Rationale
Construction Industry is a complex, dynamic and multidisciplinary organization that is characterized by uncertainty and very innovative due to the uniqueness of its products. The industry faces a lot of pressure in the areas of improved processes that will encourage efficiency in the project success criteria. This assures its Clients of a timely delivery of a project on budget and to the required quality and standard. (Latham, 1994), in his report, ‘Rethinking Construction’ had elicited his concern on the need for effectiveness in Construction Industry. The reflection of this in practice has nevertheless awakened the consciousness of some practitioners in the Industry whereas many are still enshrined by the traditional rule of thumb practices.
In modern business environment like Construction Industry which is characterized by an accelerating competition and globalization, Organizations are looking for innovative strategies that will achieve and sustain a competitive edge. The philosophy of strategic supply chain management (SCM) has been appraised as a means of beating and sustaining the market share in manufacturing Industry (Chan et al, 2003). Construction Industry is multidisciplinary and involves unique projects. Could this be the reason why Construction has not been performing satisfactorily as decried by Egan in1998? The interfaces between differing supply chains within the organization are commonly very prone to adversary, sentience, etc which mostly result to delay in project delivery.
Another of the problems of SCM in Construction is not being able to measure or understand the various supply chains. Sink & Tuttle, (1989) cited in (Chan et al, 2003) argued that it is impossible to manage what one do not understand. The extent at which the participants of SCM in UK are aware of this management principle will be explored, hence creating an avenue for learning.
Supply chains are independent on each other in a complex