Contractor's Profit Research Articles

Cost details from front-end engineering design of piperazine with the advanced stripper

This Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to estimate the cost to capture and compress 90 % of the CO2 from an existing natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) in Denver City, Texas, USA. The FEED used the PZAS (Piperazine with the Advanced Stripper) 2 G amine scrubbing technology developed and modeled by The University of Texas at Austin. This FEED is unique in providing more public cost details than other FEEDs funded by DOE. The primary objective of the FEED was to provide a comprehensive estimate for the total installed cost of the capture plant. The estimated capital cost of NGCC at the Mustang Station is $727 million for a capacity of 460 MW and 1.6 million tonnes CO2/yr. This includes a contingency of $104.6 million and a contractor's profit of $60.1 million. The total direct field cost is $384.1 million. With an optimistic fuel value of $3/MMBtu, the estimated cost of capture varies from $85/t at 4 % IRR/85 % load to $170/t at 10 % IRR/52 % load. Air cooling is technically feasible but expensive. The air cooling systems for the water wash and pump-around intercooling account for 23.4 % of the direct cost. The gas-fired boilers represent only 4 % of the direct costs, but steam extraction would reduce energy cost, free up cooling water, and reduce the direct costs of processing additional flue gas and CO2 from the boilers. The absorbers represent 9.6 % of the direct cost in this FEED with no direct contact cooler and only 7.6 m of packing. The solvent cross exchangers are less expensive than expected (2.5 % of direct costs). Doubling the number of these exchangers could reduce the heat duty from 3.0 to 2.5 GJ/t CO2.

Penerapan Metode CPM dan PERT Pada Proyek Konstruksi Gereja Kemah Tabernake PIK 2 Jakarta Utara

PT. TCI is a company operating in the construction sector which handles the construction of several projects, one of which is the Tabernacle Church project. In carrying out the project work, several factors/problems arose, resulting in an extension of the project foundation construction stage and increasing the project period and costs. The use of the CPM and PERT methods for implementing the foundation construction of the GKT project using the planned and actual schedules has been able to optimize the work, namely 123 days using the planned schedule and 150 days using the actual schedule. These results have found the critical path, so that by applying the CPM and PERT methods in this project, an estimated schedule can be obtained to speed up the project. The cost difference using the CPM, PERT and CPM-PERT methods for the planned schedule is IDR 304,000,000 (Three Hundred and Four Million Rupiah) , Rp. 264,000,000 (Two Hundred and Sixty Four Million Rupiah) and Rp. 264,000,000 (Two Hundred and Sixty Four Million Rupiah). The difference in costs using the CPM, PERT, CPM-PERT method for the actual schedule is IDR 344,000,000 (Three Hundred Forty Four Million Rupiah), IDR 304,000,000 (Three Hundred Forty Four Million Rupiah) and IDR 304,000,000 (Three Hundred Forty Four Million Rupiah). These costs will be the contractor's profit.

Safety Cost Analysis for Building in Construction Industry

Abstract: The construction industry provides shelter for a variety of societies and for a variety of purposes. A security culture is concerned with ensuring safety and avoiding risks. A questionnaire is used to collect information for this project. The study's questionnaire included questions with fixed response categories as well as open-ended questions. Three ratios were calculated, and a graph was plotted for analysis. The Accident Loss Ratio (ALR), Safety Investment Ratio (SIR), and Accident Occurrence Index (AOI) are the three ratios calculated. An estimation of 0.672% of the contract amount was found to be the optimum safety investment for a construction project. It was found that the overall cost to the contractor (accident loss plus safety investment) was 1.148% of the total contract amount. It isn't intended to suggest the scary assumption that 0.672% is the optimum value and that a safety investment higher than 0.672% is not necessary. In actuality, 0.672% needs to be thought of as the very minimal amount to invest in safety in a construction project. The purpose of the graphical representation is to demonstrate the effect of safety investment in a project on the severity of accidents and accident loss occurrences on site, which ultimately reduces the contractor's profit margin. The main goal of the graphical representation is to understand the importance of safety investment in terms of both tangible and intangible benefits such as greater peace of mind for workers, a better image of the organisation in the market, and greater job satisfaction for employers and employees, as well as monetary benefits such as increased profit margins.

