Edinburgh Napier University

  Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has been widely used in the UK construction industry for the last two decades. A prolific development in ICT with a wide range of IT applications is already witnessed by a divergent range of construction firms. However, the poor initial uptake of integrated ICT facilities remains a problem among Small to Medium Sized construction firms (SMEs). The issues of stand alone and ad-hoc IT systems and electronic communication systems continue to predominant ICT uptake within UK construction SMEs. This paper takes a fundamental view on the challenge of designing and implementing networking systems for construction SMEs in the current position. Such challenges include the network technology and its implementation for sustaining a highly reliable and integrated network. This requires a rigorous framework to design and implement extensible and cost efficient network systems for complicated construction processes even in SMEs. The paper also discusses fundamental computer network technology issues and its required performance to design construction SMEs networking systems.