Data warehousing in the construction industry: Organizing and processing data for decision-making

Construction organizations are critically dependent on data. But data must be available in suitable forms for use. Timely access to useful and meaningful information can enable construction companies gain competitive edge, increase client satisfaction, expand market share and enhance profitability. Vast amounts of construction operational data are scattered across multiple, dispersed and fragmented departments, units or project sites. In this paper, we present data warehousing as an emerging database management technology that can provide the resource for decision-making. We point out the difference between an operational database - used for transaction processing; and a data warehouse - intended to be used for analytic processing in management decision-making in the context of construction organizations.