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The development of any country depends on the rate of industrial growth. Currently, there is a race in industrial projects worldwide. The development of the industry depends on the development of the energy reserve by investment in projects of oil and gas exploration, onshore and offshore, which require new facilities or rehabilitation of existing facilities. At the same time, there are projects that are running in parallel to deliver electricity from electrical power stations or through nuclear power plants.

In this book, the term industrial structures means all the reinforced concrete and steel structures from a small factory to a nuclear plant. This book will be an overview of industrial project management, design, construction, and eventually providing a maintenance plan. Industrial projects, in most cases, are huge and can cost a billion dollars for one project, so the client, engineering firm, and contractor are in the same boat until they achieve project success through a strong management system and technical competence. Therefore, this book discusses all items that interface among these main three partners.

In these types of projects, all the engineering disciplines are working together, but, unfortunately, the structural or civil engineers are usually the last ones to obtain the exact data from the other disciplines and the first ones to start on site. Therefore it is a challenge for the structural engineers to work fast and efficiently in this type of project.

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This book presents the principles and techniques of managing engineering and construction projects from the conceptual phase, through design and construction, to completion. It emphasizes project management during the early stages of project development because the ability to influence the quality, cost, and schedule of a project can best be achieved during the early stages of development. Most books discuss project management during construction, after the scope of work is fully defined, the budget is fixed, and the completion date is firm. It is then too late to make any significant adjustments to the project to improve quality, cost, or schedule to benefit the owner.

Although each project is unique, there is certain information that must be identified and organized at the beginning of a project, before any work is started. Numerous tables and graphs are presented and discussed throughout this book to provide guidelines for management of the three basic components of a project: scope, budget, and schedule. Throughout this book, achieving project quality to meet the owner's satisfaction is emphasized as an integral part of project management.

This second edition of the book has three new chapters: Working with Project Teams, Early Estimates, and Design Proposals. The topics in these chapters are extremely important to achieving a successful project. These topics are covered from the perspective of the engineer who is employed with either the owner's organization or the design firm.

The intended audience of this book is students of university programs in engineering and construction. It is also intended for persons in industry who aid the owner in the feasibility study, coordinate the design effort, and witness construction in the field. A common example is used throughout this book to illustrate project management of the design and construction process.

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This book is aimed primarily at students for whom the study of building or civil engineering contracts forms part of a construction-based course. We have had in mind the syllabus requirements for first degrees in Building, Civil Engineering, Architecture, Quantity Surveying and Building Surveying, as well as those of postgraduate courses in Construction Management and Project Management. We have also assumed that such students will already have been introduced to the general principles of English law, especially those relating to contract and tort. As a result, while aspects of those subjects that are of particular relevance to construction are dealt with here, the reader must look elsewhere for the general legal background.

In producing this fourth edition, we have again been greatly assisted by the many helpful comments made by reviewers and users of its predecessor. We are particularly indebted to Jan-Bertram Hillig, who has patiently and diligently guided us through recent changes in standard-form contracts and, in so doing, has also made many other helpful suggestions. Nonetheless, our basic aim is identical to that which underpinned the first edition: to provide an explanation of the fundamental principles of construction contract law, rather than a clause-by-clause analysis of any particular standard-form contract. As a result, while we draw most frequently upon JCT SBC 05 for our illustrations of particular points, this merely reflects the pre-eminent position occupied by that particular form of contract in the UK construction industry.

We conclude by repeating our previous warning as to the dangers inherent in a little learning. Neither this book, nor the courses for which it is intended, seek to produce construction lawyers. The objective is rather to enable those who are not lawyers to resolve simple construction disputes before they become litigious, and to recognize when matters require professional legal advice. It should be the aim of every construction student to understand the legal framework sufficiently that they can instruct and brief specialist lawyers and this book is designed to help them towards that understanding.
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It is not the intention of this manual to hold anything new for the top flight general construction estimator whose ability, know-how and knowledge in the Industry is the product of many years of schooling, actual competitive bidding, hard knocks and time-consuming analyses of both good and bad estimates. This type of estimator knows that to prepare an accurate labor estimate in dollar value one must first have a basis or reason for the use of monetary units.

