PhD Final Thesis April 2013.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

Thesis Keith Gale 2013projects and control the price obtained for work by restricting supply. Trade guildscontrolled the market by ensuring tradesmen were paid by each piece of completedwork (hence the term ‘piece work’). A single event occurred in London in 1666 thatwould exaggerate a shortage of skilled resources and emphasise a lack of controlover market prices further. The great fire of London provided a need for majorreconstruction work requiring scientific control of cost estimates and use of standardmethods of measurement to assist with the rebuilding programme. To estimate thevalue of work, a guide was produced which also assisted with the calculation oftimescales and costs for specific elements of a project. This guide, regarded as themost significant treatise of its time was ‘A platform for purchasers, a guide forbuilders, a mate for measurers’ (Leybourn, 1672). The ability to relatively accuratelyestimate construction projects and determine standard methods of measurementformed the basis of modern quantity surveying methods still used today. Publicationof Leybourn’s guide also enabled both suppliers and clients to agree a range of ‘fairmarket prices’ when disputes arose.The use of payment by piece work developed further as the industrial revolutionprogressed. Nonetheless, elements of resource based and piece work estimatingcontinue to be used in modern construction economics.3.13 A continued lack of cost certainty and rise of tendersAlthough piece work helped with certainty of costs, there was still a lack of costcertainty so an independent measurer prepared standardised schedules for a buildingproject, where all of the significant construction materials, labour activities and thelike were quantified. This method of construction payment (the bill of quantities) isstill in use today for a significant number of construction projects and represents anaggregate of elements (Carr 1989).Lump sum tenders using bills of quantities remained the predominant economicmeasurement system until the turn of this current century. More recently, there hasbeen a move away from bills of quantities to other forms of evaluation. An analysisof procurement methods of civil engineering projects undertaken by the CivilEngineering Contractor’s Association (CECA, 2002) identified that between 1999and 2001, traditional procurement methods using bills of quantities for discreteprojects reduced from 55% to 37% whereas partnering and framework procurement66