The optimum project duration and cost curve for Hong Kong public housing projects

Abstract

Project duration and cost play a significant role in fulfilling the objectives of both the contractor and the client. This paper builds upon the assumption that, for a given project quality, there exists a relationship between the project duration and the project cost. The behaviour of this relationship is very much influenced by the nature of the project. The paper proposes a general set of potential mathematical expressions for the above relationship and facilitates the identification of the project duration which yields lowest project cost. These are then applied to ‘Harmony’ type housing projects in Hong Kong. Moreover, while demonstrating the difference between the contractor's optimum cost‐time curve and that of the client, the paper suggests that the parties can select one of three options to reach a compromise. To this end, the paper introduces a set of mathematical expressions to represent these compromise‐solutions.