Opening Address by Mr. Noel Treacy T.D., Minister for Science, Technology and Commerce on Harnessing the Potential of Information Technology in the Construction Industry, DIT, Bolton Street, Friday, 19th November 1999 at 9a.m.

I want to sincerely thank the Dublin Institute of Technology for inviting me to address this very important conference on "Harnessing the Potential of Information Technology in the Construction Industry".

The importance of the construction industry to the Irish economy cannot be underplayed. It accounts for one fifth of GNP, with a value to our national economy of £10Bn per annum. It directly employs over 130,000 people, with a further 50,000 people employed in construction product manufacturing and supply. Overall one out of every 10 people in our workforce in Ireland is employed by the construction sector and this figure is constantly rising.

The output of the industry is growing at a rate which is unprecedented in the history of this State and is not matched elsewhere in the European Union. Irish output has doubled over the last 5 years, and it is expected to continue to grow by 10% each year. Indeed, the emphasis given to infrastructural development in the recently published National Development Plan will further fuel the growth of this sector, whose output is already significantly bigger than that of the agricultural and tourism sectors.

I mention these statistics today to illustrate the important direct impact which the construction sector has on our economy as a whole and I am sure that the audience here today needs little convincing of this very important fact.

However, as the Minister with responsibility for the development of science and technology, and in keeping with the theme of your conference, I would like to speak to you today about the role that the construction sector plays in Ireland's international competitiveness, along with the role that information technology, can play in the evolution of the construction industry.

The construction industry designs, produces, and maintains the railways, roads, ports, airports and the built infrastructure, in all parts of our Country. These services are the lifeblood of our national economy. As construction costs affect the overheads of other industrial and commercial activities, better construction productivity and efficiency can improve our international competitiveness.

While many people would not immediately classify the construction sector as a high tech industry, in reality construction is innovative in its design, manufacturing and construction processes. It is a significant user and adapter of an extensive range of technologies also. In fact technology and construction have always progressed together. From megaliths, through crannogs, to the most modern production facilities for electronic chip fabrication, they are inseparable partners in continuous progress and evolution.

This inter-relationship was the reason construction and infrastructure was one of eight sectors selected by us for analysis during the recently completed Technology Foresight Initiative.

The aim of this Initiative, which I asked the Irish Council for Science, Technology and Innovation to undertake last year, was to examine the longer term opportunities and challenges for Ireland arising from technological growth and change and to make recommendations about the actions which Ireland needs to take now to ensure that we are ready to exploit future growth opportunities.

The National Council's Report of this analysis into the construction industry was published earlier this year. Its key finding was that failure to advance the technological development of the sector would adversely affect its ability to maintain its contribution to our national economy, to compete in the developing European and global construction environment and to provide and sustain the physical environment which we urgently need between now and 2,015.

The Report made a number of recommendations, addressed to Government and to the industry itself, touching on matters ranging from optimising advances in materials and manufacturing technologies, to improving the construction sector's contribution to sustainable development. It further recommended that customised and integrated information technology should be introduced throughout the construction process.

Information technology has revolutionised all industry sectors, in a variety of ways. In the case of the construction industry, it can assist in tasks ranging from estimating, construction programming, financial accounting to computer aided draughting and design.

The benefits of IT's use in this sector were illustrated by the management writer, Mr. Peter Drucker, who pointed out that while in the past drawing the plans for a major building, such as a hospital, formerly took twenty-five highly skilled draftsmen up to fifty days, to-day one draftsman working with a customised computer program can do the same job in a couple of days, at a tiny fraction of the cost.

Another use of IT that will be beneficial to this sector in the future will be electronic tendering, now in its infancy, whereby tender documentation can be issued on diskette or CD-ROM and tenders can then be submitted on diskette, CD-ROM or via e-mail.

Of course, information technology is already quite extensively used in the larger construction firms, who are exploiting the exciting opportunities driven in recent times by developments in the application of this technology.

In the future, IT will become more widely used by both medium and small contractors. It is vital that this happens if smaller companies are to remain competitive in this increasingly E-commerce driven environment which is being facilitated by the emergence of the internet as a major world-wide distribution channel for goods and services.

E-commerce is changing customer expectations and behaviour. It will bring about a new economy, which I am convinced will rapidly become the only economy. The speed of change necessary to succeed is accelerating, and the question which we need to focus on to ensure success is "how do we use the information and communications technologies to drive increased value to the client?"

This reframing of the enterprise in terms of the new realities is the essential role of the entrepreneur in any sector and it calls for innovative thinking.

Your Conference here today can only contribute to achieving the transformations required for the construction sector.

In closing, I would like to congratulate the organisers on the range of topics and the quality of the speakers which you have lined up for today's conference and I look forward to the results of both theirs and your deliberations.