Nouvelles technologies, juridiction des métiers et productivité sur les projets de construction québécois

Abstract

Compared to other industries, construction industry productivity is poor, especially because of its fragmentation. This fragmentation seems to be favored by rigid Quebec’s laws and regulations. The objective of this research is to study the impact of the legal framework of the Quebec construction industry on productivity and implementation of information and communication technologies (ICT). The construction industry lack of productivity is also due to its lack of collaboration among its players. This fragmentation can be softened by the use of ICT. By analyzing social networks, in order to study the specific constraints and incentives for the ICT implementation in Québec, we have analyzed interviews with construction stakeholders, but not precursors in ICT. Results have confirmed the barriers found in the literature (Fragmentation, lack of confidence, lack of skills, etc.). Nevertheless, results show a different cause than those found in the literature: the legal framework in Quebec. The trade jurisdictional assignment has involved a proliferation of subcontractors. In order to validate and quantify the impacts identified in the literature and to understand the dynamics generated by the significant number of subcontractors, we made observations on construction sites to develop a model of system dynamics. A graphical interface has been realized in order to provide a usable free model for readers. Results show that the trade jurisdictional assignment seems to increase the construction sites management and cause a decrease of productivity on average sized projects (5M $). However, these impacts seem more significant on smaller sized sites of a few weeks’ duration, as shown by the system dynamics model. Therefore, the Quebec construction industry legal framework seems to need to be adjusted in order to allow a better implementation of ICT and to improve the site productivity. Indeed, the responsibilities seem to have to be redefined, the laws and regulations on professionals and the trade jurisdictional assignment to be relaxed and the payment of the actors to be revised.

Date	22 Mar 2017
Original language	French
Awarding Institution	École de technologie supérieure
Supervisor	Gabriel Lefebvre (Supervisor) & Constantine J. Katsanis (Co-supervisor)