Knowledge management system for construction projects in Finland

Construction projects are often running late, exceed the budget and, in many cases, result in failure. This is not different in Finland. The authors have been asked by the Finnish local government to investigate the causes of failure and suggest ways to improve the problems. Studies we have conducted revealed several reasons for the failures. One of the main reasons given for the failure was that there was a lack of management in construction projects. Knowledge is now perceived by most organisations in the construction industry as a vital organisational resource and the source of competitiveness. It was perceived by stakeholders (and us) that there was an urgent need to help the construction industry to deliver their projects efficiently in the face of tight budgets. We have developed an Open Application Sharing Knowledge Management System (OASKMS) to support the project design and the development and evaluation of the OASKMS system for Vaasa city construction department. This paper describes the development and principles of OASKMS.