BUSMGT 711: Connectivity and Competitive Advantage in Construction

This essay examines the impact of mobile technologies and ubiquitous networks on the New Zealand construction industry, focusing on the competitive advantages and challenges associated with increased connectivity. The introduction highlights the industry's shift toward mobile computing for employee engagement and the adoption of technologies like AI. The essay then provides an overview of the New Zealand construction sector, noting its significance to the GDP and the inefficiencies caused by mobile connectivity. Part A explores the competitive advantages of integrating mobile technologies, such as reduced costs, improved operational efficiency, and enhanced data transfer. Part B discusses the positive changes brought about by integrated communication tools, including increased productivity and improved R&D, while also addressing negative aspects like time wastage, addiction, and security vulnerabilities. The essay draws on research to support its arguments, providing a comprehensive analysis of mobile technology's impact on the construction industry.

Competing with connectivity
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Introduction
With the world evolving every day and new technologies being introduced to markets,
diverse companies have shifted their attention to the mobile computing as a way of connecting
and engaging employees. According to research conducted by Kim, Park, Lim & Kim (2013) 90
percent of companies operating in the diverse industry have shifted to mobile connectivity and
engagement and further adopted new technologies such as artificial intelligence and learning
machines in order to gain a competitive advantage. Some industries such as retail have even gone
ahead to introduce self-check machines that enable customers to serve themselves and get
controlled by employees through mobile connectivity (Anitsal Moon & Anitsal, 2015). It’s due
to this growth of mobile technologies and engagement to employees that the paper seeks to study
how the integration of mobile technologies has developed a competitive working environment in
the New Zealand construction industry.
A brief overview of the New Zealand construction industry
According to Davies (2010) building and construction in New Zealand has accounted for
billions of pounds contributing to around 10% of GDP. Despite the building and construction
industry being pivotal, the industry has experienced inefficiencies because of the current increase
in employee engagement and connectivity with mobile technologies which has been addictive. A
research conducted by Windapo (2014) shows that 70 percent of contractor rework is contributed
by conflicting, inappropriate and insufficient use of mobile connectivity in construction sites.
The introduction of communication technologies in the industry has been a breakthrough to
many companies as it has curbed increasingly competitive pressure and delivered a cheaper and
quicker solution.

I choose the construction industry because the field has not been explored thoroughly by
scholars as compared to other fields such as retailing, e-commerce, banking, hospitality and
tourism. Furthermore, most of the work from the industry is done on site with little supervision
and therefore conducting study on the industry will shade more light on how mobile connectivity
engages and disengages employees. The construction industry is also rapidly growing with
research conducted by Noktehdan, Shahbazpour & Wilkinson (2015) showing that the industry
will be growing by 15% before 2021.
Part A
The competitive advantage of integrating mobile Technologies and or Ubiquitous networks
(Internet of Things) technologies in the Construction industry
The introduction of integrated mobile technologies with suitable wireless capability in the
construction industry has considered as valuable innovation that results to the reduction of travel
costs, enhancement of efficient operations and increased speed or the capabilities of data
transfer. The results has significantly influenced by the engagement that exist between
employees and mobile connectivity. For example, with integrated mobile communication,
employees have been able to engage smartphones to transfer data that is collected on site and
communicated over the mobile technologies to the office unlike traditional ways where a data
was collected manually and a lot of time and expenses occurring during the transfer of data to
offices (Son, Park, Kim & Chou (2012). Furthermore, with engagement of mobile connectivity
supporting coordination and collaboration, the data collected in the sites is easily uploaded to
computers thanks to intranet and internet for enabling quicker process which reduces time.
Furthermore, the current mobile phones have been integrated to involve smart features such as

web-browsing, email, diary management and picture messaging which connects employees more
in construction industry.
Reduction in costs of construction and time is one of the competitive advantages of using
integrated mobile technologies in the construction industry. Research conducted by Cheng, T.,
Venugopal, Teizer & Vela (2011) shows that engagement of employees in mobile technologies
can cut down capital costs and minimize the time in the construction industry. For example, with
mobile connectivity doing away with awful activities such as redrafting, retyping and travelling
time of retrieving information times and capital is significantly reduced (Matthews et al., 2015).
In addition, mobile connectivity has reduced maintenance costs and operation significantly
through the improvement of employee’s involvement and autonomy when gathering reliable
information throughout the building or structure life cycles.
Engagement of mobile connectivity has also provided competing advantage of reducing
accidents and waste in the construction industry. For example, with integrated mobile
technologies, the employees are able to connect with each other easily through diverse Medias
such a social media and report near misses effectively. With the introduction of the tablet PC
audit tool in the construction industry, there is a significant improvement in contractor’s control
of hazards when the audit report is generated.
Part B
Areas that are positive (ways that work has changed for better as a result of integrated
communication tools)
Productivity has remained a positive area that has been constituent by integrated with
mobile technologies. According to Wright & McMahan, (2011), production is the ration of
resources used in production and amount of work produced. Productivity is usually increased if

