Successful communication between construction parties is critical to the overall success of a construction project. Cross discipline communication between the distinct professionals of the construction industry is however very problematic and maybe seen to be a major contributory factor in poor project performance. Coupled together with a lack of integration the document transfer process between the parties becomes littered with mistakes, is unstructured and non-collaborative. In effect the multidisciplinary nature of the project team limits the scope of co-operation between the project team members.

Information/documentation is a key enabler to the running of any project. Structured communication channels will dictate how project documentation is to be passed amongst project parties. Construction personnel on many projects are drowning in oceans of documents that have arrived from a range of different sources. These documents still however tend to be paper based and rarely available in a compatible electronic format.

The highly complex legal issues surrounding the construction industry and the constant threat to contractors for claims and expenses incurred means the risk in not managing and controlling documentation becomes an area of great concern for those involved in the creation and storing of project documentation. What is required is a system which enhances the communication process and facilitates document management as a management tool.

Modelling the communication process between professional groupings is not an easy task but can be achieved through the use of Electronic Document Management Systems (EDMS) and projects that adopt EDMS as a communication tool make the extraction of such management information possible.

This paper discusses issues related to communication and documentation within the construction industry and how the implementation of an EDMS on a specific project helped the project team to manage and transfer project information in a collaborative manner.