This new book examines the techniques of quality management that have been developed for other industries, and illustrates how they can be applied to construction. It contains core content information for those working in building, construction management, surveying, and architecture. Of special interest are the real-life examples of how quality improvement methods have been used in practice in large contracting organizations.

Business Principles for Landscape Contracting, fully revised and updated in its third edition, is an introduction to the application of business principles of financial management involved in setting up your own landscape contracting business and beginning your professional career. Appealing to students and professionals alike, it will build your knowledge of financial management tools and enable you to relate their applications to real-life business scenarios. Focusing on the importance of proactive financial management, the book serves as a primer for students in landscape architecture, contracting, and management courses and entrepreneurs within the landscape industry preparing to use business principles in practice. Topics covered include: Financial management and accountability Budget development Profitable pricing and estimating Project management Creating a lean culture Personnel management and employee productivity Professional development Economic sustainability.

Human Resources Management in Construction fills an important gap in current management literature by applying general principles of human resources management specifically to the construction industry. It discusses and explores findings from research to supplement the theoretical and practical procedures used. It explores issues such as the technology used and the pattern of social and political relationships within which people are managed.

This revised edition of an established classic textbook brings the subject right up to date. It applies economic theory to the formation of demand on the construction industry and to the way the industry responds. This edition provides a topical assessment of the implication for competition of new methods of procurement, includes a new chapter on rehabilitation, repair and maintenance, and extends the use of theory to issues such as the problems of appropriate technology for developing countries, and contractors' diversification.

This book answers the recently topical questions of how China's processed trade affects the trade of Southeast Asia. What is Southeast Asia's role in Factory Asia, the region's complex of cross-border supply chains? What is Southeast Asia's involvement in building or joining production networks in the region? And, most important, how can Southeast Asia increase the value added of its products and improve its competitiveness? This book provides rigorous analysis of how trade policy affects value added, highly disaggregated at the firm and product level, of the six Southeast Asian countries - Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Viet Nam - and combines this with thorough examinations of their trade, industrial and labour policies.

A lively, personalized account incorporating objective analysis and solid information accumulated over 42 years, this book presents a graphic picture of the construction industry from an insider's point of view. The volume focuses on the culture of construction workers, the management style of contractors, and the structural and organizational nature of the industry. It considers such unique features of construction as its craft-oriented technology, decentralized decision-making by workers on the job site, and non-bureaucratic methods of field supervision. Using the research of others, government publications, and his own intimate experience in the industry, the author provides an insightful view of a unique industry in modern America.

The book opens with an overview of the industry, illustrating how construction is organized, the craft breakdown, and the cultural values of the crafts. It then considers such topics as workers' job satisfaction, craft organization of the work, and the dangerous nature of construction. Separate chapters are devoted to women construction workers, a recent phenomenon in the industry, and to minorities and the role of affirmative action. In conclusion, the book argues that construction is significant both as a major industry and as a model for organizing work to produce worker satisfaction.

First published in 1988, this book analyses the changes that took place in the economic organisation of the British construction industry throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, in particular considering its social and economic structure and examining the causes of its poor industrial record. Michael Ball describes how the major firms survived the economic slump between 1973 and 1982, when construction workloads collapsed, by substantially restructuring their operations, relationships with clients, workforces and subcontractors. Detailed attention is paid to construction firms, the workers they employ, the influence of trade unionism and the role of other agencies in the building process. Reissued at a hugely challenging time for the British construction industry, this relevant and practical title will be of particular value to students and academics of economics and social change, as well as those on courses for construction professionals.

This collection deals with some interesting economic questions related to construction and real estate, namely how construction firms cope with the volatility of construction; whether speculative bubbles or market fundamentals drive those fluctuations; new techniques to predict construction demand; why the office market led the recent real estate cycle; and whether regulation is responsible for speculative behavior.

This book is an introductory text on building measurement and estimating for simple buildings in Hong Kong, based on the Hong Kong Standard Method of Measurement of Building Works 4th Edition Revised 2018 (HKSMM4 Rev 2018). It provides a toolkit for students and surveying technicians who are new to the subject. This second edition updates the contents in line with the HKSMM4 Rev 2018 and incorporates the latest industry developments such as BIM. The main text is divided into five parts following the development of a typical project. Part 1, Building the project team, introduces the team setup for a typical project. Part 2, Deciding the procurement strategy, explains the various procurement decisions to be made by an employer before any cost estimating and measurement work takes place. Part 3, Preparing for tender, covers the tendering methods, tender documentation and approximate estimating techniques used by Quantity Surveyors. Part 4, Measuring quantities, introduces measurement principles and HKSMM4 Rev 2018, followed by a detailed review of the measurement methods for each major trade, with worked examples. Part 5, Estimating unit rates, explores the basic techniques for unit rate preparation. The book contains worked examples from real Hong Kong building projects, self-assessment questions, reminders and points of note. It is essential reading for Hong Kong construction and surveying students, international Quantity Surveyors working in the local area and those wanting international examples of Quantity Surveryors practice.

