas have a high impact
but low use are not thoroughly explored in Ethiopia. This study evaluates the current use of digital
medias in managing the 10 knowledge areas of project management in Addis Ababa's building
construction projects. It also examines how building contractors (BCI) view the positive and negative
impacts, benefits, and drawbacks of digitalization, as well as identifying high-impact areas with low
use for improvement. This was done by using both descriptive and explanatory methods of research.
A total of 94 building contractors where selected by using stratified random sampling technique,
which used Government division of building contractors in to grades as a strata. Data were then
gathered through questionnaire and interviews. Based on the assessment conducted, the general
use of digitalization was found to be 1.84, which is moderate. In areas like project-integrated
management, project schedule management and project communication, the use of digitalization
is relatively high. While in areas like project quality management and project risk management,
the application is very low. The data also indicated that project closing phase is the area were
high use of digitalization was recorded, while project initiation phase is the area with low use.
Finally, strong perceived effect was observed on project communication management, project
integrated management and project scope management while on areas like project stakeholder
management and project procurement management, the opposite was observed. Based on the
data collected, priority areas for improvement were selected, those areas are project scope
management, project quality management and project communication management. The
researcher finally recommends the identified areas to be improved and further research be
conducted in the area.
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Keywords
Project management knowledge areas, Digitalization, Use of digital medias, construction projects, construction projects, Digitalized construction