Sustainable development of construction contractors of the Republic of Moldova in the context of waste generation and processing

The article deals with the formation and processing of construction waste resulting from the activities of construction organizations. Every year there is a growth in the volume of construction products, which leads, among other things, to an increase in the volume of generated waste. The aim of this scientific research is to study the preconditions of sustainable development of construction enterprises in the Republic of Moldova in the context of waste management. As a hypothesis, it was assumed that the scale of formation and processing of construction waste affects the profitability of contractors. The initial information for the research was the data characterizing the activity of the construction enterprises of the Republic of Moldova for the last 6 years. Methods of economic analysis and methods of correlation regression were used as research methods. The results of the correlation analysis showed that 99.27% of the profitability of sales of construction enterprises depends on the factors reflecting different aspects of waste formation and management, which makes it possible to directly create prerequisites for long-term and efficient management of construction waste.

Metode Pelaksanaan Pekerjaan Pondasi Bore Pile Pada proyek Gedung Baru Instalasi Pelayanan Utama Rumah Sakit Dr Saiful Anwar Malang

The construction stage is a stage that needs attention so that the main goal of producing a quality project can be achieved. In the construction stage, project managers should consider the positive and negative aspects that will occur in the next stage, namely the operational stage. The contractor's profit will be obtained when it is appropriate to apply the construction method at the project site. Different construction methods must also differ in the needs of ny resources, waste generated, and almost certainly differ in the achievement of project objectives in terms of cost, quality, and time.In completing a project to achieve goals effectively and efficiently, a good management system is needed. To implement a good management system, various methods are needed according to the type of building completed. Management develops and directs methods to align resources and equipment use to achieve project objectives. Many factors affect the accuracy of equipment use and resource utilization including cost, time, and and social. To achieve the goal effectively and efficiently, construction management involves the stages of the standard method used in each building (house, building, etc.).

Solution of housing contractor profit maximization problem

Solution of housing contractor profit maximization problem

Impact of carbon tax on oil and gas fiscal system: an integrated evaluation model

This paper estimates the impact of the carbon tax on oil and gas fiscal system. Carbon tax is regarded as the widely used mechanism for carbon policy. However, few studies analyzed the impacts of carbon tax on oil and gas fiscal system. This research addresses the gap by studying how the carbon tax affect the oil and gas industry and the risk of the carbon tax. In this paper, an integrated model considering the impact of the carbon tax in the oil and gas fiscal system and using the Monte-Carlo method to analyze the risk of the carbon tax is put forward. With the purpose of comparing the Royalty and Profit Sharing Contract, the distributions of the revenue are discussed. When the carbon price increases to US$100/ton, the contractor profit will drop to zero under Royalty fiscal system. When the carbon price increases to US$80/ton, the contractor profit will become negative under PSC. The result indicates that high carbon tax results in negative cash flow.

Determining The Effects Of Awarding Lowest Bid Price System On The Construction Projects Of Ethiopian Southern Nation

Identifying the effects of low bid award system in construction projects can be used as benchmark to find alternative method to low bid award system in the future of construction industry. The results of questioner survey conducted to determine the effects of awarding lowest bid award system in construction projects of Ethiopian southern nation are presented in this study. Personnel from consultants, owners and contractors are among the survey`s respondent. The result of the study outlines promote transparency, avoid fraud and corruption, promoting competition amongst contractors, excessive time overrun, compromise quality and hindering profitability of contractors as the top ranked effects of low bid award system. Construction industry participants have started recognizing that accepting the least price bid does not guarantee maximum value. Achieving a value-based procurement approach is a challenge, particularly for the Pakistani public sector clients, who are limited in their ability to evaluate the competitive bids based solely on the lowest-bid award system. Persisting problems of inferior quality of constructed facilities, high incidence of claims and litigation, and frequent cost and schedule overruns have become the main features of public construction works contracts. This research was undertaken to assess the performance of public owned construction projects awarded on a lowest bidder bid awarding system.

