Measurement of Works

B
Analyzing the use of measurements in complex
buildings

Dasun Ishara Mahabaduge

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Acknowledgement
To do this assignment I wouldn’t be able to do this without Ms.K.Kavitha’s guidance
and support. I take this opportunity to extend my sincere thanks to Ms. Kavitha and
all the responsible individuals that contributed to make us knowledgeable persons in
this Measurement B module.

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Table of Contents
1. The Home for You expecting from your firm to give an initial budget & continuous cost control
as the design develops. This can be done by regular measurement upgrading.......................................3
a. Compare the different uses & techniques of measurement you use, when you are dealing from
inception to completion in such complex project.........................................................................3
b.Assess the relationship between measurement & professionals involved in different stages
such as design, construction & maintenance................................................................................6
c. Analyze the reasons for using different formats of Bill of Quantities..............................................12
References...........................................................................................................................................15

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INTRODUCTION

In this report it will explain briefly about:

 Different ways of using measurement in construction project by quantity surveyor and

the techniques of measurements that he can use.
 The relationship between measurement & professionals involved in different stages.
 Several forms of BOQ and Contract Document are used in Construction Industry

And also have calculated ;

o Measurement Sheet
o Quarry Sheet
o Bar Schedule
o Abstract Sheet
o BOQ
o An Interim Bill for provided details

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Task 01

1. The Home for You expecting from your firm to give an initial budget & continuous cost
control as the design develops. This can be done by regular measurement upgrading.

a. Compare the different uses & techniques of measurement you use, when you are
dealing from inception to completion in such complex project.

Measurement is values made meaningful by counting into specific units.

Measurements perform as labels which make those values more useful in terms of
details.
Measurement in Construction
For a construction it is important to end the project within time, and quality. And
also important to end the project through budget. Measurement helps to complete a
project within above tasks.
Its main purpose is to provide a uniform basis for measuring construction work.
Based on this it will prepare below documents,
• Budget Preparation
• Cost checking
• BOQ
• Interim valuation
• Final accounts
Budget Preparation
Budget preparation is an accounting method which is a method of forecasting the
value for a project. This method is not an accurate account. This definition is also
applicable for construction industry.
In construction it is important to have a budgeted cost to start a construction
designing process. According to the budget only every design process will move on.
As a consultant quantity surveyor it is his responsibility to prepare the budget for the
construction project.
The consultant quantity surveyor who is appointed by client will go through the
project brief and over look at site and allocate a value for each and every stage of
project. This method won’t be accurate. He will allocate this budgeted money value
with his experience and overlooking the project brief.
For this method the quantity surveyors won’t use proper measurements. He will look
at the site using walk over survey method and go through brief of the project and
make a budget.

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This method helps to;
• Setting up the financial target of the project
• Level of expenditures
 
Cost Checking
Cost Check is based on measurements taken from the working drawings, detailed
specifications, rebar schedules and other relevant documentation and priced at
current prices.
Cost checking is done at the start of the design process. In this stage it has
opportunity for making adjustment in the cost holding categories which are contain
the cost of the project. It is helpful to make changes in designs to project designing
within the budget.
This method is also done by consultant quantity surveyor. He will measure designed
drawings and schedules stage by stage soon after finishing its design and check the
cost. If it is not tallying with the budgeted cost his responsible to advice design team
to change the design according to budgeted cost.
Bill of Quantity
Bill of Quantities is a document containing every single cost element in a
construction project. It is also mentioning the quantities for every item of labor and
material, the items of plant and equipment, as well as any temporary work necessary,
or expenses incurred by way of intangible expenses. It contains every possible cost
component implied by the project.
Preparing BOQ is done after completing the design process. It is done by consultant
quantity surveyor. He will refer the completed drawings and take off quantities and
workout with it. Finally he will prepare a standard paper format which is suitable for
pricing by tendering contractor and the quantities in this bill are very accurate.
Interim Valuation
Interim valuation is a pre-cursor to the issue of an interim certificate (which in turn
allows an interim to be made). It is a detailed breakdown, generally prepared by a
contractor that constitutes an application for part payment of work undertaken since
the last valuation. It is checked and signed off by the client's contract administrator
who often delegates the task to a Quantity surveyor.
Interim payments are generally used on larger projects to ease the contractor’s cash
flow, on the premise that project finance is cheaper for the client than it is for
individual contractors.

