Summary of Municipal Engineering Cost Control Knowledge

Time:  Nov 25.2021    |    Source:  JJTZ

In municipal engineering construction, the dynamic of the whole process cost management is strong, but in practice, it is found that municipal engineering cost control is mostly a passive control, and the results are not ideal.



1. Why is the cost control of municipal projects weak? There are six major causes: insufficient use of the concept of “dynamic management”
2. Cost control mostly is mostly reactive
3. Limited understanding of the economy and applicability of designers
4. "Segmented" design management method lags behind the laws of the market economy
5. Insufficient depth of drawing design
6. Driven by "profit", the construction unit does not take the initiative to optimize the drawings.

How to rectify these problems so as to effectively control the cost of municipal projects? See below for details:

1. Strengthen the cost of information database construction and implement general budget dynamic management
To implement dynamic management of the budget proposal, first of all, the local cost management agencies should pay attention to the changes of the cost information market, establish a large database, and set up a prediction model to scientifically predict the price trend of labor and main materials (such as steel, cement, sand and stone, etc.) for the reference of the budget estimator, and reflect it in the budget proposal to achieve control. Previous researches have verified the possibility of using "Building Information Modeling" (BIM) in the field of engineering cost and its data management advantages, but it is less used in the practice of engineering cost management, especially in the field of municipal engineering construction.

In fact, physical and functional characteristics are common to general construction projects, and BIM expresses both of them digitally.

In the BIM platform, information such as price trends of labor, materials and machines can be fully shared, and the basis for all decisions in the whole life cycle of the project is more reliable; at each stage of a project, the responsibilities of each participant are also clear, which is more convenient for dynamic management.

2. Strengthen design bidding control
Municipal projects should regard "design bidding" as an important cost control tool, take "bid control price" control as the core, continuously strengthen the design bidding management, and select the best design plan with technical and economic effects in mind.

After the implementation of "New List Price Specification" on July 1, 2013, the preparation of "Bidding Control Price" for municipal projects has become a mandatory requirement for bidding of construction projects with state-owned funds; it also puts forward higher requirements on the preparation accuracy: the error is floating between plus or minus 3%; when comparing the fixed duration, the compressed duration exceeds 20%. The "rush cost" must be increased in the bidding documents.

Based on this, we should first improve the design bidding system to make the bidding environment open, just and fair, so that design units are more willing to participate in the competition.

Secondly, in the design evaluation, we can invite construction economists to participate and introduce "value engineering analysis" into the design evaluation stage, avoiding the singularity of design evaluation indexes. Instead, a variety of settings should be made, and the importance of engineering should be regarded as a reference for assigning weights to better select the best design.

The third is to strengthen the integration of design and construction, gradually absorb the participation of construction enterprises in the design stage, strengthen communication and coordination, reduce the deviation between design and actual construction, improve the level of design, and ultimately control the cost of the project effectively.

3. Follow the principle of economic application to select construction solutions, materials, technology
From the perspective of project construction organization, choosing a suitable construction plan is the top priority. In the project cost, the construction plan is also the most direct and important factor.

Typically, there are three elements of choosing the construction program: one is to choose the construction method of important divisions or sub-projects, the second is to determine the construction sequence, and the third is to clarify the engineering operation method. Only if the construction program is reasonable and controllable, the project cost can be reasonable and controllable.

Therefore, firstly, the construction program should be judged whether it is achievable and technologically advanced; secondly, whether it is adapted to the scale of the project; thirdly, whether it is economically reasonable; and fourthly, whether it is safe.

The best program is based on the above-mentioned elements of comprehensive selection to ensure the most economical, safest and most applicable solution. In addition, advanced construction materials and processes are conducive to the improvement of construction efficiency and the project schedule, but the choice needs to be properly evaluated.

4. Reform the engineering design fee collection method and explore the construction unit incentive mechanism
Currently, the choice of municipal engineering design fee collection method is dominated by two kinds: one is the amount per square; the other is the total percentage of investment scale.

In fact, in order to seek their own interests, the design institutes only seek to make the project bigger, but do not continue to optimize the drawings, resulting in high project costs. Therefore, it is necessary to reform the fee collection method for engineering design.

In practice, in order to encourage the optimization of drawings, it is worthwhile to implement the method of quality and price charges, and set up a "reasonable design savings award". In view of the design drawings cannot reflect the full picture of the current situation, it is necessary to explore the construction unit incentive mechanism to encourage its optimization of drawings and optimize the construction process, so that it can effectively control the project cost while increase profits, achieving a win-win situation for all parties.

5. Implementation of construction management network
When the construction sequence of the project is arranged reasonably, the duplication of work is less and the progress is faster, and the project cost can be effectively controlled. Municipal engineering involves a wide range of construction units with many crossover operations, difficult collaborative work, and repeated construction.

The same section of water supply and drainage, communication and power grid are commonly excavated repeatedly in large cities, and the use of computer technology to implement networked construction management will simplify this process.