The
facilities in most of the countries have been built about 75 to 100 years back.
All structures have a definite life and require renovation/refurbishment after
a certain period of time to upkeep the structure/facilities running. This
results in the need of the renovation sector, which may include works in any of
the civil and infrastructure facilities around. The present trend of renovation
works can be observed in Figure 1, which depicts that there is a constant need
of this sector as compared to the new construction works taking place.
Figure 1 New building
works vs. renovation works
(Source:
Green, building.co.uk, 2012)
However,
the renovation projects are not composed of simple construction works and
generally need to have an integration of the construction activities with the
ongoing building operations and the surrounding environment. This calls for
special attention from all the stakeholders involved in the projects.
Nonetheless, though there have been theoretical developments in this front
regarding scheduling of activities in the renovation projects (Whiteman, 1987;
Whiteman and Irwig, 1988), the basic framework is also not practically followed
in most projects, without any consideration for special requirements.
This
lack/ minimal use of framework or technique in the practical scenario leads to
untoward situations during the execution stage, thus, leading to lot of changes
and modifications, known as additional works and/ or variation orders, which
could lead to claims.
The
pricing of the activities in the execution stage are also not given proper
consideration in many projects. This is much more prominent for the indirect
work activities, the price for which are generally established as a percentage
of the entire direct cost, similar to those in the new construction projects,
though in the real scenario both of these are quite varied. Proper care should
be taken to clearly estimate the pricing of each activity, including both
direct and indirect costs. This estimate needs to start early in the project,
to have a better idea of the required budget and feasibility of the project
based on the available budget. In most cases, due to lack of a proper procedure
to estimate the cost values, the projects go over-budget, putting forward
negative impacts.
The
renovation industry is a new commercially active sector, and there has been
little research on these in comparison to the new construction works. Moreover,
there is minimal research available on the cost estimation process exclusively
for the renovation projects due to the inaccurate and non-standardised pricing
and accounting of the works. This area, thus, need to be studied properly, to
eliminate escalated prices in work and encourage more contractors for
diversification into this subsector. Hence, in order to explore solutions to
the above mentioned issues, Ms. Nishat Farhin Islam made a study aimed to:
(1)
identify the unique features in renovation projects those need to be considered
during the estimation process.
(2)
develop a framework for cost estimation in renovation projects and analyze each
stage of a renovation construction project in details.
(3)
determine improvement measures that can be brought in the estimation process of
the case study and provide recommendations as per research and for further
study.
Conclusions
1. Unique features in renovation projects to be considered during estimation
The first objective of the study dealt with the identification of the unique features in renovation projects that were required to be considered for the estimation process of the same. To achieve this objective, extensive literature review was done by using varied sources of conference papers, journals, books, previous theses, etc for understanding the whole process of renovation projects, basically building works. To understand the concepts conceived from the literature review regarding renovation works, pre-surveys and data were collected through a case study. Literature review was carried out simultaneously to understand the general estimation procedures followed in various construction projects. This led to the findings on the key features of both renovation projects and estimation procedures. These were then studied together and combined to finally derive the 9 unique features of renovation projects that affect estimation, and thus, need to be considered during the estimation process.
Hence,
the first objective of the research study was achieved and has been detailed in
Table 1. The results of this were then used to carry out the second objective
of framework development.
2. Development
of estimation framework for renovation projects and analysis of each stage in
details
The
results of the first objective and the concepts and data available during the
process of achieving the first objective were then used to develop an
estimation framework which could be exclusively used in renovation projects to
have better projection of costs and minimise cost escalations towards the end
of the project. The framework developed was then checked and validated by three
(3) experts with experience of working in renovation projects. Considering the
comments and practical advice from the experts, the framework was then modified
to be clear and consider all the aspects. The framework was divided into the
five (5) major stages of a construction project. These were then detailed out
for each of the stages and compared with the process followed in the stages of
the case study considered.
The
case consisted of various projects and for the research study, only 6 projects
were considered based on the completeness of available data and observations
on-site that were available. The loopholes and inadequacies of the case and the
effects of these were then noted.
The
second objective was, hence, achieved and the loopholes in the projects were
listed down to be considered for the next objective.
3.
Improvement measures to be brought in
the estimation process of the case study
The
loopholes and inadequacies that were observed during the study of the earlier
objective were listed along with the positive features that were noticed in the
case study. The negative features were then supported by the recommendations
for improvements that need to be brought in the projects. These are
comprehensively presented in Table 2. The recommendations as per the research
and the recommendations for further study shall be discussed in the following
section, which then completes the third objective of our research study.
Recommendations
as per research study
As
per the research study conducted, there are certain recommendations for
consideration during any renovation project. These have been observed during
the fulfillment of the objectives and understanding of concepts and can be
listed as follows:
a - During the renovation projects,
exploratory demolition should be considered as one of the most important steps
to understand the conditions of the existing structures and then narrowing on
the scope of renovation of the considered structure. This also minimizes the
costs of activities in the later stages of the project and the additional works
and/ or variation orders reduces to a negligible amount unless there are
certain drastic change of plans during the course of the project.
b - As-built drawings of each building, at
least for those with longer design life, should be preserved for any renovation
works in future. As-built drawing s are very important to understand the
present systems in the building structure, so that the renovation works plans
could be carried out accordingly and, thus, reducing the pressure on detailed
designs, which are very difficult to be prepared for a completed structure
without any proper information.
c - Detailed design inspection and/or
evaluation should be necessarily conducted by the contractors during the
pre-construction stage to remove the discrepancies left by the consultants, if
any, and check the quantity takeoffs very accurately.
Her thesis abstract is copied below.
Abstract
Renovation works
is a prominent sub-sector of the construction industry in today’s world due the
extensive improvement works required in the various structures all around. The
design life of a building is generally 50 to 100 years and, thus, renovation
works are necessary around every 20 years, figures indicating that especially
green renovation is expected to increase to around 90%. However, the renovation sub sector is very unsafe due to the various unique features and unseen
conditions. In addition, most of the renovation activities are required to be
carried out in buildings with ongoing business or operations, which pose safety
and other risks, thus, increasing the time and cost of the projects. The cost
estimation works of these projects need to be carried out very carefully in a
detailed manner considering all the unique features of renovation. Cost
estimation of any project should be very accurate to avoid cost escalations
towards the end of the project which would add to the burden of the owner and
also lead to claims and disputes in many cases.
Hence, a proper
framework for cost estimation for renovation project was developed during the
study. A case study with multiple projects was conducted to understand the
practical scenario and conceptualise the information from literature review,
leading to the framework. Each stage of the renovation projects in the case was
then studied in details. The positive and negative features were also observed
and improvements measures were suggested.
Keywords:
Renovation projects, cost estimation, exploratory demolition, as-built drawings
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