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Infrastructure development is considered a key facilitator for achieving economic growth in developing countries and has a direct impact on the growth and overall development of an economy. However, meeting the significant infrastructure investment needs will require greater involvement of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the forms of transactional companies (TNCs) and multinational companies (MNCs). \ud \ud There are however a number of factors (external and internal) that affect the flow of FDI to developing countries. External factors include political, social and economic stability, market size, business conditions, etc. Internal factors are mainly related to the quality of the government institutions of the host country which is reflected by their level of transparency, bureaucracy and corruption. These institutional factors have a significant impact on the level of FDI inflows to developing countries. Such factors are a result of, rather than a cause for, an underdeveloped institutional framework. \ud \ud In Iraq, development of infrastructure is conducted as part of the government procurement by the public sector organisations. The World Bank ranked Iraq 156 out of 189 countries in its 2015 overall “ease of doing business” category. Transparency International ranked Iraq 170 out of 175 in its 2014 Corruption Perception Index. There are number of business excellence models such as EFQM, PDCA and Baldrige, which can improve the current performance of organisations. However, this approach is a lengthy one and the implementation of which can jeopardise any improvement due to the lack of quick wins. Thus, this paper suggests that “Disruptive Innovations” can be a viable approach for improving the quality of Iraq government organisations in the shortest period possible and with less resistance to change. Such an approach can help achieve the commitment of top management to engage in a large scale public sector reform programme.

In 2013, the World Bank ranked Iraq 165 out of 185 countries in its overall “ease of doing business” category. Transparency International ranked Iraq 169 out of 176 in its 2012 Corruption Perception Index (BEBA, 2013). This reflects the poor performance of the public sector organisations responsible for the delivery of the various services in Iraq. By looking at the literature, it is clear that organisational culture and leadership have a significant impact on the performance of organisations. Thus, this makes them important factors that need to be taken into consideration when reforming public sector performance in the developing world. However, there has not been any research that discusses this relationship from the context of the public sector in Iraq. Therefore, this paper aims at expanding the base of knowledge and empirically tests the impact of leadership, people and organisational culture on a public sector organisation’s performance in Iraq. \ud \ud The study has used a public service “Practices & Performance” Benchmarking tool called PROBE, which stands for PROmoting Business Excellence, to assess the current organisational leadership and people practices of a government organisation and has benchmarked them to best practices of world-class organisations. Interviews have also been conducted, first with the staff members to gain consensus on the assessment results. Then the organisation’s customers (who are mainly contractors) have also been interviewed to understand their level of satisfaction with the current practices of the organisation. The result derived from the interviews accord with the results generated by the PROBE tool. The assessment result has showed how poor leadership and people practices have led to a weak overall organisational performance. This result supports previous studies and confirms the impact of organisational culture, people and leadership on the performance of organisations.

Construction clients’/owners’ demand is currently being recognised as a significant motivation and drive for the construction industry to begin to transform and adopt Building Information Modelling (BIM). In addition, clients can stimulate the innovation to achieve crucial benefits from BIM. However, the implementation of BIM is prevented from being more widely accepted across the construction industry by client fears and a lack of the full understanding of the benefits of BIM, as well as the requirements needed to realise these benefits. Therefore, it is important for client organisations to develop the required competencies that support the BIM implementation process and help to achieve the desired benefits of BIM. Accordingly, the purpose of this paper is to identify the critical success competencies that facilitate clients to fulfil their roles in the BIM implementation process. Multiple holistic case studies were used as the research strategy and semi-structured interviews were employed as the principal data collection technique. Code-based content analysis and cognitive mapping were used to analyse the verbatim interview transcripts. The data analysis process was facilitated by the computer-aided software, Nvivo. Several types of competencies are identified as critical success factors that enable client organisations to lead the BIM implementation process and increase the efficiency in BIM uses within the UK. In addition, it is concluded that by adopting these competencies, client organisations can enhance their Employer Information Requirements (EIR) and improve their ability to validate the outcome BIM models. These developments will increase client opportunities to meet their desired benefits. This paper provides a contribution to the body of knowledge by identifying BIM organisational maturity competencies for UK clients and their roles in the BIM implementation process, together with establishing the relationship between them. This will enhance the importance of the BIM maturity competencies within the BIM implementation from a clients’ perspective. In addition, it will facilitate client organisations evaluating their ability to fulfil their roles through assessing the related competencies.