Simply to say that a unit or block of work is worth so many dollars because it cost your company that on a previous project is absurd, ridiculous and tends to show the weakness of the inexperienced estimator, The purpose of this manual is to offer assistance or a basis, in direct labor manhours, for this type estimator.

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About a year ago I was asked by a firm of insurance loss adjusters to investigate the possibility of reducing the anticipated overrun caused by an explosion at a power station. Based on previous experience of similar problems, I asked the contractors (a firm of international design and build constructors) to let me examine the critical path network which formed the basis of the computer-generated bar charts previously sent to the loss adjusters. My objective was to see whether the original sequence of construction activities could be rescheduled to mitigate the inevitable delays caused by long lead times of replacements and in some cases redesign of the damaged components.
To my dismay, I discovered that there was no network. The planners inputted the data straight into the computer, based on very detailed established modular packages. These packages contained the sequences, interrelationships and durations of the constituent activities.
It is a fact that most commercial computer programs recommend such a procedure. The planner can then see the program on the screen in bar chart form as he/she proceeds, but will only obtain a network printout (in precedence format) after the data has been processed. In other words the network has become virtually redundant as it has not been used to develop the structure of the project before the data was inputted.
This procedure turns network analysis on its head and does not give a project team the ability to discuss and refine the interrelationships to give the optimum results in terms of time and cost. The very act of communally drafting and developing the network generates not only an understanding and appreciation of the problems, but also enables the overall time to be reduced to an acceptable level by maximizing parallel working without necessarily increasing resources and costs. It is for this reason that I have retained the chapter setting out the case for manual analysis. Even in this age of the universal use of the PC for just about every management and operational function of an organization, the thinking process, i.e. the basic planning and sequencing of a project cannot be left to a machine.
One of the by-products of computerization was the introduction of precedence or AoN (activity on node) networks. These types of networks seem to militate against manual drafting for large projects, because drawing and filling in of the many node boxes is very time consuming, when compared to the drafting of arrow or AoA (activity on arrow) diagrams. However, the big advantage of the AoN diagram is the substitution of node numbers by activity numbers. This clearly simplifies the numbering system and enables activities to be added or changed without affecting the numbers of the other activities. Indeed most computer programs add the activity numbers automatically as the data is entered.

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The construction industry has undergone considerable change in the last decade. Ever more demanding clients and fierce competition have resulted in many organizations having to look for ways of:

The imperative is for managers and organizations to improve their business development strategies and techniques. The contributors to this book identify the particular issues and problems connected with developing more effective approaches in this industry. An industry with a record of poor performance in most of the areas outlined above.

The long-term development and operation of a business is complex and risky. The factors that ensure a business achieves growth and profitability are difficult to determine. Many of the worlds leading business leaders and writers have offered prescriptions to sustainable business development. What we have however watched over the past few decades is the rise and fall of many organizations. Some of these companies were excellent while others were poor yet they all suffered similar fates. The construction industry has not been immune from the changes that have taken place with many longstanding companies disappearing from both the British (European) and world stages. The dynamics of business are no longer restricted to local, regional or national boundaries but take on a more global dimension.

The construction industry has not escaped the new more dynamic and faster changing environment. The business models of the past are being replaced by faster, flexible and more dynamic versions. The buyers of construction services, both public and private, have changed their attitudes to the performance of construction. They want fast, efficient, high quality and reliable construction with better value for money. Construction is expected to be more collaborative and responsive with a long-term customer service driven approach.

On the other hand, investors in construction organizations expect better returns on their investments. There are many alternative options for investors and construction is expected to provide similar returns to other investments. It is no longer an option to operate in the boom and bust cycles of the past. Such pressures mean that construction organizations need to look at their underlying short-term profitability and as well as their long-term strategic positions.

