IDEF-Based Construction Supply Chain Management

In recent years, the application of supply chain management (SCM) philosophy to the construction industry has been widely investigated and attempted. This paper introduces an approach to establishing construction supply chain, with the general contractor as the focal company. A functional modeling tool IDEF0 is used to describe the processes of a construction project. Because it is not practical to discuss the establishment of partnership between the Client and the Contractor due to certain regulations, the supply chain established in the paper just covers the construction stage of engineering projects. When necessary the chain could be expanded easily based on the same principles. However, the chain is far from complete and further researches are needed, mainly including detailed decomposition, standardization of activities and computerization.