The management of the construction projects is exponentially increasing in complexity since it has to deal with highly fragmented, complex and unique combinations of business relations, communications and processes. Each phase in the construction cycle requires effective communication of information/knowledge as well as coordination among project participants and stakeholders, thus leading to timing and technical content transfer\ud enhancements and/or problems. Recent advances in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) are considered essential and promising in improving sharing/exchange of project information as well as communication among construction industry stakeholders\ud whilst reducing associated costs and time.\ud One facet of such advances in ICT is evident from the proactive indulgement of the construction supply chain in collaborative extranets. In parallel, the construction industry has recognized the importance of sharing and exchanging project information across the supply chain through project integrated databases. However, such advancements in the ICT utilisation in construction industry were unable to develop a system that exchanges/shares project information, at the element level, over a well defined matrix of communication that can also integrate into the business processes of the members of the supply chain.\ud This research will discuss the features, limitation and nature of the process and information models which can be integrated into the core business processes of the construction supply chain members. This is basically achieved by investigating the communication processes and\ud information exchanged across the supply chain during the construction tendering stage and the available process and information modelling techniques.\ud The objective of this research is to highlight the need to bridge the gap created by the level of satisfaction provided by ICT applications through the development of an augmented process model which will enable integrated databases to support collaborative extranets at the tender stage. This will be developed after validating the models with real world case studies.\ud The overall findings revealed that the current construction tender processes under the traditional procurement scenario suffer from key problems and impediments, and improvements are needed. Many specific reasons have been identified and grouped together as underpinning causes of the present problems and impediments.\ud The system architecture developed in this research based on the augmented process model will address and alleviate many of the problems and impediments identified, will improve\ud the current practices in the construction tender stage under the traditional procurement scenario, will foster greater adoption of ICT applications in CI, will provide a modular research unit to be applied in similar research and will provide recommendation for the successful development and implementation of the related ICT application.

The lack of a buildability evaluation at the design stage coupled with the\ud separation of the design and construction processes have been acknowledged to\ud cause buildability problems on site. Normally, designers view of their task, is to\ud develop a masterpiece which satisfies the functional requirements of a project\ud while constructors consider their task as construction works, which need to be\ud completed at the lowest price. No significant efforts have been made to bring the\ud design and construction processes together to facilitate the integration of\ud information for the improvement of the overall project performance.\ud This study proposes an integrated framework for construction planning which is\ud capable of exchanging information with other construction disciplines and\ud generating planning information in an integrated construction environment.\ud Planning data and processes were first modelled using object oriented analysis\ud methodology, i.e. Martin (1993), where the emphasis was placed on both the data\ud and its behaviour. This development was carried out within a general integrated\ud framework which facilitates the integration between the various construction\ud application across the project life cycle. The developed models highlight the\ud importance and the role of the planning process which is vital in providing\ud relevant information to other disciplines.\ud Moreover, the study proposes a quantitative approach for a buildability\ud evaluation based on the information available within the integrated environment.\ud It evaluates the design solutions from the construction view, as outlined in the construction plan. The qualitative principles of buildability improvements were\ud adopted to formalise this approach. A combination of weightings and scores\ud were assigned to building elements to reflect their buildability factors.\ud The developed data and process models, were implemented in an object oriented\ud environment as part of a single integrated construction environment SPACE\ud (Simultaneous Prototyping for An Integrated Construction Environment) where\ud CONPLAN (Intelligent CONstruction PLANning for design rationalisation) is\ud one of the SPACE modules. CONPLAN automatically generates the\ud construction planning information and the buildability reports. The former can\ud be dynamically accessed either through a planning package or visualised in a\ud virtual space using a virtual reality package. The buildability reports can be\ud either displayed in a textual or graphical format.

