Innovative e-Tool for Construction SMEs: Enabling Collaborative Restoration of Old Buildings

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2011

Authors

Sorli, M (Author) Other; Armijo, A (Author) Other; Alfredo Soeiro (Author) FEUP

Conference proceedings International

Title: PROCEEDINGS OF THE 6TH EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON INNOVATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP, VOL 1 AND 2

Pages: 1077-1081

6th European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (ECIE)

Robert Gordon Univ, Aberdeen, SCOTLAND, SEP 15-16, 2011

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 0 Citations

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00P-5S5

Abstract (EN): Big construction organisations strive to stay on the bleeding edge of the today's global competition employing the latest Information and Communications Technology (ICT) tools, which allow them to streamline their works and stay competitive in the marketplace. Due to the 'innovation prone' nature of these companies, they are able to dedicate enough resources and capabilities to adopt expensive ICT existing solutions or even develop and customise their own tools. On the other hand, smaller construction companies, such as the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) that comprise the majority of Europe's building industry, do not always count with enough resources to promptly adopt expensive knowledge management software systems that would allow an efficient performance of collaborative construction works. Additionally, the sub-sector working on restoration, retrofitting and maintenance of old buildings, which may belong to the Cultural Heritage objects, requires a special need to efficiently protect sensitive features in the buildings, such as, historical, social and usage value. These requirements urge this sub-sector to find an immediate and affordable way to get their in-house know-how managed. In this regard, H-KNOW project is motivated by the increasing number of complex works of rehabilitation of buildings that require a rapid and systematic access to specific knowledge. The project approach is to provide this sub-sector with innovative solutions that facilitate a promptly access to suitable competitive knowledge through building a business cooperative network among SMEs and Research & Technical Development (RTD) partners. Based on the identification of a business opportunity, this networked infrastructure enables the creation of a private collaborative space, which empowers their members to share knowledge regarding a specific construction industry project derived from that business opportunity. Summarising, the project plans to develop technical solutions based on ICT that are affordable for the targeted SMEs, including knowledge sharing, collaboration management and training services for engineers. This Work in Progress paper presents an experience of the kind, based in the European funded H-KNOW project (FP7-NMP-214567).

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 5