Antonio Grilo  
Antonio Grilo is a management and information systems consultant at Fordesi, a Portuguese-based firm. He graduated as a civil engineer at the Instituto Superior Tecnico in Lisbon, and completed a MSc in IT and a PhD in electronic trading in the construction industry, at the University of Salford, UK. Within Fordesi, and in collaboration with Portuguese universities, his current research area is the development of electronic commerce (EC) solutions for Portuguese firms, particularly in the "one-of-a-kind" production industrial sectors, like the construction/building industry and the ship repair/building industry. As a management consultant, his work focus in the improvement of firms' business processes (reengineering, quality assurance), supply chain management, and the real-world implementation of some of EC solutions developed on R&D projects.
Abstract

Electronic Trade in the Construction Sector : Problems and Solutions

Electronic Trading concerns the electronic exchange of information between independent firms. By increasing the timeliness, accuracy, and accessibility of information, it can contribute to enhance considerably the efficiency of coordination mechanisms of inter-firm interdependencies.

Due to the particular nature of the organization, processes, and structure of construction, there is considerable scope for a large-scale development and dissemination of electronic trading between construction parties, i.e. clients, architects, engineers, contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, etc.

Successful cases of the implementation of electronic trading between construction firms do exist but are, as yet, not as common as construction researchers' and practitioners' interest on the subject would suggest.

This paper will address the problems of electronic communications in paper-based world of construction as we know it today, and describe what are some of the potential solutions. It is argued that in spite the importance of the technology itself, electronic exchange of information between architects, engineers, contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, etc. is also influenced i) by business and IT strategies; ii) by their organizational and IT infrastructures; iii) by individual business relationships between architects, engineers, contractors, subcontractors, suppliers; but also iv) by the network characteristics which emerge from the web of interdependencies between the parties.

It will be concluded that the evolution to a construction environment in which electronic trading is dominant requires not only the application of recently-developed technology but also the 'creation' of different types of relationships, strategies, organization, infrastructures and interdependencies.