In today's economic climate, competitive advantage can be achieved by focusing on\ud issues such as providing high quality services and products with minimal cost, having\ud the flexibility to predict and respond to market needs, or through the efficient\ud management of resources. With unprecedented levels of technological change now\ud increasingly being used as a means through which competitive advantage can be\ud leveraged. However, investments in IT-based business systems have not realised their\ud full potential, and the worldwide cost of IT failure could account to US$6.2 trillion\ud per year; and failure stories were reported by Alshawi, Burns, Business Wire and\ud Krigsman. The unavailability of a suitable measurement, assessment or benchmark to\ud measure and identify the organisation's readiness to adopt IT for the construction\ud industry does not help.\ud This research takes the position of e-readiness 'as a measure of the degree to which an\ud organisation may be ready, prepared or willing to obtain benefits which arise from the\ud digital economy'. To shape the framework, literature reviews and a scoping study\ud questionnaire were used in this research investigation for the discovery and building\ud of this framework. This led to the discovery of key indicators (KI) as identified by\ud industry experts. Three case studies were put in place for data collection and the\ud development of the framework - resulting to the discovery of five KIs and twentyfive\ud sub-key factors (SKI). To help organisations to implement the framework, a\ud scoring system and sample cases were proposed in the Final Framework - which was\ud validated by academic and industry experts. The resulting ERiC framework provides\ud an original solution to assessing the e-readiness of organisations to adopt IT.\ud The ERiC framework entails leadership and empowerment, business and information\ud process, IT sharability/interoperability, change management, and\ud policy/strategy/vision as the KI. The leadership and Empowerment KI describes the\ud IT vision, involvement, inspiration, integrity and improvement as its SKIs; while the business and information process KI lists standardisation, automation, availability,\ud integration and interchange as SKIs. Uptake, standards, availability, skills and legal\ud framework are SKIs for the IT sharability/interoperability KI; while the change\ud management KI consist of strategic framework, implementation, executive\ud sponsorship, business practices and communication as SKIs. The\ud policy/strategy/vision KI has collaboration, identification, dissemination,\ud empowerment and future technologies as SKIs.\ud In the attempt to assist organisation to be e-ready, each SKI is redefined into a 5-level\ud maturity-styled statements and sample cases. Each case is related to construction and\ud IT applications. The proposed scoring system has the flexibility to implement\ud weightings to selected KIs - this will enable users the ability to prioritise factors as\ud required by the organisation. The framework will provide an overall e-readiness score\ud of the organisation and identify gaps in the key indicators and sub-key indicators.

Construction is a process, which involves diverse parties having different\ud professional skills and interest. At present, the co-operation and information exchange\ud between parties involved in any construction has not yet been attained. During a project\ud life cycle, the amount of information generated and exchanged is enormous even for a\ud small-size construction project. Current process of managing information flow in\ud construction still lags behind other industries such as manufacturing.\ud In the era of information age, information technology (IT) becomes a vital tool for\ud managing information. It allows a user/manager to store and retrieve information\ud easily, quickly, produce complete and accurate response, and be better informed of the\ud relevant issues. However, the progress of IT in the construction industry relies on the\ud ability of the project participants to exchange and share information among themselves.\ud Inevitably, there is a need for common standards and approaches due to the lack of\ud compatibility of the information exchange.\ud The complexity and vast amount of information involved in any construction\ud project and the lack of standards have made the process of producing an integrated\ud environment very difficult. A framework for establishing an Integrated Construction\ud Environment (ICE) has been proposed with the aim of co-ordinating the integration\ud process between the various construction applications. SPACE (Simultaneous\ud Prototyping in An integrated Construction Environment) has been developed which\ud aims to integrate design and construction throughout the project's life cycle via a single\ud database. The implementation of this framework has led to the development of a modularised\ud central core whereby each application has its own data module. CAPE (Construction\ud Application Protocol for data transfEr) is a design application, which has been\ud developed as part of data module in SPACE. It represents a building elements data\ud module and the object interpreter engine. It aims is to improve the flow of information\ud between project's participants, particularly those related to the design stage.\ud The development of CAPE data module has resulted in the implementation of a\ud system, which capture most of the design elements in CAD (AutoCAD/AEC Tm), the\ud study of their properties such as co-ordination and dimension and populates it into the\ud object-oriented database systems to serve other application modules in the project\ud model, i.e. SPACE. CAPE data module also provides several benefits. It provides\ud essential support for the integration of design and construction, a generic set of building\ud element classes, defines building elements with the necessary information at run-time,\ud and a dynamic and an independent environment for all graphical packages such as\ud CAD and YR.

