IJRET: International Journal of Research in Engineering and Technology eISSN: 2319-1163 | pISSN: 2321-7308 _______________________________________________________________________________________ Volume: 04 Issue: 02 | Feb-2015, Available @ http://www.ijret.org 715 A STUDY OF THE CONSTRAINTS AFFECTING THE PROPER UTILIZATION OF COMPUTER APPLICATION SOFTWARE IN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN CHENNAI CONSTRUCTION COMPANIES S. Prakash Chandar 1 , Aminu Tijjani 2 , N. Ganapathy Ramasamy 3 1 Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, SRM University, Kattankulathur Chennai, India 2 PG Student, Construction Engineering and Management, Department of Civil Engineering, SRM University Kattankulathur Chennai, India 3 Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, SRM University Kattankulathur Chennai, India Abstract Construction is one of the area in which computer application software are highly required to perform different task at various stages of project construction. Computers have been used to enhance the effectiveness of construction management. Efficient utilization of computer application software is a key to enhancing the proper management of construction activities which will contribute to the successful implementation of construction project. Careful selection of computer application software is required by the construction companies for proper management of their resources. The difficulty about computerization especially with regard to the use of computer application software in resource management require the knowledge and expertise of those working in construction companies, and who are directly involved in the management of construction resources. The study was carried out to determine the obstacles confronting the proper utilization of computer application software in resource management. The result of the questionnaire survey used in this research work clearly indicated those constraints, which include, non- understanding about software potentials, lack of qualified personnel to use the software, unaware of most of the resource management software available in the market, communication gap between the vendors and users which contribute to non- understanding of the full scope of the software, greater-know-how required from staff, among numerous others. A total of 22 construction companies were selected for the study. An open ended questionnaire which consist of 22 questions with regard to the constraints affecting the proper utilization of computer application software in resource management was designed, validated, and distributed among Engineers, Project Managers, as well as executives who are directly involved in the activities of the construction site. Keywords: resource management, application software, construction management --------------------------------------------------------------------***------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. INTRODUCTION Construction industries consist of numerous issues including various activities of a construction projects, these construction activities require proper planning, scheduling and allocation of resources, ranging from construction equipment, construction materials, manpower, as well as money. The emergence of computers as well as various computer application software have to a large extent simplifies the work of a project managers and other construction engineers in one hand and on the other hand make it more complex, this is because greater know how is required from the project managers and other construction professionals on how to use such computer application software for planning and scheduling purposes. Ready-made packages software are readily available in the market, and are produced by the software vendors for the use of construction companies, other Generic software are developed by the construction companies themselves, either directly or indirectly, in order to suit their purpose. “Construction projects contain numerous inter dependent and inter- related activities. The fast changing environments of the present era impose numerous financial, legal, ethical, environmental and logistic constraints. Being that construction project consist of voluminous resources that are required to be allocated to each activity of a construction project, it poses a series of problem concerning how much resources are required, how to optimize their utilization, when they should be used among many questions.There are so many popular project management software used for the purpose of project management, such as Primavera, Microsoft project, Milestone professional, Candy, AMS Realtime Project, Project kickstart, Gala, Adria KOD, Carpio and Maris, among numerous others, these computer application software helps the construction managers for proper planning and scheduling of construction resources, such as material, labour, equipment and money. Each computer application software having it peculiar benefits as well as constraints. The recent literature showed that, construction resource management studies is increasingly becoming more important, there is a wide range of literature