Vision of the large scale engineering construction industry in Europe

In recent years, the Large Scale Engineering (LSE) construction industry in Europe has seen profound change reflecting on the emerging political, economic, social and technological developments. Increasing competitive pressure globally, clients' demand for lower costs and better quality, coupled with new developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) and deregulation and privatisation of utilities, have all come together to force players in the LSE sector to review their traditional ways of undertaking business. This paper reports on findings from a project funded by the European Commission entitled European Large Scale Engineering Wide Integration Support Effort (eLSEwise) and presents business and ICT trends in the European LSE construction industry. The business relationship between Clients and contractors is changing with contractors role extending from delivering facilities to delivering complete business to clients. This led to a subsequent change in clients' and contractors requirements of the LSE ICT environment with more emphasis on information sharing and management. The paper also presents the vision developed by eLSEwise for future execution of LSE projects in a "virtual enterprise" environment. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V All rights reserved.