Pursuing historical analogies between nineteenth-century theories and the current practices captivated by digital reproducibility, this book offers a critical take on architecture's contemporaneity through four essays: tectonics, materiality, cladding, and labor. Fundamental to this proposition is the historicity of Gottfried Semper's theorization of architecture amidst the outpouring of new materials and construction techniques during the 1850s. Starting with Semper's differentiation between theatricalization and the tectonic of theatricality, this book closely examines thematic essential to architecture's self-representation. Even though the title of this book recalls the Semperian four elements of architecture, its argument encapsulates a unique historico-theoretical project probing the tectonic of theatricality beyond Semper. The invisible tie between technique and labor is the cord running through the four subjects covered in this book. In exploring these subjects from the theoretical standpoint of Marxian dialectics, this book's contribution is focused on, but not limited to, the topicality of labor today when its relationship with capital has been further obscured by the prevailing digitalization of commodity exchange value, starting roughly in the 1990s. Each essay examines Semper's theorization of architecture in contradistinction to the ways in which technology's mediation has dominated architecture's representation. Burrowing through the invisible tie between technique and work, asymptomatic of architecture's predicament in global capitalism, this book advances the scope of architectural criticism beyond the exhausted formalism and architecture's turn to philosophy circa the 1980s and the present tendencies for presentism. It will therefore be of interest to researchers and students of architectural history and theory.

Knowledge management presents a new way of understanding organizations and companies, and is especially suited to sophisticated and highly technical firms and operations such as those in the construction industry.

This new book draws on hard data from three separate research programs in Sweden and shows how the concept of knowledge can make sense in the construction industry, an industry which can be viewed in essence as being engaged in the material transformation of "nature into buildings." In particular it explores and examines three different businesses: a medium sized construction firm; Wing rdh Architecture, Sweden s most prestigious architecture firm; and BESAB, a specialist concrete injection firm working on underground construction. An emerging theme is the situational and context-bound nature of knowledge in the construction industry, thus showing "knowledge" to be a remarkably heterogeneous concept.

A range of readers should find the book useful, from students and construction managers through to researchers.

Praise for Construction Project Management by Peter Fewings:

The complexity of the subject matter has at least been reinforced in an informative document with a large helping of common sense ... written in a comprehensive and well structured manner. Building Engineer Magazine

Ethics are not an optional extra for the professional in the built environment sector. Whether you're a civil engineer, an architect or a construction project manager, an understanding of the ethical context of your work is an institutional requirement and a commercial demand, not to mention a matter of personal pride.

Sometimes, as a construction professional you will be faced with complicated dilemmas, as commercial responsibilities clash with health and safety, environmental or competition concerns. Peter Fewings brings together practical construction project management experience with ethical theory to establish how best to deal with difficult issues.

The ability to successfully procure built assets is at the heart of the construction process and in turn at the heart of the procurement process is identifying the constantly evolving needs of the construction client.
Despite client criticism and a mountain of reports and statistics, spanning both the public and private sectors, until now the construction industry has failed to transform the diverse and often separate and inefficient processes of design and procurement of built assets into one single integrated production process. There are now signs however that the construction industry is beginning to transform its approach to built asset procurement and client care.
This book draws heavily on the experiences and best practice of other industries and market sectors who have, just as construction is now having to do, taken a critical look at their procurement practices and techniques and the inherent waste in many traditional systems. The text includes practice-based case studies, from both the public and private sectors, to demonstrate how new procurement approaches are delivering value for money over the life cycle of built assets.
This book is recommended reading for a range of students in the field of the built environment from quantity surveyors and commercial managers to architects and an essential and comprehensive guide to all construction procurement professionals seeking to familiarise themselves with the latest approaches to procurement.
*Procurement based on the needs of the client.
*Different procurement systems evaluated.
*Worldwide case studies.

The construction industry's latent potential for integrating and improving its procurement processes has long been recognized in most developed countries. Numerous government level reports insist that full integration of the design and construction supply chain can result in substantial gains in efficiency, morale and quality. New methods of working, such as partnering and prime contracting, give sophisticated opportunities for clients, end users and the design and construction supply-side to work in a more effective and collaborative way.

In the UK, the Latham and Egan reports have spurred further initiatives from the demand-side of the industry to speed the pace of reform, such as those seen in the launch of three radical best practice standards for construction procurement: the Confederation of Construction Clients' "Charter Handbook", the National Audit Office report "Modernising Construction" and the Department of Media, Culture and Sport report "Better Public Buildings".

Building Down Barriers, a guide to construction best practice explains and compares, simply and clearly, the main aspects of the three standards and also compares them with similar developments in countries such as the USA and Singapore. It goes on to examine not only the fundamental culture changes they necessitate in each sector of the UK construction industry, but also the consequences of ignoring them. The book is aimed at all members of the design and construction supply chain, including the client and end users, and it is a valuable guide for students in all design and construction courses

eBook available with sample pages: 0203398289

Contents:
1. Introduction. 2. Project Requirements. 3. Contract Strategy. 4. Project Modalities. 5. Developing a Strategy. 6. Quality. 7. Retrofitting and Maintenance. 8. Product Modalities. 9. The Supplying Market. 10. Forming the Team. 11. Engaging the Supply Chain. 12. Performance Modalities. 13. The Project Environment. 14. Design Roles and Responsibilities. 15. Tendering. 16. The Procurement Process.

