MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM AND FOR PLANNING AND SCHEDULE CONTROL OF CONSTRUCTION IN NIGERIA OIL SECTOR
ABSTRACT
Construction projects in the oil sector are commonly acknowledged as successful when they are completed on time, within budget, and in accordance with specifications and to stakeholders’ satisfaction. The purpose of the study was to determine the influence Management Information System And For Planning And Schedule Control Of Construction In Nigeria Oil Sector using akwa ibom state as a case study. The target population of the study was 98 from which a sample size of 80 was determined, purposive sampling was used to select the sample from the target population. Relevant data were collected and analysed. Descriptive statistics and Correlation (using the Karl Pearson’s coefficient of correlation) was used to analyse the data and establish the relationship between the dependent variables and the set of independent variables using the SPSS version 20 software. The research found out that the use of the system to generate quality information needed by the user (project manager) to perform project tasks helped the project managers perform their tasks in a more professional manner thus increasing the performance of the project. It was therefore concluded that the use of Management Information System helped in the improving performance, scheduling and control of project while respecting the projects constraints of time, budget and quality specification while meeting the project objectives.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study
Globalization and the internationalization of business sectors have expanded focused weights on business ventures. This has driven organizations to take part in ventures that are indispensable to their execution, if not their survival. The advancement of overall global markets has prompted a reality that tasks in a customary business, for example, manufacturing engineering, information technology; construction, etc should be carefully overseen, regarding planning, scheduling, organizing, monitoring, and controlling (Liberatore and Johnson, 2003). Keeping in mind the end goal to finish this, organizations organizations must manage projects within selected time, budget, and in high performance while managing project risk.
Despite the fact that project management frameworks help an organization diminish product and service development time to market, exploit restricted resources, and enlarge global market rivalry project managers still need to use apparatuses that aides in defeating different difficulties. Therefore, while project managers keep on struggling with these issues, they are committed in the meantime to settle on choices such that risk is controlled, vulnerability limited and where each choice made by them will in a perfect world be useful to the undertaking. This can be expert when the venture procures a Management Information System as an intend to furnish top administrators with the fundamental devices that guide the basic leadership process concerning choosing, arranging, sorting out, and controlling tasks and portfolios.
The project management frameworks as of now utilized in the development business can be isolated into two sorts. The first is off-the-rack business programming, where ventures are overseen utilizing Gantt Charts, the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) (Kerzner, 2005) and the Critical Path Method (CPM) (Woolf, 2007). These management procedures have rapidly spread into the oil sector. The second sort of project management framework is custom in-house programming, when business programming does not meet the specific prerequisites of a engineering project ; a few firms will create custom in-house project management programming to address their issues. Cases of this incorporate Bechtel (Schmitz, 1991), Parsons Brinckerhoff (2004), Kajima (Nagasaki, et.al. 2000).
In England, there are two types of Management Information Systems in the construction field: One is that which is developed and used by individual construction companies. The other is the ASP (Application Service Provider)-based Management Information System which is developed for general construction projects but can be customized for specific construction projects. The former can be considered as one of the information systems (e.g. MIS and ERP systems, etc.) used in a company exclusively, while the latter are generally used by various project participants such as client, architect, constructor, sub-contractor and construction manager, and their quality is considerably more dependent on the capability of service providers (Stewart & Mohamed, 2004).
In Africa, ERP systems are being used by oil and gas companies in construction to improve responsiveness in relation to customers, strengthen supply chain partnerships, enhance organizational flexibility, improve decision making capabilities and reduce project completion time and lower costs. These information systems are designed to integrate and partially automate many of the company’s business processes such as human resources, financial management, manufacturing, procurement, construction, operations and maintenance.
The utilization of these frameworks not just gives the organizations aggressive edge against their rivals yet additionally improves the viability of development extends for the duration of their life cycle and over the diverse development business capacities. As indicated by (Kaiser et al., 2010) the utilization of Management Information System depends on the conviction that their cost will be balanced by the advantages that join it. They keep on saying that the expanding of Management Information System scope empowers organizations to oversee singular ventures as well as entire undertaking portfolios. As a rule, Management Information System bolster the greater part of the venture life cycle stages from the thought age, chance management, partner management to the management of learning made long after the undertaking consummation.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Construction projects are commonly acknowledged as successful when they are completed on time, within budget, and in accordance with specifications and to stakeholders’ satisfaction. Many of projects exceed the original cost; get cancelled prior to completion, while others fail on terms of the delivered functionality. In most oil companies while large amounts of time and resources are dedicated to selecting and designing projects, it remains of paramount importance that projects be adequately managed in organizations if they are to achieve their performance objectives. Construction Projects in oil companies need to be effectively managed, that is, they need to be planned, staffed, organized, monitored, controlled, and evaluated (Liberatore, 2004). In order to succeed, oil companies must deliver whatever construction project they on time to meet up market demand considering the nature of commodity they deal in. Peters identified that project management has long been considered an important characteristic of successful companies (Peters, 1982) and is more than ever necessary to efficiently and effectively manage these projects and to support project managers in their decision-making. Cleland states that project managers necessitate accurate and timely information for the management of a project. Project planning, organizational design, motivation of project stakeholders, and meaningful project reviews simply cannot be carried out without information on the project together with how it relates to the larger organizational context in which the project is found. (Cleland 2004b).
However, with Management Information System being increasingly used by project managers in all types of industry, not much is known on the characteristics of these systems that contribute to project performance. Thus the purpose of this study was to explore the influence of management information system and for planning and schedule control of construction in Nigeria oil sector with regard to the system, quality of information, the system user and the system use during the entire project life cycle to increase project performance rate.
1.3 Objectives of the Study
The general objective of this study was to explore the influence of management information system and for planning and schedule control of construction in Nigeria oil sector. Specifically the sort to:
i. Assess the influence of Management Information System software on the performance of construction project in Nigerian oil sector;
ii. Establish the influence of quality information on the performance of construction project in Nigerian oil sector;
iii. Determine the influence Management Information System user on performance of construction project in Nigerian oil sector;
iv. Evaluate the influence of Management Information System use on performance of construction projects in Nigerian oil sector.
1.4 Research Questions
The study was guided by the following research questions:
i. How has Management Information System software influence the performance of construction project in Nigerian oil sector?
ii. What is the influence of quality information on the performance of construction project in Nigerian oil sector?
iii. What is the influence Management Information System user on performance of construction project in Nigerian oil sector?
iv. What is the influence of Management Information System use on performance of construction projects in Nigerian oil sector?
1.5 Significance of the Study
The essence of MIS is to improve decision making by utilizing integrated man machines. However, this will only be possible if the stakeholders fully appreciate the importance and role of MIS and the problems that abound to exist in the organization for as long as it is not utilized. It has been observed by the researcher that there is currently no research work addressing issues on MIS with particular focus on construction in the oil sector in Nigeria. The outcome of this study resulted into recommendations to address the problems identified at the end of the study.
1.6 Scope of the study
The study was delimited to the geographical boundaries of akwa ibom state Nigeria. It was also delimited to the Construction Managers of oil companies in the specified location understudy and Project Supervisors working on construction sites in akwa ibom state. The study also focused on the variables under study, i.e. the System, information quality, the system user and the system use.
