Sunday, October 24, 2010

Question Tutorial 1

1. Briefly explain traditional role of quantity surveyor in commercial building projects

Answer:The quantity surveyor is a major contributor to the success of all types of project in all sectors of the economy including the industry infrastructure , healthcare , education , public buildings , retail and commerical construction , residential construction , and leisure projects.
The role of quantity surveyor including cost estimating , cost advice , cost planning , property development advice , advice on tendering procedures and contractual arrangement , prepare tender document , prepare contract documents , valuation of work in progress , financial control over contracts , final account in respect of the contract and etc

Future service of quantity surveyor

  • Offering advice on property taxation
  • Providing post-occupancy advise , facilities management services and life cycle costing advice
  • Assisting clients in locating and accessing additional and alternative sources of funds
  • Advising on the maintenance costs of specific buildings
  • Life cycle cost analysis /planning
  • Construction planning
  • Arbitration/ Mediation
  • Expert witness/ appraisal Insurance valuations
  • Risk Management
  • Project/construction management
  • Value management
  • Quanlity Management
  • Facilities/asset management
  • Premises audit (energy etc.)
  • Due diligence reports
  • Cost benefit analysis
  • Information management
  • ETC.

ROle of quantity surveyor ?

  • Prepare tender documents:

-Doing taking-off , preparing bills of quantities and other tender documents ( form of tender , conditions of tender , preliminaries , preambles to all trades , specification etc) for tendering purposes.

-Manage the tender process - Organize the calling of tenders , clarify and evaluate tenders (for example examining tenders and priced bulls of quantities and reporting findings ) prepare tender report and involve in tender interview.

-Negotiating rates with contractors on negotiated contracts and dealing with cost reimbursement contracts , design and build , management and other form of contracts.

  • Prepare contract documents:

-Prepare contract documents ( contents are same as tender documents but there are additional documents of correspondence and form of contract ) which will sign by the successful tenderer and the client ; distributed to all project parties ( successful contractor , client , quantity surveyor , architect , c&s engineer and M&E engineer).

  • Valuation of work in progress

-Interim valuation of works in progress on site for purposes of interim payments.

-Valuing work in progress and making recommendations as to payments to be made to the contractor , including advising on the financial effect of variations.

  • Financial control over contracts

-Preparing financial statement to monitor project cost during the construction stage.

-Performing variation control and assessment of contractor's claims during construction stage.

  • Final account in respect of the contract

-Preparing final account on completion of the contract works

-The quantity surveyor's duty is essentially one of cost control. They measure and value work in progress , determine the value of variations ordered by the architect or engineer and ensure that a fair and equitable settlement of the cost of the project is reached in accordance with the contract conditions . In conjunction with the architect and other consultants , the quantity surveyor will ensure that the dinancal provisions of the contract are properly interpreted and applied .

  • However , the role of quantity surveyor is distinct between QS working in:

-Consulatant Firms

-COntractor firms

-Developer firms

-Architect firms

  • Generally , the role of quantity surveyor working in contravtor firm including :

-A contractor's QS is responsible for the performance of operations that mirror those of the owner;s QS . For ecample the measurement and pricing of construction work.

-The role of a contractor's QS will extend further than the day to day running of building projects and will cover such other areas as sub-contract formation , forecasting of costs and values of the project , cash flow forecasts and the collation of the operation and maintenance manuals of the project ( O&M manuals ).

Role of Quantity Surveying

  • Cost estimating

-Preparation of preliminary cost estimate and measurement of constructon works prior to tender in the very early stages of the formulation of a building project.

  • Cost advice

-Giving cost advice and information during all stages of the development of a project to assure full awareness of financial implications of the project.

-Giving advice on alternative materials and components and types of construction and the financial aspects of contracts and assiting with feasibility studies.

  • Cost Planning

-Cost planning and value analysis during the design stage of a project to ensure that client obtains value for money where the costs are distributed in most realistic way throughtout the various sections or elements of the building not olny with regard to the capital cost but also in respect of the running and maintenance cost of a project and that the tender figure is kept within the client's budget.

-Cost planning enables decisions on various design alternatives to be made with actual costs being constantly monitored against original budgets.

  • Property development advice

-A building should meet the functional dimensional and technological requirement for which it was designed , should be aesthetically pleasing and meet the cost limits of the client's budget.

