Determination of Behaviors in Building Product Information Acquisition for Developing a Building Product Information System in Turkey

Abstract

Recently, with the rapid development of information technology, old methods have been superseded by web-based building product information systems that speak the same language as the international building product manufacturers. The purpose of this paper is to emphasize the necessity of an environment that enables building product information sharing across today’s global world and that provides access to any kind of up-to-date and accurate building product information in the building production process. To achieve this purpose, two large-scale field surveys were conducted among the supply side and the demand side in the Turkish construction industry. According to the survey results, the demand side’s existing practices, desires, and expectations differ from the supply side’s existing methods and practices. The major differences are about the usage of web-based building product information systems and their desires and expectations from the characteristics of a web-based system. The field survey findings will help to determine the behaviors and perspectives of the supply side and the demand side on building product information to find out the problem areas in building product information acquisition, and to offer recommendations for a more rational process for building product selection. The survey findings will also be used to develop a web-based building product information system that will enable building product information sharing and introduce all the characteristics of the building products produced in Turkey to the international construction industry. This web-based system will not only enable global building information sharing, but also will provide an introductive tool for international companies planning to enter the Turkish construction industry. Furthermore, the findings of this study can be regarded as an alternative model for the other developing countries that need to develop a similar system to solve similar problems.