At the present time, the global business environment in all industries is characterised by \ud organizational dependence based on information, knowledge and communication technology. \ud This reliance on information technology raised concerns about how to gain the targeted benefit of \ud IT investment. This research study aims to address the issues affecting information technology \ud implementation. The study focuses more on investigating the context of IT implementation \ud processes, in particular within the construction industry in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, this study \ud will provide an exploratory look at the possible gaps and problems that relate to IT \ud implementation in construction companies. More specifically, this study examines several \ud important issues that play a role in the implementation of IT: issues related to planning for the \ud implementation such as the availability and allocation of resources, change management and \ud organizational issues, alignment of IT with business, the need for an IT implementation strategy \ud and the specific problems for a construction company's executives with regard to IT \ud implementation. Investigating each of these issues is essential in developing a comprehensive \ud understanding of the problems associated with the planning, adoption, and implementation of IT \ud in construction companies. These issues set the foundations for the future development of an IT \ud implementation framework for construction companies.\ud To achieve the research aim and objectives, different methodologies have been applied in order to \ud develop a framework for the successful implementation of IT. In addition to the in-depth review \ud of the related literature, quantitative and qualitative research methods were used to answer the \ud research questions. Quantitative research methods were applied to develop an exploratory study, \ud investigating the factors and gaps that may affect business executives' thinking towards IT and its \ud role in organizational performance. The exploratory study was conducted in 38 private \ud organizations that have experience of implementing information technology. In addition, \ud qualitative research methods were used to develop four detailed case studies to investigate Saudi \ud construction organizations' experiences of implementing and applying IT and the possible factors\ud viiiand difficulties that affected the achievement of its expected benefits. Individual and cross-case \ud analyses were used to analyze the collected data in order to develop the research framework and \ud to address the research questions.\ud More than forty factors and difficulties were identified as critical issues that affected construction \ud organizations' implementation of IT. These identified factors and difficulties have been placed \ud into five different categories that reflect the main elements of the developed framework: \ud organization readiness, resources, change management, IT alignment with business, and IT \ud implementation strategy. In addition, the research has also identified difficulties and issues related \ud to the company's policies toward changes, financial capabilities and the company's visions \ud toward IT implementation. Moreover, issues related to the Saudi business environment and \ud cultures were found to be critical to the implementation of IT. The analysis of these factors \ud demonstrated the importance of the five elements and their role in achieving the successful \ud implementation of IT in Saudi construction industry, and the analysis of the five elements was the \ud main contributor to the development of the framework. However, it is argued that understanding \ud these elements is essential when making IT decisions.