Tavistock Press was established as a co-operative venture between the Tavistock Institute and Routledge & Kegan Paul (RKP) in the 1950s to produce a series of major contributions across the social sciences. This volume is part of a 2001 reissue of a selection of those important works which have since gone out of print, or are difficult to locate. Published by Routledge, 112 volumes in total are being brought together under the name The International Behavioural and Social Sciences Library: Classics from the Tavistock Press. Reproduced here in facsimile, this volume was originally published in 1965 and is available individually. The collection is also available in a number of themed mini-sets of between 5 and 13 volumes, or as a complete collection.

This text reviews and analyzes how all parties to the construction process, from specialist sub-contractors and main contractors, to developers and funders and their respective lawyers, have adapted to the changes in the construction industry. There is advice on claims practice and tactics, how to minimize the finacial risks of pursuing a claim and what the courts or arbitrators expect both parties to have done to resolve the dispute.

This volume looks at many issues involved in the management of construction safety and health. It covers many different topics, such as an overview of health hazards in construction and the use of IT to help regulate public health and safety in construction.

Spon's European Construction Costs Handbook is the only book of its kind - a unique compilation of cost data on the single most important construction market in the world. This updated edition expands its coverage of countries and once again gives details of the difficult-to-research markets of Eastern Europe as well as Western Europe, North and South. The book includes: * key data on the main economic and construction indicators as well as on geography and population * an outline of the national construction industry covering structure, tendering and contract procedures, liability and insurance and regulation and standards. * labour and materials cost data * measured rates (in local currency) for up to 60 or so construction work items * approximate estimating costs for a range of building types * regional variation percentages, tax details, construction cost and retail price indices. Exchange rates with £ sterling, euro and US$ * addresses of authorities, professional institutions, trade associations etc. To facilitate country to country comparisons the book also includes a Comparative Data section, where figures from the individual country chapters are grouped in tables on economy, geography, construction output, input costs per square metre for offices, warehouses and housing. Figures here are given in national currency, sterling, US dollars and Euros.

This unique publication is the only detailed, multinational guide to the cost of construction work across Latin America. Thirteen countries are covered in detail in individual country chapters along with comparative regional information. The following information is given in the same way for each country: key data on the main economic and construction indicators as well as on geography and population; an outline of the national construction industry, covering structure, tendering and contract procedures, liability and insurance, and regulations and standards; labour and materials cost data; measured rates (in local currency) for up to 60 or so construction work items; approximate estimating costs for a range of building types; regional variation percentages, tax details, construction cost and retail price indices; exchange rates with u stirling, Euro and $ US; and addresses of authorities, professional institutions, trade associations etc. To facilitate country to country comparisons the book also includes a comparative data section, where figures from the individual country chapters are grouped in tables on economy, geography and population, construction output, input costs and co

This text presents a comprehensive approach towards the industrialization of building. It highlights, from the managerial viewpoint, the main issues involved in industrialization: selection of a system, its performance specifications, production technology, production planning and economic feasibility. It addresses the future development of building systems, the automation of design and the impact of robotization on building sites.

Health and safety is important to everyone nowadays, especially with the burgeoning extent of legislation and regulations in the area both in UK terms but perhaps more importantly within and across the European Community. One of the industries most affected by this is the building and construction sector, which because of its traditionally poor record in this respect and its widespread and under-policed activities is now subject to the Construction, Design and Management (CDM) Regulations. These require that every project involving building or demolition work which is undertaken, regardless of the industry concerned and for what purpose, must be planned and documented according to these safety regulations and procedures. Non-compliance can attract heavy penalties, including fines and prison sentences.
In addition, the possibilities of actions like this, and their contingent financial costs, are beginning to determine a whole philosophy to underpin business management. It is therefore vital to understand exactly what legal obligations and duties are inherent in either managing, contracting or carrying out a given piece of work. Lack of knowledge of this nature can prove to be very costly, so this book will show you how to find your way around the maze of rules and regulations in order to improve your business efficiency and reduce exposure to financial risk.
Takes a management view of health and safety regulations and compliance
Latest developments and likely future directions covered
Case studies provide real-life examples

Based on research by the CIB's W92 Procurement Systems Working Group, this volume deals with best practice in construction procurement, the process by which customers of the construction industry go about procuring new facilities. The whole spectrum of procurement issues, starting with the client or customer and running through managerial, cultural and IT-based issues, is covered. Prefaced with an overview of previous work and a section on selection criteria, practitioneers can make their choices of procurement form. An appendix on procurement games and cases which will allow the reader to explore some of the issues raised in the book. Importantly, performance comparisons of different procurement forms will be discussed and the whole emphasis of the book is to highlight best practice in this area based on late-1990s reasearch.