Construction is not a homogenous industry and is better characterized as a number of market segments coming together to form a representation of an industry. The traditional classification is that construction comprises of civil engineering, building, repair and maintenance, and materials sectors. Such simplicity would be easy but even within this framework other classifications such as housing commercial, public and industrial construction also exists. There are also variations in project size, complexity and location. Modern procurement approaches have also created crossovers between design, execute and operational activities. This definition does not include sectors such as petrochemicals, offshore construction, power, facilities management, etc. A large modern construction services organization can operate in a complex business environment. There will be competition within market sectors as well as across sectors. The process of developing a business has to be carefully thought through.

Industrial analysis clearly indicates that construction is a fragmented industry in which no single company has a dominant position able to influence the outcomes of the industry. This is essentially true for most of the European Union and North America. There are however countries where the development and protection of large construction organizations have increased the power of these companies. The general absence of monopoly generally means that levels of competition are greater. Once the analysis of the segments and sectors start it is possible to identify dominant organizations and they are particularly prominent in the specialist sectors. Construction has generally been considered a diverse project-led industry with associated fluctuations in demand. Further fragmentation has taken place as more construction firms try to create continuous income streams and move away from the uncertainty of project-driven industries. Business development within construction is a complex activity.

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Construction Equipment Management for Engineers, Estimators, and Owners is intended to be a reference book for construction project managers, estimators, construction equipment fleet managers, and professional engineers. The book also contains information relevant to both the public and private sectors. It contains a great deal of ‘‘hands-on, how-to’’ information about equipment management based on the authors’ personal construction experiences throughout the world. It is written as a guide for individuals who need to estimate the cost of equipment on a given project and do not have data at their fingertips because their routine business does not involve a lot of equipment-related construction. The authors also hope that their book will be useful to the public agency equipment manager whose need is to minimize equipment costs rather than to maximize the profit earned by the equipment.

The book is useful to all parties in the architecture, engineering, and construction industries as well as to project owners. The first chapter describes the evolution of construction equipment and serves to set the stage for the following chapters that provide specific up-todate information on the state of art in the area. The chapters on estimating equipment ownership and operating costs and determining economic life and replacement policy will be of great value to construction estimators. The chapters on determining the optimum mix of equipment and estimating the equipment productivity show the estimator how to maximize the profit of an equipment-intensive construction project. The chapter on scheduling demonstrates how to convert a linear schedule into a precedence diagram for use in a project that has a mandated scheduling methodology. This information has not been published before to the best of our knowledge and demonstrates to the equipment manager how to ensure that a production-driven, equipment-intensive project can be scheduled to achieve target production rates and hence target equipment-related unit costs and profits.
The book also shows managers and engineers how to avoid making costly common mistakes during project equipment selection. It contains a matrix that will help the novice equipment manager select the proper piece of equipment based on the requirements of the project. It is full of detailed examples of the types of calculations made to allow both public and private equipment-owning organizations to determine an optimum equipment utilization plan for any project regardless of their levels of experience. Finally, the equipment safety
chapter describes how to develop an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) job safety analysis for an equipment-intensive project, thus making this onerous and essential task easier for the equipment manager.
This book is the brainchild of Dr. Calin Popescu of the University of Texas and flows from an early work undertaken to support his graduate civil engineering class in construction equipment management. Dr. Popescu’s focus was on equipment used for heavy-civil projects. Professor Richard Ryan of the University of Oklahoma blended much of his work on managing construction equipment in building construction for his construction science undergraduate class on construction equipment into Dr. Popescu’s outline to produce a
reference that for the first time treats both horizontal and vertical construction projects. Dr. Doug Gransberg added his research on optimizing equipment fleet size and composition as well as his experience in applying engineering economics and simulations to produce a comprehensive treatise on this subject that ranges from the rigorous mathematical analysis of equipment operations to the pragmatic discussion of the equipment maintenance programs needed to guarantee the production assumed in a cost estimate. The authors hope that the combination of both the analytical and practical aspects will result in a reference document that will be of value to a wide range of individuals and organizations within the architecture, engineering, and construction industries.

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