Pre contract cost planning and pre contract cost controlling - Essay Example

James Nisbet was the first who conceived and developed the technique of elemental cost analysis for construction projects. Nisbet technique demanded the architects to ‘design to cost’ in opposition to the approximate quantities’ method of estimating, which basically involved costing a design: with very little control. Thus, the elemental costing approach facilitated the client to get a more consistent pre-tender estimate, and offered the design team a model so as to control cost at the design development stage itself.

As per Nisbet, the cost planning should be developed jointly by the quantity surveyor and the architect and postulated that such close cooperation could, in the long run, result in the integration of the profession of quantity surveyors and the architects as one-stop supply of consultancy firms. In 1962, the cost research panel of RICS (Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors) established the Building Cost Information Services (BCIS) mainly to gather cost data for the introduction of such cost plans.

Now, BCIS has developed a national database in excess of 16,000 element cost analysis, which is available online now. Such data can be utilized to prepare the pre-contract approximating process in the construction sector together to make sure the value for money by assisting the designer to make certain about the most proper distribution of costs well within the concerned project. Thus, cost management is the process of assisting the design team to design to cost instead of the quantity surveyor costing a design (Potts & Ankrah 2013:59).

Cost management is a complete process, which make certain that the contract amount is within the approved budget or cost limit of the client. The modus of the design cost control is that by employing the cost planning method which is the evaluation of existing projects into various functional elements so as to offer a means of evaluation between