Introduction Traditionally, the construction industry has been faced with the problems of meeting project schedule, budget,

and specifications set by the owner and architect/engineer. The proper utilization of internal and external resources is essential if construction companies are to make the best business decisions, maximize business goals, and survive in the competitive environment. Although the construction industry is one of the largest contributors to the economy, it is considered to be one of the most highly fragmented, inefficient, and geographically dispersed industries. To overcome this inefficiency, a number of solutions have long been offered including adaptation of information technology (IT) and information systems (IS). Recently, major construction companies embarked on the implementation of integrated IT solutions such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems to better integrate their various business functions, particularly those related to accounting procedures and practices. However, implementing these integrated systems in the construction industry presents a set of unique challenges, different from those in the manufacturing or other service sectors. In general, the best way to achieve the full benefits from ERP systems is to make minimal changes to the software. Each construction project is characterized by a unique set of site conditions, project team, and the temporary nature of relationships between project stakeholders. As a result, construction companies are required to have extensive customization of pre integrated business applications from the vendors of ERP systems. Unfortunately, such extensive customizations result in a greater challenge in implementing ERP systems. Therefore, finding the best ERP systems implementation strategy is needed to maximize the benefits of such integrated IT solutions for construction companies. ERP SYSTEMS: Initially an ERP system was a manufacturing resource and a requirements planning system (MRP). However, these systems evolved along different paths during the late 1990s. Internet helped companies implement software globally in a distributed fashion. These systems are focused on a single business site implementation, but with progressing globalization, low networking, and hardware costs and meta-national advantages of global resources, global corporations deployed ERP systems as solution of choice. Reviewing the current product

offering, the technology framework of ERP systems has changed to take advantage of the internet based architecture. ERP systems can integrate many work processes for streamlined operations. ERP systems can also integrate the entire global operations and provide data required to make business decisions across an organization from one central location. However, as prior research indicated ERP systems have their own limitations, addressing only a part of full business cycle of a corporation ERP implementation requires executive management support in order to ensure that reengineering of current business process to adapt to the ERP system requirements. Business processes not covered by the ERP of choice can be integrated with other third party products with additional consulting or development efforts. These integration or extensions are costly and subject to software upgrade issues. ERP-enablers changed traditional business processes to ERP supported business processes .ERP systems, for this reason, are often viewed as strategic enablers to help productivity and to use it as part of performance indicator information processing life cycle Conversion of Data to Information Enterprises are paid to create wealth, not to control costs. Information provides an understanding of the current business environment, both internal and external. Researchers and executives therefore started to appreciate information as a tool, spending millions of dollars in systems installation and upgrades, to automate back offices and extending its system footprint. Companies attempted to snatch data in every conceivable way within existing business processes. ERP systems are viewed as strategic partners, so that data can be collected from all phases of its existing business process in a cohesive manner. Executives view data as information and used that information in the decision making process.

Project Management Success Factors for ERP Implementation A construction project varies from one context to another depending on determinants including complexity, duration, budget, and quality. In ERP projects, the complexity depends

on the project scope that includes the number of business functions affected and the extent to which ERP systems implementation changes business processes. ERP projects achieving real transformation usually are from 1 to 3 years in duration. Resources required include hardware, software, consulting, training, and internal staff, with estimates of their cost ranging from $0.4 million to $300 million, with an average of about $15 million .Therefore, by viewing ERP implementation as a large project in general, we should consider the fundamentals of project management for achieving the success of ERP implementation. Researchers have developed sets of fundamental project success factors that can significantly improve project implementation chances. Other researchers have identified the best practices and risks related to IS projects such as ERP implementation. Finland, and the U.S. Ferratt et al. (2006) grouped the best practice questions forming four success factors for ERP implementation as follows: 1. Top-management support, planning, training, and team contributions; 2. Software-selection efforts; 3. Information systems area participation; and 4. Consulting capability and support.

ERP software has recently become the fastest growing segment of the application software business with expected worldwide revenues of approximately around $31 billion in 2006. This amount corresponds to over $70 billion when customer relationship management (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM) software are included. Initial ERP implementations were focused on financial business processes only and later extended to SCM, CRM, and human resource management (HRM) business processes.

Despite significant growth in ERP implementations, recent surveys indicate that performance improvement is not significant for ERP adopters compared to non-ERP adopters, either at the business process level, or at the overall firm level due to lack of integration between finance, SCM, and HRM modules

Key Performance Indicators: KPIs are the performance measures critical to an organizations core business and continued success. Various gaps have been identified between knowledge and practice in the performance measurement framework for the construction industry.

To develop a unified framework, the following three elements are merged, namely: ERP implementation, knowledge management metrics using KPIs for corporate performance measures, and application of ERP in the construction industry.. ERP systems are the most dominant player in the applications market segment for automating back office system of corporations and construction industry is the largest segment for project-based industries. KPIs provide standardized information framework. Knowledge and time are two important aspects of information. All KPIs should impact a business decision in some time scale, depending on the window of time available. That makes the decision process difficult and different from the decisions made under no time constraint. Discussed is an example of time-sensitive KPIs in the following section. Corporations also use indicators that are more strategic in nature, e.g., days sales outstanding, lost dollars due to use of non-optimized payment terms, or inventory position which are collected as part of standard business process as strategic indicators of the business. Companies looking for analytics need to focus on the area that creates the greatest competitive advantage . Therefore, organizations should identify areas of business processes that are most critical to the financial success of the organization. Based on the above mentioned sensitivities of information, firms should focus resources to maximize the benefits of the existing system. KPIs can also be further subdivided into two types: 1.Time related KPIs 2.Knowledge related KPIs Hard time-related and soft time-related KPIs Knowledge-Sensitive KPIs Nontime-sensitive KPIs can be classified as knowledge-sensitive KPIs which impact a business process, strategy, or status in the long-term. It is defined that knowledge-sensitive KPIs as those KPIs that shape long-term business strategies.

Studies to be conducted on: 1. Various available ERP systems in the market. 2. Systems used in various companies and their implementation process. 3. Case study of a Construction Firm and its Implementation of ERP systems. 4. Studying the various variables by a survey in the Companies. A total of seven user-related variables are to considered . They are output quality, job relevance, image, and result demonstrability, with compatibility, system reliability, and reporting capability to extracted from interviews with industry experts. Then Success Indicators to be studied are User Satisfaction Individual Impact Organizational Impact Project Success

Key Performance Indicators for Construction Firms to studied are 1. Construction cost 2. Construction Time 3. Predictability 4. Defects 5. Client Satisfaction 6. Safety 7. Product and profitability References: 1.Developing ERP Systems Success Model for the Construction Industry BooYoung Chung; Mirosaw J. Skibniewski; and Young Hoon Kwak JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT ASCE / MARCH 2009 2. Determination of Key Performance Indicators with Enterprise Resource Planning Systems in Engineering Construction Firms Mirosaw J. Skibniewski and Saumyendu Ghosh JOURNAL OF CONSTRUCTION ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT

ASCE / OCTOBER 2009 http://pubs.asce.org/copyright