few resources are used to do more. Several constructions industry has used integrated
communication technologies s change initiatives that promote increased productivity through
automation of tasks and enhancement of collaboration. For example, use of integrated
communication has changed the workplace by enhancing the delivery of required information
such as method statement, alerts (mobile phones technologies can notify safety hazards),
production of production reports such as daily progress reports, data collation and reduction of a
number of administrative staff requires to operate in construction companies. The mobile
technology has also changed the Research and Development (R&D) subject that has existed in
the industry. Furthermore, the integration of mobile technology has addressed that downtime on-
site due to unforeseen problems which have resulted in low productivity within the industry. The
mobile technology has provided immediate access ranging from the activity perspective to the
personnel which has provided a solution to the contemporary issues of research.
The use of integrated mobile communication in construction has changed the way the
industry used to predict its activities. A research conducted by Lee, Kwon,Choi & Park (2012)
shows that the construction industry is rapidly faced by the problem of delays in delivering the
project and over or underestimation of budget. The use of mobile technologies has transformed
the industry by providing precise real-time progress and information on costs as projects
continue. For example, mobile technologies have come up with an application that stores and
provided progress reports, timesheet, plant utilization and materials management ( Lin, Cheung &
Siao, 2014)..
Ares that is Negative or challenging
Wastage of time and employees addiction with mobile connectivity is one of the area or
challenges faced by the construction industry in Australia. Furthermore, some issues of
complicating design of mobile technologies have seen employees’ waste time while they find out

the required commands. In relation to static elements, mobile technologies have facilitated to
inconveniences in diverse countries in Australia industry due to resource-poor in terms of power,
size and weight. This has discouraged employees from interacting with the mobile connectivity
devices which has resulted to poor performances. In addition, the transmission of data from
mobile communication has been venerable to security violation because of the transmission of
data through open space communication. The mobile technologies especially wireless
connectivity has to remain unpredictable in terms of performances and reliability. Generally, the
issues with mobile connectivity including limited energy sources have collectivity complicated
the design of mobile technology systems and resulted to wastage of time while employees tries
to engage with the devices.
Mobile technology has also experienced a significant challenge with location sensing
with the construction industry of Australia. On of location- sensing technology that has been
heavily criticized include Global Position System (GPS). Despite the GPS- based services
experiencing a high increase in consumer markets, challenges such as not functioning indoors
specifically places with steel-framed building and coverage of a few meters has made the
technology unreliable for communication over diverse construction sites.
Despite its growth, mobile technologies have lowered profits of the construction industry
in Australia due to its higher costs of purchasing, implementing and maintenance. For example,
the use of GPS as used in communication have requires coordinates relative to specific
objectives as compared to other technologies such as the Guidance system for robotic equipment
that has been known for using absolute systems. The specific mechanism requires GPD to
impose more costs and energy use.

Although there had been increasing in the growth of data communication technologies,
the emergence of communication technologies such as voice communication has been
significantly used in the construction industry of Australia. Furthermore, many vendors have
offered hardware that supports Wireless LAN technologies and IEEE 802.11. However, the issue
of frequency has significantly resulted in miscommunication and misunderstanding people
employees who work in the construction sites. Despite the workforce reducing employees in
other departments in the office, the workforce has significantly changed with more Information
Technology (IT) specialist being employed in construction companies to handle the issues of
frequencies. The additional IT specialist has been costly in terms of high salary demands and
significantly lowered the performance of companies. Furthermore, the mobile technologies
operating at higher frequency have had a great bandwidth but incurred high costs as a result of
very-high-scale integration (VLSI) design or major advances in frequency. Furthermore,
sometimes it becomes difficult to implement these advances as a result of policy decisions on
frequency usage which are implemented by the Australian Communication Commission. In
addition, frequency ranges have been associated with effective transmission power although the
technical challenges have remained with “high frequency consuming high power” according to
(Kwon, Park & Lim (2014).
Mobile computing (all technologies used in mobile technologies) has experienced
challenges when it comes to privacy and trust. Smart spaces are currently replacing location
tracking and imonitor systems that are used on a continuous basis. As users are getting more
familiar and using mobile technologies, they gain knowledge about habits, movement and
behaviour patterns. Unless the information used in these mobile technologies are strictly

controlled, employees can be unsafe from targeted spam to blackmail. This is in relation to a case
in America where a CEO was blackmailed through a phone voice call and end up releasing
Conclusion
In conclusion, the usage of current integrated mobile technologies and the Internet of Things
such as artificial intelligence technologies and learning machines in the construction industry has
brought changed and improvement within the industry. The technologies have brought a change
in a point that workers are actively participating in the electronic flow of information using
mobile technologies. Apart from the technologies improving the communication barriers and
connecting the industry to key stakeholders, the performances have been enhanced and the
number of accidents that were frequently experienced within the industry reduced significantly.
Although mobile technologies have brought a solution to some problems which existed in the
industry, it does not offer a potential of significant reduction of construction waste, time, defects,
time and even some extent of accidents.

References
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