Construction Contracts Essay

© Crown copyright 1994 Applications for reproduction should be made to HMSO First published 1994

Over the past few years, the construction industry has been changing dramatically. One of the most important stages in the construction management and business management is the planning phase. They share similar two main levels of planning which are the strategic and operational planning. However, business management planning to decide in advance what should be done, and how to do it, when you do and you are done. On the other hand, Construction management strategic planning is to deal with selection on a high level of overall objective of the project, including the scope, procurement methods, schedules and financing options but the planning of operations, including the

Fixed-price contracts use a fixed total price for the defined product, service, or result to be provided. The seller has the most risk in this contract type because they are obligated to complete the contracts and they will have to pay financial damages if they do not complete it. In the cost-reimbursable contracts, cost reimbursements are involved with additional fee that represents seller profit. This contract type is flexible especially when the project scope changes. Buyers have the most risk in this contract because it is possible that sellers increase prices and fees in the process. The time and material contracts is a hybrid of the fixed-price contracts and cost-reimbursable contracts. Buyers have the most risk in this contract type because the contracts can be open-ended allowing the sellers to increase the price of materials or services.

If a good cost-measurement system was set up, cost-plus contracts will demonstrate the advantages of cost-management better than fixed price contracts do. With a robust cost-measurement system, managers are able to know the real revenue drivers, to recognize the most valuable customers, and to offer more reasonable price bid. That is to say, cost-measurement system’s strength lies in differentiating clients’ value, projects’ value and operation processes’ value case by case. Under this circumstance, cost-plus contracts would surely dig more utilization and benefit more from such a system, because CitySoft would be able to charge different customers and projects for different prices, which is critical for increasing profitability.

Whether a client should bid or not bid. A client should typically be patient and await a positive tendering opening that will suit their requirements. The decision whether to tender or not on contracts that you may potentially not win will incur wasted time by all parties. A contractor should determine whether to bid or not on a contract by carefully analysing the weight of success against their probability of loss.

When you are seeking prices for a project that requires construction, you go to a contractor, not an architect. Following this protocol will get you the best prices.

3. (TCO 4) What is the difference between the Cost-Plus-Percentage-Fee (CPF) contract structure and the Cost-Plus-Fixed-Fee (CPFF) contract structure?

The $320,000, on the other hand, is a fixed cost associated with the proposed addition.

Compared to the traditional unit price payment system, under lump sum provisions the STA does not provide quantity estimates in the bid package. The contractor is responsible for developing quantity take-offs from the plans for estimating a lump sum item or items for a project (2). Within this lump sum amount the contractor includes the costs of the risks associated with this type of contract, and the STA awards the project to the contractor that proposes the lowest lump sum. During construction, the STA generally reimburses the contractor in monthly payments that are proposed by the contractor in the proposal as a percentage of the lump

In project management, contract almost related with every level of project, such as material buying, price negotiation, customer service and payments. Supplier is another important role in project management. If contractor could give a appropriate contact to supplier, it will helps on build stable relationship, with supplier, even more, it could bargain with price of materials. However, if contract not finish at each single phases of project, it will increase negotiation time, which means definitely time delay and cost overruns. With decent contract management of project, it will simply to avoid such fundamental problems. Another explanation for contract error is worker. Human resource is also important for basic project proceeding, and it has been included in contract management as well. Similarly, all potential possibilities need considered by manager. “careful consideration need to be finished when forming the initial contract, for about what might occur during its operation, this will guarantee that things are included in the contract documents that enable effective contract management”(OGC 2010)

3. If the contract doesn’t have applicable and similar cost in it, the contractor should propose a cost and submit to the stakeholders to get a approval, and carry out.

In construction projects, mostly the firms (in this case the firms become client) do not have the skills or develop skills inside the firms to undertake the projects due to amount of the projects should be conducted or the complexity of the projects (Reve and Levitt, 1984). Therefore, the economic decision to conduct the projects is to procure them to third parties. However, more commonly the client agonize the final quality of the projects will meet standard requirements. Thus, impacts to involvement of complex contracts of construction procurement.

When engaging in a construction contract, time is of the essence and running over time projections can cause literally millions of dollars in additional non-contract costs. Therefore, construction contracts that can provide incentives to complete the project on time or early are beneficial because they effectively penalized contractors who fail to deliver on-time performance. With a CPIF contract, the

To select a suitable procurement strategy for a construction project, there are some issues which need to consider. From all of those issues, there are 3 big issues that mainly affect the selection decision which are time, cost and quality. There is several type of procurement strategy available in market that commonly used for construction project and each of the common method will be analyze and compare to find the most appropriate method for this project. The choice of procurement strategy is very important to the success of a construction project. Therefore, the characteristic of each strategy have to analyze and also its relative advantages and disadvantages. A recommendation of most appropriate procurement

Drake (1994) and Myers (2013) indicate four underline principles that are the foundation to a construction firms; The Supply, the demand, the market and the business type.