Effect of Technological Advancement in Quantity Surveying on Cost, Labour and Time Performance of Construction Projects in Abuja.

Abstract

Studies have shown that technological advancement is capable of creating fundamental impact on the manner in which business processes are undertaken in the construction industry. The study was undertaken to address the problem of lack of effective utilisation of technological advancement (use of modern technology software) in the services of Quantity Surveying (QS) which results to poor cost, labour and time performance of construction projects in the Nigerian construction industry. The study evaluated the effect of technological advancement in QS on the cost, labour and time performance of construction projects with major emphasis on the use of QS and other built environment ICT software. Data was collected from 230 randomly selected registered Quantity Surveyors in Abuja using questionnaires. Analysis of data was done using Mean Item Score (MIS). The study found that all the core QS competence areas highly require the use of technological advancement (Average MIS = 4.338). It was also revealed that the factors limiting the use of technological advancement in the field of QS range between Inadequate training (MIS = 4.329) and Rate at which software becomes outdated and requires updating (MIS = 3.586). Relationship between use of ICT and Cost; Labour; and Time Performance was also found to be very significant (MIS ranges from 3.940 - 4.517). It was therefore concluded that the use of ICT in the field of QS has a significant effect on the overall performance of construction projects. Major recommendation from the study was that QS firms should strengthening the use of ICT more in the areas of BOQ preparation; Final account; Procurement technique exercise; valuation; and Estimating in order to improve Cost; Labour; and Time Performance of construction projects.