LABOUR–SPECIFIC FACTORS INFLUENCING THE VOLUME OF CONSTRUCTION WASTE GENERATION IN THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

The construction industry generates a large volume of waste which distorts the aesthetics of the environment and contributes to the impediments to achieving social, economic and environmental dimensions of sustainability. Construction waste impact project schedule, cost, and derails contractor's profit, leads to claims and disputes. Construction tradespeople who are the frontline workers have a role to play in the waste generation of construction projects irrespective of the level of development of a nation. This study assessed the labour-specific factors influencing construction wastes generation on construction projects in Nigeria. The well-structured questionnaire conveniently administered to construction tradespeople in active construction sites in Port Harcourt was used to gathered data. Garnered data were analysed using the mean item score and Kruskal-Wallis H tests. The study found that the most significant labour-specific factor that influence construction waste generation are workers' mistakes/errors leading to rework, poor attitudes of workers, shortage of skilled workers/use of unskilled, poor workmanship, and lack of experience. The study recommended for the organisation of adequate training to improved workers knowledge and skills needed to execute projects tasks.

Using of an Artificial Neural Networks with Particle Swarm Optimization (ANN-PSO) Model in Prediction of Cost and Delay in Construction Projects

Construction project delay is a global phenomenon. The delay risk being regarded as a main challenge that is tackled via the firms of construction. It possessed an inverse effect upon the performance of the project resulting in cost overruns and productivity reduction. In Iraq, most construction projects surpassed their prearranged time and were delayed, resulting in a loss of productivity and income. The objective of this paper was to predict the cost and delay of construction projects to illustrate their risks effects by using of artificial neural networks with the particle swarm optimization method (ANN-PSO). Thereby, risk factors were identified and analysed using Probability and Impact Analysis which were embraced as the model inputs. In comparison, the outputs for the models were represented by the ratio of the contractor's profit to project costs and the delay in construction projects. An ANN model was additionally evolved with a backpropagation (BP) optimization method to assess the exhibition of the ANN-PSO model. To evaluate the accuracy of the results of the ANN-PSO model, coefficient of correlation (R), determination coefficient (R2), and root mean squared error (RMSE) was utilized as performance evaluation of the models. The ANN-PSO model showed a significant performance in the delay prediction. The performance evaluation for the cost and delay prediction were (R=0.929, R2=0.863, RMSE=0.044), and (R=0.998, R2=0.996, RMSE=0.094), respectively. The model of ANN-PSO has a virtuous performance in the delay prediction better than the cost. However, the ANN-BP model showed better performance than ANN-PSO in term of cost prediction.

STRUKTUR BIAYA DAN PENENTUAN HARGA ANGKUT TBS KELAPA SAWIT OLEH KONTRAKTOR

Transporting F resh Fruit Bunches (F FB ) is an important activity in oil palm plantation companies. The FFB that is harvested, must be transported to the mill on the same day. The contractor is one of the parties who collaborates in transporting FFB. This study examine d the structure of the cost of transporting FFB by contractors, determining the transport price and the benefits obtained. This research was a case study at PT SINP (Surya Indah Nusantara Pagi) Pangkut Village, Arut Utara District, Kotawaringin Barat District, Central Kalimantan Province. There were 7 contractors working together in transporting FFB. The economic analysis includes fixed costs and variable costs, as well as determi ned the transportation price based on the distance to the palm oil mill The results showed that t he structure of the transportation costs incurred by the contractor consists of fixed costs (depreciation costs, capital interest costs, maintenance costs and vehicle taxes) while the variable costs include fuel costs, driver fees, FFB loading and unloading fees, and income tax costs. The cost of transportation for FFB contractors transporting FFB from afdeling close to PKS was IDR 20.09 / kg, and those far from the palm oil mill was IDR 31.75 / kg. The contractor's profit was higher if it transports FFB from afdeling closer to the palm oil mill

