Construction project executives continue to face mounting challenges in their delivery of projects. The rapid impact of globalization has placed even stricter demands on project delivery time, cost and quality. It seems the mantra of the day is “do it faster, cheaper, and at a high quality”, and of course, within an overall expectation of client satisfaction.

Knowledgeable project executives recognise that a major ingredient for project success is the accurate development of project costs based on a well defined scope. It is therefore essential to have a working understanding of engineering economics and cash flow analysis to evaluate and select between project alternatives. This should be followed by an in-depth holistic treatment of the processes needed to develop accurate cost estimates.

A solid estimate goes hand in hand with a schedule that incorporates efficient monitoring, and is sensitive to changes and limitations of resources and other work items. It is important to treat estimating, scheduling and cost control as an integrated process rather than a disjointed set of activities as is unfortunately practiced too often in some major corporations.