-A quantity surveyor is able to provide pre-design feasibility studies involving technical and/or economic investigations thereby enabling a client to decide whether , and in what form , to proceed.

  • Advice on tendering procedures and contractual arrangement

-The choice of an appropriate form of contract for any given project will depend on the nature of the project , the circumstances under which the work is to be carried out and the particular needs of the client.

-Quantity Surveyor , in collaboration with architects are able to advise the client on the most advantages procurement method available , including : contracts incorporating bulls of quantity , provisional bills of quantities and schedules of rates.

Who is quantity surveyor ?

  • A quantity surveyor (QS) is a professional working within the construction industry .
  • Generally , the role of the QS is to manage and control contracts and costs within construction projects.
  • The quantity surveyor is a major contributor to the success of all types of projects in all sectors of the economy including industry , infrastructure , healthcare , education , public buildings , retail and commercial construction , residential construction , and leisure projects

History of Quantity Suerveying

Measurement Lexture 1

  • The quantity surveyor emerged in England at the begining og the nineteenth century , although the firm of Henry Cooper and Sons of Reading was established as early as 1785.
  • Prior to the first recorded usage of the term "quantity surveyor" in 1859 , the term "measurer" , "custom surveyor " or "surveyor " were used .
  • In those early days , the quantity surveyor acted for the master tradesmen , measuring the work after completion and frequently submitting partisan Final Accounts to the building owner .

objective of measurement

  • This unit aims to expose students to the function and importance of tender documenttation , methods of doing the taking-off and measurement of substructure works : all in accordance with the Standard Method of Measurement of Building Works (SMM2)

Sunday, October 17, 2010

The important of learning ENglish

Introduction:
Learning to speak English well may be the best thing you can do to improve your life. That 's right . Do you think it would be fun to have access to information that other people can't get ? Talk and write letters to interesting people that others can't communicate with ? Impress people around you whenever you opened your mounth ? Make big jumps in your career , leabing other miles behind ?

Get access to knowlegde
what are you interested in ? Is it science ? Music ? COmputers ? Health ? Business ? Sports ? Today's media - such as the Internet , televisyen , and the press- give you almost unlimited access to knowledge about your favorite subject . THere's olny one problem . Most of this knowlegge is in English. THere are over billion pages on the Web are using English . Book- on any subject , from all over the world . Read book by British or American authors , and books translatated from other languages . Whatever you're interested in , you can read about it in English ! The press like the magazines and newspapers can be bought to every part of the world with english language . English is the key to the world of science . In 1997 , 95 percent of the article in the Science Citation Index were written in English .

Communicate with people
We like to call English ' the language of communication ' .Why ? Because it seems all the people in the world have agreed to use English to talk to each other . About 1,500,000,000 people in the world speak English . Another 1,000,000,000 are learning it . 75 % of the world's letters and postcards are written in ENglish . Almost all international conferences and competitions are conducted in English . For example , the Olympic games and the Miss World contest. If you know english , you can travel more easily . Communicat with people wherever you go . This because english is spoken over more than 100 countries , you may need english when have a conversation with foregin person or asking for help . Who knows , maybe English will save your life someday?

Push you career forward
If you want have a good job in business , technology or science , get out of that armchair and start learning english right now ! (if you already have a good job , start learning english before lose it . Knowing english will let you put excellent english on your CV . Get your dream job and earn more money . Beside that , you will gain techincal knowledge . THis because english of technology , especiallly high technology like computer science , genetics and medicine . If you re going to read about technology , you will probably have to do it in English .You can learn computet science and ready it techinical article without difficulty . Or write your own articles .Other than that , if you can spoke fluently english , you can be a world-class businessman . Because international business is done in english . And all business today is international . So if you to play , you have to know english - to contract other business people , go to conferences , read international business newpaper and magazine . etc.You also can be a better scientist if you know english . You can contact scientists from other countries , go to international conferences , visit academic centers abraod. Leant about new scientific discoveries by reading papers , books , and magazines.Nowaday most of the computer application are in english , so you will understand them better - and become a better employee.

Conclusion:
As a conclusion , learning english will let us communicate with foreign person , get access ot unlimited knowledge , and provide you get a better carrer . Since learning english give us lot of benefit why not we start learning english right now ,before it was too late.

Thank you.