News & Events - Institution of Engineers Singapore

News & Events
BCA Construction Excellence
Awards 2010
A total of 12 Awards and nine Certificates
of Merit were given out under BCA’s
Construction Excellence Awards this
year, up from six Awards and two
Certificates of Merit in 2009.
Of the 12 award winners, luxury
condominiums under the residential
building category, took up five places.
Two civil engineering projects also
stood out to win Awards. They are
the underground construction of the
Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway (KPE)
and the first stage of the Circle Line.
This year, local builder Tiong Seng
Contractors (Pte) Ltd clinched three of
the 12 Awards - for the construction of
Parc Emily Condominium, RiverEdge,
and St. Regis Residences (a jointventure
with Kajima Overseas Asia Pte
Ltd). All three condominiums achieved
high CONQUAS scores of 94.1, 89.7
and 89.4 respectively, and were certified
under BCA’s Quality Mark (QM) for
Good Workmanship scheme. On the
average, the industry CONQUAS score
for private housing in 2009 was 85.4.
Through the QM scheme, builders
are able to ensure that high quality
homes are delivered to homeowners
consistently so that developers are able
to reduce inconvenience to their clients.
Homeowners of QM-certified units are
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also reportedly more satisfied with their
purchases and required less rectification
work to be done.
Under the QM scheme, each unit
in a newly completed residential project
will be assessed by a set of prescribed
standards to ensure the high quality
of the internal finishing including the
water-tightness of the bathrooms.
As part of the requirements, any
major defects discovered during the
assessment will have to be rectified
before the residential units are handed
over to the homeowners. About 30,000
residential units have been committed
to the scheme since it was launched in
2002.
Newly launched units that have
committed to the scheme have
significantly risen over the years.
The general improvement in
construction quality and workmanship
over the years, has led to more projects
qualifying for the Construction
Excellence Awards. As such, the
qualifying scores for some of the
categories will be raised for nominations
in 2011.
Since the Awards were introduced in
1986, BCA has conferred 318 Awards
and Certificates of Merit, to builders for
quality and workmanship.
GEOSOFT PTE LTD PAGE 3, 18, 19, 20, 21
KALZIP ASIA
LMC PTE LTD PAGE 5
MANCHESTER BUSINESS SCHOOL
LUTRON ELECTRONICS
PENNWELL CORPORATION PAGE 47
PHOENIX SOLAR PTE LTD PAGE 17
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BCA AWARDS
2010 scales new
heights
The Building and Construction
Authority (BCA) handed out 159
awards at the annual BCA Awards.
Firms and projects were accorded
recognition for categories such as design
and engineering safety excellence,
construction excellence, universal
design, Green Mark, as well as green and
gracious builder, and built environment
leadership.
A new category of Green Mark
Awards, the BCA-NParks Green Mark
for New Parks, was created.
Meanwhile, the government has
introduced incentive funding of S$
250 million through the Construction
Productivity and Capability Fund
(CPCF).
The fund consists of seven
specific schemes to tackle areas such
as technology adoption, manpower
development and skills upgrading, as
well as capability building in niche areas.
It is coupled with policy changes such
as introducing a new tiered-levy system,
reducing the man-year entitlement and
enhancing the buildability framework.
Although applications for the
CPCF were scheduled to begin from 1
June 2010, the construction industry
has been responding positively to
the productivity call since a series of
briefings on the schemes in the CPCF
was conducted from mid-April for more
than 2,000 firms.
A group of construction companies
(comprising a builder, a consultant and
a concrete supplier), for example, is
preparing to apply for funding under
the Productivity Improvement Project
scheme (PIP) – one of the schemes
under the S$ 250 million fund.
To improve one of the work
processes, the team is proposing to
introduce self-flow concrete which can
reduce the number of workers required
to do concreting work by at least twothirds.
It also reduces the need for
concrete vibrators for their construction
projects, thus saving on both time and
cost.
48 · THE SINGAPORE ENGINEER Jun 2010