Web-based collaboration: a key tool for the management of corporate information

In recent years many organisations have had to cope with fewer available management and technical staff. Gan [1999] identified a 25% fall in UK University applications for Built Environment Courses between 1994 and 1997. Construction projects have increasingly applied leading Information Technologies for design, planning, document control and process management which helps offset these issues. The reduction in skilled staff has also created an increasingly virtual team nature to projects, with Extranet tools now being employed on a regular basis. However, once projects are complete, few organisations address the need to capture project results for future work. This paper introduces the issues being addressed by an infrastructure client for the management of asset documentation throughout its lifecycle despite having fewer available staff. This includes the capture of legacy information and provision to capital projects, the management of new project data and the return of validated as-built documentation for whole-life asset management.