Decision support for resource management in the construction industry

Abstract

The management of resources is an essential task in every construction company. In order to follow their line of business they need to acquire and exploit resources that may be equipment, materials or services. To determine an appropriate resource, an extensive set of parameters has to be taken into account that can be subjectively selected and weighted. Today, ERP systems and e-Business systems are available to assist construction companies in resource management within the company, but they can not prevent the company from having idle resources. Having idle resources, resulting from e. g. unforeseen occurrences, are serious cost for the company due to the resource’s fixed expenses. Companies should have an alternative solution to exploit these expensive resources and compensate their fixed expenses, but also have them available at the time they will need them for their own interest. So, they require a quick and flexible way of leasing any kind of resource for a certain time period to companies of possibly the same line of business. This paper outlines the approach taken by the EU funded project “e-Sharing” (EU-IST-2001-33325) to support resource management decisions within a construction company. It will describe requirements for resource management, as the architecture of the extended B2B platform and its core components, the decision support system and the enterprise integration system.