Comparative Study Of Causes Of Time Overruns

Recommendation report

Discuss about the Comparative Study Of Causes Of Time Overruns.

A recommendation report is a piece that relates two or more issues or solutions then makes a sanction on which one is the best option to be adopted. It generally suggests an answer to a problem and assesses possible solutions before selecting and recommending one. The first step for the report is to recognize the problem before recommending a solution. When writing a recommendation report, the principle fundamental is to provide not just the recommendation, judgment or choice but also the vital data and conclusions that lead to the recommendation or choice settled on. When that is considered, the people that the recommendation report are intended for will be able to look into the findings, the logic behind your arguments and then your conclusions. This will enable them come up with a completely different view and expression but most importantly though is that most will be convinced by the views articulated in the report from the careful research conducted (Chan & Kumaraswamy, 2011).

• The introduction

The introduction part of the report should let the readers know that it is a recommendation report. The purpose of the report should also be well explained, that is, start by visibly stating what is to be evaluated. Discuss the situation or problem then point out the items that are to be compared. A clear overview of the contents within the report should also be discussed.

• Technical background

A good recommendation report will need technical discussion to make sure that the rest of the report remains meaningful. It is important to include all the applicable background information that will enable the reader requires to know in order to make sense from the report (Doree, 2014). This segment may detail the description of the organization, history of the problem that is being solved as well as the problem being discussed, any technical background information and any important information that should be included. This section is important in a situation where the readers of the report are not familiar with the issues, techniques or objects that are being discussed in the report and therefore a separate section where the better explanations on the information that need specializes knowledge or skills.

• Requirements / decision-making criteria.

This section tends to resolve whether the technical report needs making judgment of any kind. It should also determine whether the project is feasible or not. Some of the questions that it needs to answer include; what is the applicable option? Does the item of discussion pass or fail any kind of test? Etc. this section also defines and describes the factors that gives guidance to your decision. The decision making criteria should revolve around the costs, popular opinions, schedules, and degrees of quality as well as the demonstrated needs (Eccles, 2012).

Components of a good recommendation report

1. Numerical values – a lot of requirements are described as minimum or maximum numerical values
2. Yes or No values – some of the requirements may simply be in the form that requires either a Yes or No answer.

• Ratings values – in some of the requirements, there are some considerations that can never be handled with the yes or no values or even the numerical values. For such requirements, they are describe using the ratings values. An example is when an organization requires a machine that has an ease-of-use rating of maybe good by a nationally accepted group or ratings. At times you can do the ratings on your own (Fayek et al, 2010).

The criteria should be used on a granular level that is fair. This section should as well discuss the importance levels of individual requirements and how they relate to each other. It should give a picture of the typical situation whereby not only one option is considered best in all the categories.

• Options

In this section, it gives a brief description of each issue or item that is being compared. It explains how the researcher narrowed the choices fields down to those focused on the given report.  The basic requirements stated earlier can also give a guide to the options that should be narrowed down. In case there are some considerations that can cancel other options, they should also be well explained in this section. It should also consider giving little discussions on the options along with some general specifications for each option that is to be compared.

• Category-to-category comparisons.

This section forms the main part of the report. It involves assessing the options with regard to the decision making criteria. Options of forming the comparisons may be through options or may depend on what is the most appropriate for the topic as well as the audience. The most common method to use is by comparing the options on point forms. This section can be divided into subsections. One of the subsections will be for each of the requirements that were listed earlier. For each subsection, comparisons for all options with regard to each requirement will be made (Finsin, 2015).

• Summary /conclusions

After making all the comparisons, this section makes a summary of all the options reached on the options that were proposed. The individual conclusions are restated in this section. The conclusion should state which option is considered the best or if the program being assessed is a success or a failure.

• Recommendation

Until this point, the recommendation is obviously already known. In this section therefore the report will explicitly explain which of the items that were being discussed merits selection. It should point out the most vital conclusions that result to the recommendation and the state the recommendation categorically. It is also possible to recommend a lot of options depending on the possibilities (Holt et al, 2013).

