Previous research on building pre-tender cost estimating stresses the importance of giving accurate estimates and minimizing estimating errors. Cost models, especially those mathematical models using mean square error or the like for model training and validation, often treat positive errors...

Construction contract auctions are characterised by (1) anticipated high outliers due to the presence of non-competitive bids, (2) very small samples and (3) uncertainty of the appropriate underlying density function model of the bids. This paper describes the simultaneous identification of high...

Typical measures of goodness of construction price forecasts are the mean and standard deviation, coefficient of variation and root mean square of the deviations between forecasted and actual values. This can only be valid, however, if the pain, or loss, incurred as a result of such deviations...

James' Storey Enclosure Method (JSEM), developed in 1954, is considered by many to be the most sophisticated single-rate method ever devised for early-design-stage tender price forecasts. However, the method is seldom used in practice partly because it has been superseded by multi-rate methods...

Morality is fast becoming an integral part of the mandate for business through both societal and regulatory pressures. Collusive tendering is one of the moral choices facing decision-makers in the construction industry. This paper describes an empirical investigation of the attitudes and...

A methodology for assessing and evaluating contractor data for the purpose of prequalification and bid evaluation is presented. The PERT approach is used to develop a linear model for the assessment of contractor data. The model incorporates a multiple ratings permitting the uncertainty in...

Clients need to be informed in advance of their likely future financial commitments and cost implications as the design evolves. This requires the estimation of building cost based on historic cost data that is updated by a forecasted Tender Price Index (TPI), with the reliability of the...

This note is a comment on Chinyio, E.A., Olomolaiye, P.O., Kometa, S.T. and Harris, F.C. (1998) A needs based methodology for classifying construction clients and selecting contractors, Construction Management and Economics, 16(1), 91-98, which describes research aimed at classifying clients by...

This study investigates the service quality in the maintenance of mechanical and engineering services. The determinants of service quality are identified and their means of evaluation are examined. A method of assessment is devised based on the SERVQUAL approach, and its use is then illustrated...

This paper is concerned with the effect of outliers on predictions of the probability of tendering the lowest bid in sealed bid auctions. Four of the leading models are tested relative to the equal probability model by an empirical analysis of three large samples of real construction contract...