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The basis of the contractor’s interim valuation will vary depending on
the type of contract being used. Calculations can be based on:
• Activity schedules assessed in terms of percentage achieved or completion of
the activity.
• Milestones reached on a pre-agreed programme.
• Measurement against a bill of quantities.
• Stage payments against calendar dates.
In this method quantity surveyor will measure the completed work as soon as it is
finishes. For this method he will refer the drawings and actual bills which are used
for it. He will prepare a bill for claim from client for particular work. It is mostly
used in measure and pay system and lump sum system. These bills are useful for
final account.
Final Accounts
Construction contracts generally provide some mechanism for the final payment to
be made to the contractor on completion of the works described in the contract.
Generally this payment will be made at the end of the defects liability period
providing that all patent defects have been rectified.
Preparing the final account is the process of calculating and agreeing any
adjustments to the contract sum. Therefore the amount of the final payment can be
determined. The amount of the final payment is then set out in the final certificate (or
final statement). It is possible for the final certificate to show that money is owed to
the client, rather than due to the contractor.
Construction contracts may in fact not require the preparation of a final account,
although they generally do require the contractor to provide all documents necessary
for the adjustment of the contract sum within a specified time, and set out the time
scale for and consequences of issuing the final certificate.
The contract sum may need to be adjusted for a number of reasons, including:
• Variations.
• Fluctuations.
• Prime cost sums.
• Provisional sums.
• Payments to nominated sub-contractors or nominated suppliers.
• Statutory fees.
• Payments relating to the opening-up and testing of the works.
• Loss and expense.
• Liquidated and ascertained damages.

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 • Contra claims imposed as a result of the contractor's operations
(such as a third-party claim resulting from contractor negligence or contractual
breach, for example, flooding a neighbour's property).
• The release of any remaining retention.
Agreeing the final account can be a complicated, time consuming and adversarial
process, often resulting in disputes. The process can be made easier if adjustments to
the contract sum are agreed as the project progresses rather than saving them up for
the end. It is also beneficial if the client's quantity surveyor and the contractor's
quantity surveyor work together on drafts of the final account before agreement it
sought. It is preferable that a draft copy of the final account is signed off by the
contractor as an 'in full and final settlement' prior to issue.
Agreement of the final account will allow the contract administrator to issue the final
certificate. The final certificate is conclusive that all patent defects have been
remedied, all adjustments to the contract sum have been agreed and all claims
settled. Latent defects may still become apparent after completion of the contract and
these may give rise to action for damages, for breach of contract or negligence.
Where proceedings have begun in relation to a dispute, the conclusiveness of the
final certificate is subject to the findings of those proceedings.
In addition, the final certificate itself can be disputed (usually within 28 days).
Adjudication, arbitration or other dispute resolution procedures may then be
necessary to resolve the dispute. The final certificate is then only conclusive in
relation to matters that are not disputed.

b.Assess the relationship between measurement & professionals involved in different

stages such as design, construction & maintenance.
A building has three stages includes design stage, construction stage, operation stage.
Each and every stage has different professionals. They are doing different duties in
construction industry. To each and every these team needs Bill of Quantity (BOQ) for
different purpose. It is relating with these parties to ease of work.
Teams in construction industry and their duties
Design Team
These team also known as consultants. The consultants are professionals typically
appointed by client to perform expert tasks on a project include,
• Providing advice on setting up and defining the project.
• Developing and coordinating the design.
• Preparing production information and tender documentation.
• Administration of construction contracts.
• Inspecting the work of contractors
The members are consultant team is mostly

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 • Architect
• Quantity surveyor
• Structural Engineer
• Service Engineer
The client may wish to allocate the roles of lead designer and lead consultant to one or
more of these consultants to co-ordinate the work of the rest of the team.
Other consultants who might be required on some projects include
• Access consultant.
• Acoustic consultant.
• Approved inspector (for building regulations approvals).
• Archaeologist.
• Business management consultant.
• Client design adviser.
• Client's representative.
• Civil engineer.
• Construction manager.
• Contract administrator.
• Ecologist.
• Employer's agent.
• Environmental consultant.
• Facilities manager.
• Fire engineering consultant.
• Furniture, fixtures and equipment (FF&E) consultant.
• Health and safety consultant.
• Independent client adviser.
• Information and communications technology (ICT) consultant.
• Interior designer.
• Landscape designer.
• Local consultants.
• Lighting designer.
• Management contractor.
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 • Master planner.
• Party wall surveyor.
• Planning consultant.
• Programme consultant.
• Project manager.
• Public health consultant.
• Rights of light surveyor.
• Security consultant.
• Site inspector (clerk of works).
• Specialist contractor.
• Surveyor.
• Transport/traffic engineer.
 
