http://fiatech.org/active-projects/58-user-acceptance-of-mobile-it-element-8

User Acceptance of Mobile IT - Roadmap Element 8 Last Updated Wednesday, 21 July 2010 15:54

Overview End user acceptance of technology has been identified within COMIT and FIATECH as a critical factor affecting the success and failure of mobile IT projects. Despite increasing awareness of the business benefits, the construction industry still lags behind other industries with respect to realizing the full commercial potential of mobile IT. An identified problem is the fragmented and dynamic nature of the supply chain within construction projects leading to transient work teams and barriers to cultural change. This project will use a case study approach to analyze the adoption and diffusion (or lack thereof) of innovative mobile IT within the construction industry.

The project will identify the key barriers and enablers involved in the process of mobile IT being introduced successfully within the industry, and used by ‘point of activity’ workers. These barriers and enablers will relate to user, technology, process and organisational issues. A detailed case study analysis will enable both key success factors, and potential barriers to be identified, for each case study.

Project Contacts FIATECH Project Manager: Neill Pawsey, +011-44-1787-269084 or pawsey@fiatech.org

Lead Researcher: Dr Andrew May, +011-44-1509-226906 or a.j.may@lboro.ac.uk

Challenge Increase success rate for expensive IT projects.

Provide direct business benefit through improved processes.

Increase organizational learning.

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User Acceptance of Mobile IT - Roadmap Element 8 Last Updated Wednesday, 21 July 2010 15:54

Retain skilled staff through increased skills training.

Attract high calibre staff to the industry to address skills shortages.

Benefits The result of this work will increase the success rate for expensive IT projects. The project will provide direct business benefit through improved processes, increased organizational learning, retained skilled staff through increased skills training and attracting a high caliber staff to the industry to address skills shortages.

Project Participants Construction Opportunities for Mobile IT (COMIT)

Collaborating Organizations - Andrew May and Val Mitchell, Ergonomics and Safety Research Institute, Loughborough University, UK

Project Status

End user acceptance of technology has been identified by both FIATECHÂ and COMIT as a critical factor affecting the success and failure of mobile IT projects. Both organizations are seeking to better understand how to effectively overcome user-centered barriers to successfully implementing technology related to usability, training and change management.

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User Acceptance of Mobile IT - Roadmap Element 8 Last Updated Wednesday, 21 July 2010 15:54

Back in 2007, as part of this learning process, FIATECH asked the COMIT organization, based in the UK, to pull together knowledge relating to end user acceptance of mobile IT contained within existing COMIT case studies, and other related work. This project has three phases.

This report was presented to FIATECH members in the fall of 2007. It comprised a summary of ‘lessons learned’ in relation to introducing mobile IT to the UK construction industry. The document outlined, via a series of action points, the main lessons that have been learned from experiences within COMIT and other related work.

The report was well received and FIATECH has extended this research further and provided funds to enable COMIT to continue work in this area.

The next phase is to validate the earlier research by asking you to participate in an online survey. We would be very grateful if you would take 5-10 minutes of your time to complete it.

All data will be stored according to relevent Data Protection Laws. We need information on you and your job in order to analyse the results, however no individuals will be personally identified as a result of completing this survey. If you enter the prize draw, then we obviously need your contact details! However you will only be contacted if you state this is OK, and your personal details, including email address will not be passed on to third parties.

The survey can be accessed via the following link at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?s m=VVO4Q3hVRKfVh068jFA9KA_3d_3d

Project Deliverables A detailed analysis of case studies to result in best practice guides that can be used directly by the construction industry.

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