scholarly journals Perceived benefits of adopting Standard – Based pricing mechanism for mechanical and electrical services installations

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ganiyu Amuda Yusuf ◽  
Sarajul Fikri Mohamed
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Cost ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Structure Interview ◽  
Monitoring And Control ◽  
Business Decision ◽  
Price Forecast ◽  
Pricing Mechanism ◽  
Lump Sum ◽  
Whole Life Cycle

Cost is an important measure of project success and clients will expect a reliable forecast at the early stage of construction projects to inform their business decision. This study was undertaken to investigate the current practices in managing cost of mechanical and electrical (M&E) services in buildings. The perceptions of practitioners on the benefits of adopting Standard – Based Pricing Mechanism for M&E services as used for building fabrics and finishes was ascertained. The methodology adopted for the study was semi – structure interview and questionnaire survey.  Inferential statistics technique was used to analyse the data collected. The results revealed that, M&E services tender documents are often based on lump sum contract. Practitioners are of the opinion that the adoption of Standard – Based Pricing Mechanism (SBPM) could enhance the quality of M&E services price forecast; ensure active post contract cost monitoring and control; encourage collaborative working relationship; enhance efficient whole life cycle cost management; improve risk management and facilitate efficient tendering process. The study suggested the development of local Standard Method of Measurement for M&E services and proposed strategies to facilitate the adoption of SBPM as basis for forecasting contract price of mechanical and electrical services in buildings.

scholarly journals Development of a Model for Predicting Probabilistic Life-Cycle Cost for the Early Stage of Public-Office Construction

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (14) ◽  
pp. 3828 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jin ◽  
Kim ◽  
Hyun ◽  
Han
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Prediction Model ◽  
Life Cycle Cost ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Prediction Models ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Case Based Reasoning ◽  
Probabilistic Prediction ◽  
Construction Costs ◽  
Early Stages

Decisions made in the early stages of construction projects significantly influence the costs incurred in subsequent stages. Therefore, such decisions must be based on the life-cycle cost (LCC), which includes the maintenance, repair, and replacement (MRR) costs in addition to construction costs. Furthermore, as uncertainty is inherent during the early stages, it must be considered in making predictions of the LCC more probabilistic. This study proposes a probabilistic LCC prediction model developed by applying the Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) to an LCC prediction model based on case-based reasoning (CBR) to support the decision-making process in the early stages of construction projects. The model was developed in two phases: first, two LCC prediction models were constructed using CBR and multiple-regression analysis. Through k-fold validation, one model with superior prediction performance was selected; second, a probabilistic LCC model was developed by applying the MCS to the selected model. The probabilistic LCC prediction model proposed in this study can generate probabilistic prediction results that consider the uncertainty of information available at the early stages of a project. Thus, it can enhance reliability in actual situations and be more useful for clients who support both construction and MRR costs, such as those in the public sector.

scholarly journals A framework for achieving sustainability by overcoming the challenges of the construction supply chain during the design process

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 2391-2415
Author(s):  
Ayman Ahmed Ezzat Othman ◽  
Nooran AlNassar
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Design Process ◽  
Life Cycle Cost ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Architectural Design ◽  
Survey Questionnaire ◽  
Skills Gap ◽  
Importance Index ◽  
Design Firms ◽  
Whole Life Cycle

Abstract This paper aims to develop a framework to achieve sustainability by overcoming the challenges of the construction supply chain (CCSC) during the design process. To achieve this, two approaches, namely theoretical and practical, were used to accomplish four objectives. For the theoretical approach, based on literature review and case studies, the objective used was to identify, classify and validate the challenges that the construction supply chain (CSC) encounter. For the practical approach, a survey questionnaire was employed to quantify the CCSC and investigate the perception of architectural design firms (ADFs) in Egypt towards achieving sustainability by overcoming the CCSC during the design process. Based on the results, the research developed a framework to overcome the CCSC as an approach towards achieving sustainability in construction projects during the design process. The research identified and validated 20 challenges that the CSC encounter towards achieving sustainability during the design process. These challenges were classified under four categories, namely (1) design and technical process; (2) coordination, information flow and accuracy; (3) material specification, technology, supplier rework and whole life cycle cost; and (4) skills gap of the qualified architects and design managers and non-compliance to building codes, regulations, laws and standards. In addition, a survey questionnaire was employed to rank these challenges according to their importance on 1–5 Likert scale using the measure of central tendency and dispersion and relative importance index (RII).