For consultants to work effectively as a team they should adopt collaborative practices
as early in the project as possible. The requirement to adopt such practices should be included
in appointment documents. See Collaborative practices and Consultant team start-up meeting
for more information.
Architect
The architect is its own recognized profession who is designing the aesthetic design of
the building and the appearance inside the building. His responsible is to design the building
according to client requirement.
An architect is expected to:
• Be honest and act with integrity
• Be competent
• Promote your services honestly and responsibly
• Manage your business competently
• Consider the wider impact of your work
• Carry out your work faithfully and conscientiously
• Be trustworthy and look after your clients’ money properly
• Have appropriate insurance arrangements
• Maintain the reputation of architects
• Deal with disputes or complaints appropriately

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• Co-operate with regulatory requirements and investigations
• Have respect for others
Structural Engineer
Structural engineer designs the structural part for the architectures design. Structural
engineers work on a very wide range of structures, including; buildings, bridges, oil
rigs, ships and aircraft. It is both a technical and creative role that involves close
relationship with professionals from other corrections.
Service Engineer
Building services engineers play a central role in contributing to the design of a
building. He plan, design, monitor and inspect systems to make buildings
comfortable, functional, efficient and safe. Typically these systems will include
heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), water and drainage, lighting,
power, ICT, lifts and escalators, control systems and so on (see building services for
more information). Specialist systems such as specialist gas distribution, humidity and
bacteria control and so on might be required for complex buildings such as airports,
hospitals, factories and laboratories.
Quantity Surveyor
The consultant quantity surveyor is also known as cost consultant. His responsible
are;
• Helping determine the client's requirements and undertaking feasibility studies.
• Benchmarking requirements against similar projects.
• Assessing and comparing options.
• Helping define the project budget.
• Checking developing designs against the project budget.
• Assessing value for money.
• Checking designs meet legal and quality standards.
• Undertaking risk management and value management exercises.
• Preparing cost plans, estimates and cash flow projections.
• Advising on procurement strategy.
• Advising on packaging.
• Preparing bills of quantities.
• Preparing tender pricing documents.
• Collating and issuing tender documentation.
• Assessing tenders.

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• Estimating the cost of variations.
• Preparing valuation statements for interim certificates.
• Assisting with the valuation of claims.
• Preparing regular cost reports, including out-turn cost and cash flow.
• Completing the final account.
 
Relationship between measurement and design team
As a consultant team BOQ (bill of quantity) is important. It is their duty to provide
specifications about materials and machineries to contractor. A BOQ will provide all
the specification to contractor from consultant.
It’s also important to call for tender towards the project and project inspection. 
Construction Team
Construction team is a group of people who are working for the design into real.
Construction team members are:
• Project Manager
• Site Engineer
• Quantity Surveyor
• Safety Manger
• Supervisor
• Store Keeper
• MEP Engineers
• Labors
• Specialist Sub-contractors
• Specialist self-employees

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Relationship between measurement and Construction team
As a construction team it is responsible to submit the project within the time, quality
and cost. Every project will have:
• Variations
• Wastages
• Extra Work
Variations are changes in plan as per the request of client while doing the construction
process. These variations are effecting to construction cost. If any variations are
happened contractor need to claim it from client. Therefore BOQ will show the
variation amount to claim the amount from client.
Wastage is also a part of calculation. For every material consultants and contractors
are adding wastage for the BOQ and other relevant bills. This wastage is normally
count as 5% from the materials and components. If the wastage is increased it will be
a lost to the contractor and if the wastage is decreased it will be a profit to the
contractor. The BOQ will show these wastages different to the contractor.
Extra work is an additional work which is not in BOQ but client is requesting to do it.
These kinds of works are adding more cost. To claim those cost from client BOQ will
show that it is an extra work.
 
Maintenance Team (Facility management/ operation team)
Maintaining a building is expensive. It costs more to run a building over its life cycle
than to build. Maintenance is not often given the priority it deserves. A poorly
maintained building will be a drain on resources and damage to building use while a
well-maintained building will function smoothly and represent an appreciating asset
to its owners.
Personals those are involving with maintenance
• Facility Manager
• Supervisor
• Project plan coordinator
• Maintenance staffs

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 Relationship between measurement and maintenance team
After completing project if there is any repair as built drawing will show the places of
service lines in the building but it won’t show the specification service lines.
This problem takes more time to repair the service lines without specifications. A
BOQ has all the specifications about building services. It will be an easy task to refer
the BOQ and find out the specification of the service lines without wasting time.
Therefore it is important to have a final BOQ document with client for ease of
maintenance process.
2.

c. Analyze the reasons for using different formats of Bill of Quantities.