In order to establish the fees agreed upon and the terms whenever appointing a consultant on a project, some standard methodology has to be adopted (Vee & Skitmore, 2013). Adoption of the methodology will help in deciding and setting down fees as well as the terms of engagements for the given project. Some of the practices that have to be performed will include the following;

• Ensure that all agreements are well put down in writing. There also has to be a standard format for making the writings or can be done through exchange of letters.
• Any form of verbal agreement must be confirmed in form of writing. This means that the same agreements reached upon verbally will be put down in writing for confirmation purposes
• The agreement reached upon by both parties should make a clear definition of the services that are to be provided. For example, the agreement should clearly define the extent of estimating, planning, costs, etc. the agreement should also define the methods of measurements that are meant to be used as well as the extent of the duties that are to be measured (Holt et al, 2010).
• The fees or the basis on which the payment calculations were made should well stated together with any other requirement for payment.
• For any other additional services, their hourly rates should be indicated in the agreements.
• Clear details of all responsibilities of all clients that regard to payment, delivery of information, program etc. should also be included as part of the terms.
• In any case a standard or project/client specific nature of agreement is chosen to be used, then it should crisscrossed for any requirement that seems unreasonable or for matters that could lead to nullification of any terms of the insurance professional indemnity (Ireland, 2011).
• For the agreement, it is not advisable that it should not require any quantity surveyor to showcase any degree of skill, diligence or care. Instead, the agreement should be one that is normally exercised by affiliates of the profession that is conducting services of the same kind.
• Any form of agreement should require a written approval by the client showing all the terms of agreement.

Practices to establish agreed fees and terms

Many organisations today do have precise processes of review that forms part of the quality assurance procedures. One of the fundamentals of these processes can be found from requirements from AS/NZS ISO 9001. These requirements may include the following;

“Before submission of a tender, or the acceptance of a contract or order (statement of requirement), the tender, contract or order shall be reviewed by the supplier to ensure that:

(a) The requirements are adequately defined and documented; where no written statement or requirement is available for an order received by verbal means, the supplier shall ensure that the order requirements are agreed before their acceptance;

(b) Any differences between the contract or order requirements and those in the tender are resolved;

(c) The supplier has the capability to meet the contract or order requirements.”

Selecting a well-qualified contractor is a primary decision that significantly impacts the quality of the project (Lewis, 2013). The principal is normally assisted in this duty by the engineer, a representative either a lawyer or any other close adviser. There are possible methods of choosing a good contractor. These methods are;

• Open / public tendering
• Invited / selective tendering
• Negotiated contracts

This is a bidding process that is open to all bidders who are qualified. The sealed bids are opened to the public for the purpose of scrutiny and a tender is awarded with regard to the prices and their quality. In order to achieve an open tender, public advertisements are made (Love, 2012). The advertisements will entail specific details and conditions that have to be fulfilled by the organisations or firms that are willing to apply for the tenders. The companies reading the adverts may also be left to make decisions on whether they are well suited with the contract or not. One major factor that is hugely taken into consideration when selecting any bidder is the price that is required and also the time.

This is a tendering process where the client or the client representative selects a list of high profile contarctors that they prefer would be highly suited to conduct the project. The contactors are the invited to tender and therefore make a decision on the costs and time (Masterman & Masterman, 2013). The contactors are selected on the basis of their ability, integrity and their characteristics. In most cases, the contarctors with high ratings and high levels of experience are the ones that are preferred. This type of tendering is generally similar to the open tender though the only difference is that the final list of tenders is restricted to those firms that are considered by the client and the client representatives to be in a situation to perfectly carry out the project at hand.

Requirements for tender review process procedures

The client and their representatives chose on a single contractor who they consider best placed to carry out the project without any initial agreement of price and time (Porwal & Hewage, 2013).

A lot of processes are involved before a client or the representative settles on a contractor.these processes sre as discussed below.