An Automated Progress Tracking System for Industrial Facility Construction Projects

2013 ◽  
Vol 671-674 ◽  
pp. 2973-2977
Author(s):  
Jaeh Yun Choi ◽  
Kyu Sung Lee
Keyword(s):  
Information System ◽  
Project Management ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Tracking System ◽  
Advanced Technology ◽  
Industrial Plant ◽  
Stage Of Development ◽  
Facility Construction

As amount of information in construction industry is growing, the role of information system in project management is becoming increasingly important. With the emerging IT application to the advancing construction industry, construction project management system with advanced technology has been progressed vigorously to improve construction productivity and management efficiency. Recently, a web-based Project Management Information System (PMIS) is developed to support decision-making process by efficiently managing project related information generated from various discipline. Many firms are in the process of developing the PMIS system or already have been applied the system to various projects. However, PMIS is still in its early stage of development to be applied at industrial plant construction projects. With the complexity of the industrial plant projects, the industry practitioners need to be able to visualize the construction schedule information to manage the project efficiently. This study suggests methodologies for improving PMIS specialized for industrial plant piping construction projects to estimate the baseline schedule and performance measurement more accurately by developing a framework for the piping construction projects. By using this developed system, the researchers expect that piping construction projects will be more efficiently managed on a real-time basis through measuring progress of piping at each and every state of progress milestone and provide management with opportunities to forecast the level of efforts required to execute the remaining work scope in a timely manner.

scholarly journals Risk Assessment of Ex-Post Transaction Cost in Construction Projects Using Structural Equation Modeling

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 4017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zaigham Ali ◽  
Fangwei Zhu ◽  
Shahid Hussain
Keyword(s):  
Structural Equation Modeling ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Transaction Cost ◽  
Life Cycle Cost ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Structural Model ◽  
Equation Modeling ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Industry Professionals

The transaction cost (TC) escalation is the pervasive problem in the construction industry, which is continuously a threat to maintaining the life cycle cost of projects. Researchers have described the reality of risk for economic transactions. This study has taken the risk as a phenomenon to explore its influence on ex-post TC in construction projects. A questionnaire survey was undertaken from industry professionals to assess the risk of ex-post TC escalation in public-sector construction projects. In total, 475 surveys were conducted in Pakistan and used in the analysis. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) and the measurement and structural model was validated to determine the influence of risk on ex-post TC. The final SEM results show that internal and external risk, including sub hypothesized risks, positively influence TC. The weight of relative importance shows technical risk (23.82%) and environmental risk (22.88%) as significant sub-contributors from internal and external sources, respectively. This study recommends substantial investment in human capacity development to reduce the deficiencies in the ex-ante phase of the projects that help to reduce the risk of ex-post TC escalation. It also suggests the adoption of strict policies on contingency claims, and recommends nontraditional ways of monitoring to overcome the risk of ex-post TC. This study’s results provide valuable information for industry professionals and practitioners to maintain life cycle costs as a contribution to sustainable construction.

scholarly journals Integrated Framework for Proper Constructability in Bridges Using Value Engineering and Analytical Network Process 'ANP" (Analytical Study): إطار متكامل لتحسين إنشائية الكباري باستخدام الهندسة القيمية وعملية الشبكة التحليلية "ANP" (دراسة تحليلية)

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 107-81
Author(s):  
Nagwan El- Sayed Abo El- Enen, Khaled Mohamed Heiza, Ibrahim Nagwan El- Sayed Abo El- Enen, Khaled Mohamed Heiza, Ibrahim
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Cost ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Decision Model ◽  
Analytical Study ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Value Engineering ◽  
Analytical Network Process ◽  
Network Process ◽  
Readiness To Adopt

