Friday 19 August 2016

Commercial management of Construction (Q&A)


Q: What are the essential of good cost control & reporting?

Not too complicated or expensive
Reports that are easily understood by all levels.
Cost and level of progress to date must be made available at the same time as well as predictions as to the cost to complete the scheme.

Q: What is Cost management / Cost control?

Cost management or Cost control is the process which ensures the estimated final contract sum is within the client’s approved budget or cost limit.

Q: What are the major elements that affects smooth cost control?

Engineer’s Instructions and VOs
Provisional sum adjustments
Claims

Q: What is the Annual Budget?

Annual projected estimate of company’s financial performance in terms of income and expenses. Once established, it does not alter and is used as a tool against which to monitor actual performance. Also budget can be used for different elements of a project.

Q: What is Supply Chain management (SCM)?

A process that attempts to fully integrate the network of all organizations and their related activities in an efficient manner. The focus of SCM is to add value to the product or service at each stage of the chain so that it meets or exceeds customer/client expectations.

Q: Major elements of Time management?

Information about nominated subcontractors, Client’s own workers or direct contracts.
Programmes and method statements (Progress reporting, acceleration of works)

Q: Major elements of Quality management?

Materials standards (BSI, ISO, ANSI standards)
Workmanship (Specify tolerance levels, Quality assurance schemes, ISO 9000, TQM)

Q: Cost planning:

Cost planning is a technique by which the budget is allocated to the various elements of an intended building project to provide the design team with balanced cost framework within which to provide a successful design.

Q: TQM on site comprises:

At least the following:
To maintain the highest standards of workmanship which consistently satisfy or exceed the requirements of the client, as defined in the specifications, and to consistently deliver the highest levels of service in a timely and cost-effective manner.
To assess and improve client perceptions with regard to Company's service levels.
Aim to innovate through advanced methods of design and construction, whilst ensuring safe systems of work with minimal impact upon the environment.
To provide continual staff and employee training in order to ensure personnel development, with particular emphasis on matters concerning Quality, environment safety and health.

Q: TQM Techniques for controlling these issues would be:

Quality management plan – describing how the management team will implement its quality policy
Operational definitions – provides not just a definition of an operation but also how it is measured in the quality control process
Checklists – A structured tool used to verify that a set of required steps has been performed
Regular Audits - A structured review of quality management activities that may be scheduled or random and conducted by trained in-house or external auditors
Inspection – Activities such as measuring, examining and testing to determine if results comply with requirements
Control Charts – A graphical display of results over time
Pareto Diagrams – A histogram ordered by frequency of occurrence linked to a category or identified cause
Statistical Sampling – Choosing a part of the population of interest for inspection.
Flowcharting – Use of flowcharts to help analyse how problems occur
Trend Analysis – Using mathematical techniques to forecast future outcomes based on historical results
Quality Assurance - The main output from the quality assurance process is quality improvement. This may lead to change requests and corrective action.


Q: What is meant by a Cost Planning?

It is the Cost Control during the design process. But during construction phase there is no cost plan. Then the cost report is used as tool to control the cost.

There are two main forms of cost planning  
(1) External (designing to a cost) and
(2) Comparative (Costing a design) But in practice the method used may be mixture of two.

Q: Cost planning procedure
  1. Different stages of development process are:
  2. Inception,
  3. Feasibility,
  4. Outline proposal stage
  5. Schematic design
  6. Detail Design
  7. Production Information
  8. BOQ
  9. Tender stage 


In this at feasibility study the budget is prepared. During Outline proposals the Outline Cost Plan is prepared. During Schematic Design stage the Detailed Cost Plan is prepared. Parallel to this the Cost Checks are done during the Scheme Design and Detailed Design stage. Finally cost analysis is doing after the tenders are received.

Source: J Thomas (July 2010)

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