The design, construction and commissioning of construction projects have been repeatedly mentioned as fragmented and inefficient. Much of the waste that is generated throughout the lifecycle of a building is mainly related to project stakeholders not having access to information that others have created. Most recently, there has been a focus on creating and reusing digital project information, throughout the lifecycle, to facilitate the exchange of information, which includes Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Integrated Project Delivery (IPD). The “low hanging fruit” advantage of BIM models is based on the production of coordinated and clash- free designs along which provide the ability to visualise building information in 3D. However, greater benefits can be achieved if organisations embrace BIM development into their work practices that can lead to higher levels of collaboration between project stakeholders. This can only be achieved through client-led initiatives, supported by clear and effective management tools, to manage change throughout the design and construction process.\ud The aim of this research is to develop a process protocol for the successful implementation of IPD in client organisations using BIM as the main vehicle to control and manage the integration process. The research focuses on the identification of high level processes and their inter-relationships, which could provide guidance to client organisations on how to implement and manage IPD effectively.\ud Three multi-storey buildings, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), were selected as case studies. The first case was used as an exploratory study to validate the suitability of the proposed process protocol for the UAE’s local experiences and conditions, which has suffered from long delays and high cost overrun. As a “control case”, the study aimed to discover and investigate the real reasons behind the delays, their causes and how they could have been addressed adequately if BIM and IPD had been adopted. Case studies two and three involved on-going projects that implemented BIM from the early stages of the design phases but with different level of collaboration among the project stakeholders and were selected to ensure that the proposed process protocol is effective and can be implemented at different levels of collaboration, particularly in competitive tendering environments. Questionnaires were developed and semi-structured interviews were conducted with the client’s representatives, consultants and contractors focused on validating the various components of the process protocol throughout a project’s lifecycle.\ud The study shows that there is a lack of collaborative environment between various project stakeholders. Although the use of BIM has proven to be an effective tool, the success of collaboration can only be achieved with strong client leadership, trust and shared risk and rewards. However, local culture and contractual frameworks were found to be a major hurdle in achieving this aim. Client’s Legal Department can create and approve new type of contracts with the assistance of specially created BIM Office and Project Department. Client can take the driving seat by setting up a client committee to continuously review and monitor the project progress and to ensure that the proposed client’s requirements, plans and BIM strategy are accommodated in the project brief. With the presence of BIM, identifying BIM capabilities at early stage of the project are very important where the existence BIM management services were found to add a significant value to the successful implementation of BIM/IPD. Based on the University of Salford’s process protocol, this research produced a seven-phase process protocol, starting from strategy setting to operation (FM), to help client organisations to successfully adopt BIM/IPD. The process protocol is found to be the easiest tool, among others, to communicate the various roles and responsibilities to project stakeholders and ensures a strong client leadership is exercised throughout the design and construction process.

The high percentage of IT/IS projects failure has led to a wide investigation efforts.\ud Several studies have revealed that new or indeed major changes in IT/IS projects are\ud affecting people, processes, organisational structures and current IT infrastructure.\ud The hardest thing when dealing with such issues lies in changing people and business\ud processes which are better known as 'soft issue'. The resistance to change might\ud occurred due to lack of creating a sense of need and urgency for change among the\ud employee and consequently might lead to the IT/IS project failure. The inability to\ud assess organisational readiness to successfully embrace new systems into their work\ud environments may result in wasting time and resources by dealing with the resistance\ud to change or even worse may lead to IT/IS failure.\ud The majority of current IT/IS evaluation approaches are mainly a product oriented and\ud post-investment measures which don't address organisational readiness prior to IT/IS\ud investment. This PhD study has developed a holistic model to measure the capability\ud organisations to 'successfully' implement IT by measuring their readiness status to\ud implement new IT/IS systems, prior to IT/IS investment. The model is capable of\ud assessing; a) the organisational current readiness status in terms of four main\ud elements; people, process, work environment and IT infrastructure, and b) the target\ud readiness status which is required for a successful implementation of a particular\ud IS/IT project. The idea is to provide managers with measurement tools to enable them\ud to identify where improvements are required within their organisations prior to IT/IS\ud investment. It is anticipate that this model will significantly contribute to the IT/IS\ud field by adding a new dimension to IT/IS evaluation which will shift the focus\ud towards the "soft issues" (organisational factors) rather than the systems themselves.\ud Three organisations were participated in the validation process of this model and\ud subsequently a set of questionnaire has been sent to the 250 organisations within the\ud construction sector to measure the statistical influence of different components of the\ud model.