Any submission of a tender can require the evaluation of the tender in a fair manner that is in accordance to the laws of tender procedures. The process is directed by some ethics that have to be followed.

Any tenderer should be provided with all the contract documents during the whole tendering period. Any additional information provided during the tendering period must also be provided to the tenderers sequentialy numbered and well dated (QC, 2010).

Adequate time should be allowed for the tenderers in order to minimize the chances of a tender being thrown out for lack of enough knowledge. This is because the contractors that make compilation of tenders always have the duty to make detailed enquiries as well as carry out detailed measurements (Shen & Song, 2015). The details that need to be specified in the documents should include;

• Time and place of closing tender
• Provisions for document refunds or tender deposit
• How the marking and deliveries will be done
• How long the tender will remain open etc.

Tenders are never opened until the day of closing. This is meant to avoid collusion or any suspicion. The tenders are normally opened openly in public or in front of the bidders (Ray, 2014).

The tenders are normally checked arithmetically and comparisons made with regard to cost estimates for the project. In any case a tender appears to be unusually low the bidder can be called to explain or ultimately withdraw the tender.

A recommendation report should be drafted and submitted to the principal. The report should list all the tenders received and the comments on them. It should recommend one that should be accepted (Wong et al, 2015).

References

Chan, D.W. and Kumaraswamy, M.M., 2011. A comparative study of causes of time overruns in Hong Kong construction projects. International Journal of project management, 15(1), pp.55-63.

Dorée, A.G., 2014. Collusion in the Dutch construction industry: an industrial organization perspective. Building Research & Information, 32(2), pp.146-156.

Eccles, R.G., 2012. The quasifirm in the construction industry. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2(4), pp.335-357.

Fayek, A., Young, D.M. and Duffield, C.F., 2010. A survey of tendering practices in the Australian construction industry. Engineering Management Journal, 10(4), pp.29-34.

Finsen, E., 2015. The building contract: a commentary on the JBCC agreements. Juta.

Holt, G.D., Olomolaiye, P.O. and Harris, F.C., 2013. A conceptual alternative to current tendering practice: Majority of UK construction projects assigned by way of selective competition, an alternative quantitative selection technique has been developed by the authors which could equally apply elsewhere. Building research and information, 21(3), pp.167-172.

Holt, G.D., Olomolaiye, P.O. and Harris, F.C., 2010. A review of contractor selection practice in the UK construction industry. Building and Environment, 30(4), pp.553-561.

Ireland, V., 2011. The role of managerial actions in the cost, time and quality performance of high-rise commercial building projects. Construction management and economics, 3(1), pp.59-87.

Lewis, R., 2013. Contracts between businessmen: reform of the law of firm offers and an empirical study of tendering practices in the building industry. Journal of Law and Society, 9(2), pp.153-175.

Love, P.E., 2012. Influence of project type and procurement method on rework costs in building construction projects. Journal of construction engineering and management, 128(1), pp.18-29.

Masterman, J. and Masterman, J.W., 2013. An introduction to building procurement systems. Routledge.

Porwal, A. and Hewage, K.N., 2013. Building Information Modeling (BIM) partnering framework for public construction projects. Automation in Construction, 31, pp.204-214.

QC, R.W.S., 2010. Construction contracts: law and practice (p. 210). Oxford University Press, New York.

Ray, R.S., Hornibrook, J., Skitmore, M. and Zarkada-Fraser, A., 2014. Ethics in tendering: a survey of Australian opinion and practice. Construction Management & Economics, 17(2), pp.139-153.

Shen, L. and Song, W., 2015. Competitive tendering practice in Chinese construction. Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, 124(2), pp.155-161.

Vee, C. and Skitmore, C., 2013. Professional ethics in the construction industry. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 10(2), pp.117-127.

Wong, C.H., Holt, G.D. and Cooper, P.A., 2015. Lowest price or value? Investigation of UK construction clients’ tender selection process. Construction Management & Economics, 18(7), pp.767-774.