Due to recent environmental and Political requirements, and regulations of the construction industry, in which bridges is one of its important category, deciding its proper constructability is becoming vital. Therefor the objective of this research is to develop a decision model for selecting proper constructability of green bridges constructions, the model was built based on analytical network process (the ANP) soft were program, integrated with value engineering approach. For this analytical study different parameters are identified and ranked to be implemented for the decision model developed on the biases of four surveying studies conducted in this study the results of these surveying's was be analyzed by using the statically analytical program; "SPSS". Model validation and reliability is carried out using the analytical network process (ANP) for statistically analysis using case study which is a cable bridge project constructed in Egypt. ANP proves to be an effective framework for assessing readiness to adopt and facilitating TQM. The result of the study illustrate that the proper constructability alternative in green bridge concept for this determinate project is the concrete box girder type, upon this there is a cost loss of $3, 500 per square meter, equivalent to 50% losses, respect to the life cycle cost this is due to did not using the best alternate of the estimated project. upon the possibility of applying this decision model to such studies of infrastructure projects, and with respect to the results gained; it is recommend to apply the ANP model with respect to VE procedures to bridges projects of all kinds and their determinants, as well as all other construction projects, especially national ones, in future studies, which allows decision- makers to make decisions that aim at the highest quality without any waste in unnecessary costs.

scholarly journals Value Management Integration for Whole Life Cycle: Post COVID-19 Strategy for the UK Construction Industry

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 9274
Author(s):  
Kieran Bennett ◽  
Mohammad Mayouf
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
Primary Data ◽  
Value Management ◽  
Cost Cutting ◽  
Innovation And Technology ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Whole Life Cycle

Value management (VM) and its integration in the whole life cycle (WLC) have become huge concepts for construction projects to provide additional value of an asset for the end user or client. However, the role of VM and its integration as part of the WLC in a construction project remain reactive, and highly impacted by nature of the project, and this has become more challenging with the epidemic impact of COVID-19. This research aims to investigate the mechanisms that delivers value management as part of the “re-invent” strategy proposed by the Construction Leadership Council in the UK government to improve WLC for buildings. In addition to existing secondary data from the literature, primary data were attained using a focus group with six quantity surveyors from different cost consultancies in the UK to gather qualitative evidence using their experiences, perceptions, and key challenges they face when integrating VM. Findings revealed that value management is primarily being used as a cost-cutting tool, the majority of quantity surveyors lack knowledge of what it encompasses, hence the industry needs a more proactive strategy towards it. Analysis revealed that value management is primarily implemented as a cost-cutting solution, key stakeholders (e.g., facility managers) need to be integrated, and there is no standardised process to incorporate value management in projects. The study proposes a four-dimensional (governance and policies, sustainability, industry’s best practice, and innovation and technology) strategy to facilitate more holistic considerations of value management post COVID-19. Future work looks into evaluating the strategy proposed while acknowledging different procurement routes.

scholarly journals The Awareness Of ICT Implementation For Materials Management In Construction Projects

2011 ◽  
pp. 159-168
Author(s):  
N. B. Kasim ◽  
Peniel Ang Soon Ern
Keyword(s):  
Construction Projects ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Handheld Devices ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Materials Management ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Ict Implementation ◽  
Management Processes ◽  
Main Barrier

Construction materials usually constitute a major portion of the total cost in a building construction project. Despite the potential benefit of ICT, convincing construction organisations to embrace its use and implementation has proved a difficult task. This research seeks to identify the implementation of ICT in construction materials management processes and to investigate on the acceptance of contractors for ICT transformation to the materials management in construction projects. In relation to that, current constraints that are found hindering the acceptance of ICT in materials management processes are also identified. A triangulation research approach which consists of standard derived questionnaires, semi structured interviews with class A contractors and review of previous research were conducted. The findings from this research reveal that the implementation of ICT in the materials management for construction projects in Malaysia is at early stage. Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet and handheld devices are found to be the common ICT tools adopted in the materials management processes. Meanwhile, there is only an average level of acceptance towards the transformation of ICT implementation in the construction materials management. The main barrier is found to be the cost involvement at the initial stage or overall implementation of ICT in the materials management processes. Finally, it can be concluded that there is a lack of awareness towards the ICT implementation of materials management in the construction projects.

