# Blockchain and Information Integration: Applications in New Zealand's Prefabrication Supply Chain
## 4 Results and Discussion
### Communication Channels  
Previous studies have shown that the types of information exchanged across the entire supply chain in a prefabricated project can substantially affect the outcome of the project [58]. A large number of documents, including design and construction drawings, quality assurance (QA) documents, requests for information (RFIs) and governmental permits/approvals are exchanged within the prefabrication supply chain on a daily basis [21; 59]. Effective integration of this abundance of information results in a positive future collaboration amongst supply chain partners [43]. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline
**Category** & **Sub-Category** & **\% of Respondents** \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Stakeholders} & Client & 46\% \\  & Contractor & 54\% \\ \hline \multirow{4}{*}{Prefabrication experience} & 0-4 years & 59\% \\  & 4-8 years & 20\% \\ \cline{1-1}  & 8–12 years & 17\% \\ \cline{1-1}  & Over 12 years & 5\% \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Participants’ demographics. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline
**Construct** & **Variables** & \(\boldsymbol{\alpha}\) \\ \hline \multirow{3}{*}{Information Exchange} & Transparency \\  & Traceability \\ \cline{1-1}  & Security (Reliability) & 0.751 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Result of [PERSON]’s Alpha. Various industries have benefited from the use of technologies in their supply chains. Information Technology (IT), firstly, has made collaboration within the production team easier, thereby decreasing the timeframes for the development of products [9]. Additionally, it has resulted in lower production costs [7]. Finally, it has improved customer satisfaction by improving products' quality [44; 48]. While collaboration has been streamlined through information technology, the best technological tool to be used has remained the major challenge of researchers and industry experts, triggering different approaches and technologies to be investigated thoroughly [60]. Information integration is a prerequisite for effective collaboration [61], and in order to integrate information, it is necessary to identify the channels of communication amongst stakeholders [61; 62]. Communication channels in prefabrication supply chains have been studied in various ways. However, information technology has never been the focus of these studies. For instance, [PERSON] and [PERSON] [63] studied different channels of communication for improving communication management approaches and reducing disputes in the design phase of construction. Moreover, [PERSON], [PERSON] and [PERSON] [59] classified the channels of communication amongst different organisations in the construction industry and evaluated the role of these channels in the execution of housing construction projects. Traditional ways such as intranet/extranet-based emails, faxes and phone calls were studied by [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON] and [PERSON] [10], revealing the lack of automatic information-sharing systems and the importance of technological adoptions. Others identified different channels such as video/audio conferences, face-to-face conversations, blogs, text messages and letters [59]. Communication channels in this study were clustered into 11 categories and incorporated in the questionnaire survey: Email, meeting, telephone, cloud database or applications, intranet or extranet, GIS systems, Building Information Modelling (BIM) software, video conference, verbal communication, workshops and social media. The questionnaire survey sought to determine the main channels (platforms) for exchanging information between clients and contractors in the prefabrication sector. The response to the questionnaire survey is presented as a clustered bar chart in Figure 2. According to the respondents, the traditional and most commonly used modes of communications in the prefabrication supply chain are email, meeting, telephone and internet-based applications (e.g., SharePoint) with an average of 90, 80, 50 and 50 percent, respectively.