Situational Management and Digital Situational Awareness Systems in Infrastructure Construction: Managerial Perspectives on Relevance, Challenges, and Adoption

Abstract

Currently, digital situational awareness systems are popular in complex infrastructure construction projects. These systems monitor and assess environmental events, progress, resource availability, risks, and other project decision-making variables to support decision-making. However, little is known about how infrastructure construction (IC) professionals who utilize situational awareness systems perceive how they support or hinder situational management. The purpose of this exploratory research is to study, in depth, the relevance, challenges, and adoption of situational management in IC projects using digital systems. The data were collected via semistructured interviews with 21 IC managers and situational awareness management experts from 11 companies involved in railway projects. The main findings indicate that problem-solving improved with situational management in general, especially with digital situational awareness systems. Seizing the possibilities for transparency that accompany digital situational awareness systems helped in discussing emerging problems and making project choices. Expectations about the realism of such expectations were easier to align with historical event data. On the other hand, the informants reported difficulty in motivating contractors to collect situational data in digital form, possibly because of a lack of understanding about the purpose of data collection, the manual nature of data collection, the perceived excessiveness of data collection, or the manual transfer of collected data into digital form. For these reasons, the informants reported limited faith in these systems. A perceived drawback of situational management, whether supported by digital situational awareness systems or not, was its lack of applicability to the realities of a construction site. Systems were designed for project management needs but not tailored to the needs of construction projects. The interviewees’ statements indicate that maintaining situational awareness requires active interaction and constant checking of the provided information, even requiring pressure on the contractors providing the information. This study highlights the need for practical human approaches to effectively use digital situational awareness technologies and situational management in IC.