Bill of Quantity
Bill of quantity consists of a complete list of all the various elements of the works for
a project giving the following:
• The item number
• Description of items
• Item unit
• Item quantity of work against each
This data is enabling an estimated calculation of price of work 
The purpose of a bill of quantity
A bill of quantities should make it easier for a contractor to price a particular project
since all materials and work to be made are listed. Every contractor should work from
the same information so a more reasonable system is used when competitive prices.
BOQ creation procedures
• Bills of quantities are prepared by quantity surveyors.
• The work of a project is usually divided into separate elements for payment
purposes with respect to the kind of work involved, each element as a separate bill
designated as a payment item.
• The bill of quantities is prepared by a “taking off” process in which the cost of
a building or other structure is estimated from measurements in the Structural
Engineer's drawings.
• Similar types of work are then brought together under one item, a process
known as "abstracting".
• The bill of quantities is arranged in a tabular form without completing
columns of rate and amount.

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• The total price of a bid is obtained by summation of the amounts
for all items scheduled in the tender, arrived at by multiplying the estimated number
of units for each item by the corresponding unit-price bid.
BOQ Types
There are different styles of bills of quantities as follows:
1. Trade Bill of Quantities
2. Elemental Bill of Quantities
3. Provisional Bill of Quantities
4. Non-Specified Bill of Quantities
5. Specified Bill of Quantities
6. Builder’s Bill
7. Operational Bill of Quantities
 
Trade Bill of Quantities
The traditional bill of quantity is organized in trade. The trade order is normally in the
same order as the specification.
Moreover being organized in trade order, each trade has the facility for each prize
description and summed to give the total cost of each trade. The total trade cost is
then transferred to a general summary for the total project cost.
In order to refer to any section of the bill of quantities, each description is a separate
and giving distinct reference. It is also normal practice for each page should be
numbered and labeled with the name of project and trade.

Elemental Bill of Quantities

A bill of quantities prepared elemental arrangement rather than the traditional trade
order sequence.

Provisional Bill of Quantities

A bill of quantity containing provisional quantities and amounts released to bidders on
the basis that the amounts billed will be adjusted during the construction where they
differ from the actual quantities, it is normally used when the drawings and
specifications are not be finalized before launching a tender.

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Non Specified Bill of Quantities
As its name indicates, this document contains only items of work and their quantities
and used as stand-alone document separate from specifications of these works.
Specified Bill of Quantities
The specifications are incorporated with the bill of quantities in the form of preamble
notes and the bill of quantities description. The quantities do not normally form part
of the contract but preambles and descriptions are part of the contract.

It is Similar to the traditional BOQ but has the addition of a short type of specification
included with each of the itemized materials and labour for each specific trade. Also
at the beginning of the Specification Bill are clauses covering such things as:
• Notice to tenders
• General conditions of contract
• Preambles etc.
Builder’s Bill
This method is used by builders to obtain a quick guide or budget price. It is based on
the price per types of work completed by the builder.
It must be emphasized that this method of calculating is used purely as a guide or
budget price by the builder.
Operational Bill of Quantities
Operational bill of quantities are a tendering document for estimating costs prepared
by architects that describes a construction project in terms of the operations (which
include labor and plant) needed to build it.
Advantages:
• Separates the costs of labor, materials and plant thus enabling cost control
• Increases the accuracy of estimating.
• Costs can be related to factors that directly determine them such as overall
plant usage. Allows the reuse of information created in estimating for project
management.
• Enables better estimation of variation in works.

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 Disadvantages

• Bulky and costly to produce so increasing the work of the contractor’s

estimators.
• Radically changes the estimating process.
• Does not fit in with current contracts in regard to work variation.
• It needs computers to allow rapid manipulation of the data: this did not exist
when it was originally proposed.
• The design team responsible for creating the operational bill need not be “very
familiar with the build ability issues as they affect the construction process”.

Conclution
You can get sound knowledge after read this report about;
 Measurements techniques used in construction
 Preparations of
 Budget preparation
 Cost Checking
 Bill of Quantities
 Tender Calling
 Interim Valuation
 Final Account

 Relationship between measurement and parties who involves with a

construction project.

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References
Designing Buildings Wiki, n.d. Standard Method of Measurement SMM7. [Online]
Available at: http://www.designingbuildings.co.uk/wiki/Standard_Method_of_Measurement_SMM7
[Accessed 02 09 2016].

Lee A. Ellingson, P. A., 2006. Measurement in Construction. [Online]

Available at:
http://ascpro0.ascweb.org/archives/cd/2006/2006pro/2006/CEUE18_Ellingson06_8400.htm
[Accessed 08 09 2016].

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