Knowledge management (KM) is an emerging discipline that promises to\ud capitalize on organizations intellectual capital. KM refers to the process of\ud managing the life-cycle of knowledge relevant to areas that are mission critical\ud to the organization. This includes efforts to capture, store, and deploy\ud knowledge using a combination of information technology and business\ud processes. In recent years, KM has become a critical subject of discussion in\ud the business literature. Both business and academic communities believe that\ud by leveraging knowledge, an organization can sustain its long-term competitive\ud advantage. Approaches to KM varied form emphasizing the capabilities of\ud information and communication technologies to the focus on social systems\ud such as employee training and motivation. \ud Engineering organizations led the way in KM initiatives realizing the potential of\ud successful KM implementation in decreasing production time and cost,\ud increasing quality, making better decisions as well as improve organizations'\ud performance and provide a competitive advantage. Although some engineering\ud organizations reported early KM success, other organizations have tried and\ud failed to implement KM. These failures have been linked to the lack of a\ud generally accepted framework and methodology to guide successful\ud implementation of KM in organizations. \ud This primary aim of this research is to produce a model for a successful\ud implementation of KM in engineering organizations which integrates the various approaches and key factors to implementing KM. The study has produced a\ud model which provides a framework that identifies the different types of\ud knowledge available in engineering organizations, the KM life-cycle which is\ud needed to manage this knowledge, and the key factors that facilitate this\ud process. The model also provides management with guidance for implementing\ud KM in their organizations.\ud In order to achieve the aims and objectives of this research, a triangulation nonexperimental\ud approach is adopted using qualitative in-depth case study with\ud triangulation of data collection methods that uses observation, structured\ud interviews, unstructured interviews, historical data collection, and document\ud review. This is followed by a quantitative approach with the use of a\ud questionnaire to further validate and generalize the proposed KM model. In\ud building the KM model a thorough review of previous related literature from\ud different disciplines was conducted. The literature reviewed included various\ud issues relating to KM, such as KM approaches, perspectives, frameworks, and\ud methodologies as well as strategic planning, human resources, instructional\ud design theories, organizational learning, information technology, etc.

This research explores the nature of tendering procurement process within the public construction sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In the first instance an outline of\ud the general characteristics of the environment in which construction projects take place in the KSA is stipulated. In addition, an overview of the makeup and structure of the\ud KSA government is stated.\ud Utilising "Process Thinking" and IT tools as well as the previous research, a comprehensive analysis of the processes inherent in the tendering stage was conducted,\ud right from its inception phase to completion and explores the established practices observed during these processes in order to identify the inherent problems and impediments that affect such projects. From the previous analysis, a model of the current process practice is robustly analysed and documented. Thereafter, the core of the research focuses on the three case studies which were investigated to shed light on the covert as well as overt problems inherent in the tender process. The findings from the\ud case studies were generalised by the findings of the Questionnaire.\ud The overall findings revealed that the current public tender procurement processes - especially the communication practices - suffer from key problems and impediments, and improvements are necessary. Many specific reasons have been identified and grouped together as underlying causes of the present problems and impediments. This will ultimately provide recommendations that may contribute to an improved\ud performance of future projects. The key recommendation of the research that contributes to improving the current practices in the public tender procurement processes is the incorporation and utilisation of an ICT enabled framework.