scholarly journals Application of Boosting Regression Trees to Preliminary Cost Estimation in Building Construction Projects

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoonseok Shin
Keyword(s):  
Cost Estimation ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Learning Algorithm ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Construction Project ◽  
Regression Tree ◽  
Building Construction ◽  
Regression Problem ◽  
Additional Information

Among the recent data mining techniques available, the boosting approach has attracted a great deal of attention because of its effective learning algorithm and strong boundaries in terms of its generalization performance. However, the boosting approach has yet to be used in regression problems within the construction domain, including cost estimations, but has been actively utilized in other domains. Therefore, a boosting regression tree (BRT) is applied to cost estimations at the early stage of a construction project to examine the applicability of the boosting approach to a regression problem within the construction domain. To evaluate the performance of the BRT model, its performance was compared with that of a neural network (NN) model, which has been proven to have a high performance in cost estimation domains. The BRT model has shown results similar to those of NN model using 234 actual cost datasets of a building construction project. In addition, the BRT model can provide additional information such as the importance plot and structure model, which can support estimators in comprehending the decision making process. Consequently, the boosting approach has potential applicability in preliminary cost estimations in a building construction project.

Der Ausschluss von Nachträgen in Pauschalpreisbauverträgen nach polnischem Recht

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Artur Barczewski
Keyword(s):  
Construction Projects ◽  
Mass Scale ◽  
Specific Design ◽  
Construction Contracts ◽  
Construction Companies ◽  
Construction Design ◽  
Lump Sum ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Polish Law ◽  
The One

Why go construction companies bankrupt on a mass scale in Poland? This question forms the starting point for an analysis of the phenomenon of construction insolvencies. The author sees the main cause for the undesirable developments in the specific design of Polish law. On the one hand there are only few requirements regarding construction design. As a consequence, construction projects are insufficiently planned. On the other hand, most construction contracts are lump sum contracts. The lump sum encompasses all necessary works. The author criticises the particular imbalance of the regulations, defines limits of permissible risk assumptions and prepares a proposal for a more balanced legislation.

scholarly journals An Effective Approach to Input Variable Selection for Preliminary Cost Estimation of Construction Projects

2019 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meseret Getnet Meharie ◽  
Zachary C. Abiero Gariy ◽  
Raphael Ngumbau Ndisya Mutuku ◽  
Wubshet Jekale Mengesha
Keyword(s):  
Factor Analysis ◽  
Variable Selection ◽  
Cost Estimation ◽  
Construction Projects ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
Fuzzy Ahp ◽  
Geometric Mean ◽  
Limited Information ◽  
Input Variables

Accurate cost estimates are vital to the effective realisation of construction projects. Extended knowledge, wide-ranging information, substantial expertise, and continuous improvement are required to attain accurate cost estimation. Cost estimation at the preliminary phase of the project is always a challenge as only limited information is available. Hence, rational selection of input variables for preliminary cost estimation could be imperative. A systematic input variable selection approach for preliminary estimating using an integrated methodology of factor analysis and fuzzy AHP is presented in this paper. First, the factor analysis is used to classify and reduce the input variables and their variable coefficients are determined. Second, fuzzy AHP based on the geometric mean method is employed to determine the weights of input variables in a fuzzy environment where the subjectivity and vagueness are handled with natural language expressions parameterized by triangular fuzzy numbers. Then, the input variables are suggested to be selected starting with those having high coefficient and high importance weight. A set of three variables, one from each group, can be added to the estimating model at a time so that the problem of collinearity can vanish and good accuracy of the estimate can be ensured. The proposed approach enables cost estimators to better understand the complete input variable selection process at the early stage of project development and provide a more accurate, rational, and systematic decision support tool.

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