Civil Engineering Project Management (4th Edition)

14 Civil Engineering Project Management
significant. A more significant factor in reducing project cost is the efficiency
with which promoters, designers and contractors carry out their roles.
1.15 Ancillary contractual practices
By the end of the 1990s the construction industry had tried out a variety of
permutations of construction procedures, most of them being only ancillary
practices attached to one or other of the main approaches already described
above. The following list gives the new terms most frequently used and their
meaning. Few are radically new practices, and some had a phase of popularity
which has already declined.
Alliancing A term principally applying to a contractor who joins with one
or more other contractors to undertake a contract for some project. One firm is
the lead firm; the others are often specialists. An example is an EPC Contract
(Engineer, Procure, Construct Contract) under which a firm of consulting
engineers may be the lead firm (see Section 2.6(c)) with a construction contractor
and plant suppliers associated. Other setups are possible, such as
when a construction contractor or plant supplier is the lead firm and uses consulting
engineers to design the structures required. Alliancing is also sometimes
used as an alternative name for Partnering.
Benchmarking A procedure under which a promoter (or manufacturer or
contractor) compares his performance achievements on projects with the
methods and achievements on similar projects carried out earlier by him, or
carried out by some other promoter. It involves comparing such things as project
cost per unit of some kind; time and cost over-runs against that intended;
disputes and troubles encountered, etc.
Best Value Contracts The requirements placed by government on UK local
authorities in place of Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) (see below).
Tenders for construction or provision of services now have to be chosen not only
on bid price, but also on the quality of the materials and services offered, as
affecting the estimated operational and maintenance costs of a project and its
estimated length of life. This is evaluating bids on a ‘ whole life costing’ basis.
Competitive dialogue Pre-bid negotiations initiated by a promoter who,
not having defined his project requirements in any detail, invites outline
proposals from contractors for a design and build project as part of the prequalification
stage for prospective bidders. Criticisms of the procedure are that
the promoter gets useful advice on design alternatives without paying a
proper design fee for same, and that the promoter may choose the best design
submitted by one contractor but use another contractor to execute it.
Compulsory Competitive Tendering The procedure that the UK government
previously required local authorities to adopt, before they introduced