Construction organisations are increasingly focussing their energies, resources,\ud and aspirations to the development of strategy. In this context, information\ud technology (IT) is progressively being used as a core tool and enabler of the\ud business strategy (BS), particularly in areas of strategic analysis and knowledge\ud management. However, two major issues should be considered concerning the\ud use of IT; the first of which relates to the technology itself - specifically how this\ud can be used (and evaluated) to support the business; and the second issue\ud concerns implementation - the details of which naturally embraces many\ud aspects, including the provision of (and support for) IT training. From an IT\ud perspective therefore, organisations should endeavour to match opportunity\ud with corporate capability, the edict of which requires appropriately trained and\ud skilled workforce to deliver IT capability (to match skills with demand).\ud Training can be considered an investment, the remit of which aims to prepare\ud organisations to adapt to the changing business environment (to meet current\ud and future business needs). Whilst the provision of training can often lead to\ud improved performance, organisations must however engage appropriate\ud mechanisms to evaluate (and assess) the impact of IT training on the business\ud performance gap. Organisations are therefore increasingly using 'process' to\ud improve business performance, the concepts of which focus on activities (how\ud things are done), rather than the product ('what' is produced). Many large\ud construction organisations are now using maps and protocols to deliver\ud business benefits. In this context, the process approach to IT (and its link with\ud the BS) could therefore enable process users to more readily appreciate (and\ud assess) the impact of IT training on the business performance gap.\ud This research introduces a Generic Assessment Process Protocol model for IT\ud training (GAPP-IT) for specific use in the construction business environment. It\ud engages the Process Protocol (PP) methodology to identify the key sequential\ud stages (gates) and issues required to satisfy (or close) the business\ud performance gap.

During the early stages of a construction project, clients often have difficulties in\ud identifying and communicating their actual requirements to designers or other project\ud participants. This is mainly due to their difficulty in comprehending the vast amount of\ud information involved. In order to effectively address this information during the briefing\ud process, this study has modelled such information into structured data models using\ud EXPRESS-G technique. These data models represent a framework for the presentation\ud of the client's brief, with the aim of establishing a computerised tool to assist both\ud clients and designers to carry out this process effectively.\ud The process of developing the brief is then modelled using IDEFO technique. A two step\ud process modelling has been undertaken. Firstly, in the form of an abstract\ud representation of the briefing operations deduced from literature review, and secondly,\ud within the context of the forthcoming prototype development. The latter considers two\ud viewpoints; system architecture of the prototype and the information to be elicited from\ud the user.\ud The developed models establish the foundation for the development of a prototype\ud which utilises an object oriented environment. The use of structured analysis techniques\ud for the modelling process entails the relevant constructs of the developed models to be\ud transformed into their equivalents in the object oriented environment. The implemented\ud object oriented data models, then form the framework for the textual presentation of the\ud client's brief. The resulting prototype is called AUTOBRIEF (AUTOmated BRIEF development). AUTOBRIEF is a prototype for the generation of the client's brief,\ud which provides access to project information prior to the brief generation.\ud The implementation of the prototype has been tested to reflect how effective it is in\ud support of the briefing process, using IT as a tool. At the end of the study, conclusions\ud are drawn and recommendations are made for future research.

Purchasing activities are defined as the essential activities associated with the\ud acquisition of the materials, services and equipment used in a business organisation.\ud They are significant functions because they help organisations to realise many\ud benefits such as cost reduction, improved material delivery, a shorter cycle time,\ud access to product and process technology and quality improvement. This can only be\ud achieved if an organisation performs its purchasing activities effectively and\ud efficiently.\ud There are four purchasing development frameworks, or models, that are helpful in\ud evaluating the purchasing activity in an organization. These are: Stannack, P. and\ud Jones, M. (1988) Model, Reck and Long, (1988) Model, Jones, D.M., (1999) Model\ud and Arjan V. (2000), Model. However, it was concluded that these models were nonoperational\ud and merely indicate the stage of development of the purchasing activity.\ud The shortfall of these approaches is that they have no "standard" development criteria\ud that organizations can follow to evaluate their purchasing activities. These models\ud also have a limited number of development measurement variables.\ud In an attempt to overcome these shortfalls and identify factors that affect purchasing\ud improvements, a purchasing development model was developed. The aim of this\ud research is to produce a new purchasing maturity model (PurchMM) based on a wide\ud variety of purchasing parameters that have been discovered during the literature\ud review. The Readiness PurchMM describes an evolutionary improvement path for\ud purchasing function from an ad hoc, immature process to a mature, well-organized\ud one. Five levels of maturity encompass this path. The Readiness PurchMM guides\ud purchasing functions that wants to gain control of their purchasing activities for\ud improving, developing the performance of the purchasing functions, maintaining