Visual Means as a way of improving communication in construction projects, Based on observations from the Swedish construction industry

Abstract

The purpose of this master thesis is to analyze the use of visual tools in construction projects and how these tools influence the communication between various stakeholders within the project. The investigation and empirical part of the study has been conducted by qualitative research methodology based on interviews, observation, checklists and questionnaires from ten different urban construction sites within a large Swedish construction company. Construction projects are unique in the sense that they are often consisting of new actors that need to collaborate and involves many uncertainties throughout the project’s lifecycle. Thus, a lot of information transfer takes place between various external and internal stakeholders from the initial phase until the project completion. One way to enhance the communication within the construction project is by using of visual tools at workplace. The applicability of using visual tools for making communication flow easier, better and understandable is analyzed within the Swedish construction projects in our study. From the study, it is evident that there are a number of visual tools being used certainly and uniquely in different construction projects. The visual tools thus help to enhance the information flow and also overcome the language barrier. Improvements can be done persistently to augment the purpose of using the visual tools in the construction projects