Retracted] Implementation of TQM and the Integration of BIM in the Construction Management Sector in Saudi Arabia

Total Quality Management (TQM) is based on the conceptions of managing and enhancing the success of construction projects. When applied, TQM improves execution of time management of project, satisfies clients’ needs, minimizes the expenses and increases the profit of contractor, and fulfils safety regulations on the construction site. This research is aimed at evaluating the impacts of employing the concepts of TQM to the construction projects in Saudi Arabia. The results of the study were obtained through utilization of a descriptive analytical approach, where 300 questionnaires were distributed to engineering firms and companies with a response rate of 200 questionnaires, hence achieving the study sample for this research. The data gathered was analyzed by applying the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) program and calculating the relative importance index (RII) and the mean values. From the research conducted, the outcomes showed that the management’s ability to commit using TQM while applying BIM obtained a relative importance of (0.717), while the relative importance for the management’s ability to commit using TQM without the application of BIM is (0.552). The results showed that construction projects in Saudi Arabia still sustain setbacks from applying TQM concepts and suffer from the lack of administrative, scientific, and technical applications.

Spatial-temporal hedging coordination in prefabricated housing production

This paper studies the spatial-temporal hedging coordination problem. In the prefabricated housing production, the heavy double handling cost is the major reason that causes profit loss of project manager. The spatial-temporal method is capable of mitigating this double handling cost by reducing assembly time uncertainty and on-site congestion probability substantially. However, adopting hedging methods adds extra cost and pressure to the adopters. To encourage the building contractor who makes the temporal hedging decision to choose a larger assembly time hedging (ATH) amount, a hedging effort-sharing (HES) mechanism is proposed. In this research, we built an analytical model to investigate how HES mechanism affects spatial-temporal hedging decisions, the performance of the building contractor, project manager as well as the whole supply chain. Three scenarios with fixed HES terms under decentralized setting are examined: (I) Nash model, (II) Building contractor led Stackelberg model, and (III) Project manager led Stackelberg model. Closed-form results regarding the optimal spatial-temporal hedging decisions are obtained. Besides, we derive the threshold of the HES terms, under which a win-win coordination can be achieved. Furthermore, an integrated setting with negotiable HES terms is explored. We derive the optimal values of HES terms, which incents the individual optimal spatial-temporal hedging decisions identical with that obtained in the centralized setting. By conducting numerical studies, it is found that a higher site congestion probability and a lower demand uncertainty encourage the project manager to share more ATH effort, while a lower unit ATH cost and higher site space hedging effort-sharing rate entice the building contractor to burden more ATH effort. Surprisingly, in the proposed HES mechanism, the building contractor's profit is increasing in site congestion probability and the project manager's profit increases in the demand uncertainty.

An Evaluation of Critical Factors Impeding Performance of State Financed Road Construction Projects in Botswana

The study tried to evaluate the critical factors that impede the quality performance of state financed road construction projects in Botswana. There have been variations on completion time, cost and quality of state financed construction projects in Botswana and other developing countries. The study therefore classified factors that are thought to lead to poor quality performance of road construction projects. A questionnaire consisting of 15 quality performance factors were distributed to 120 participants with construction associated background, they were mandated to rank their responses on a 5-point Likert scale. The data was analyzed via the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23. It was discovered from the results that the five major critical factors that have direct impediments on quality performance of state financed road construction projects are; financing processes of the project, issues on health and safety, project managers skills and knowledge, profitability of contractors, and experiences of the contractor in the industry. The results also showed that project quality performance had a positive linear relationship with the critical quality performance factors from the developed multiple regression model. All the five major critical quality performance factors were significant and had positive coefficients. Keywords : Project performance, Quality performance factors, Contractor’s challenges, Government projects, Construction projects DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-8-11 Publication date: April 30 th 2020

A CRITICAL LITERATURE REVIEW ON IMPROVING PROJECT COST MANAGEMENT PRACTICE AND PROFITABILITY OF DOMESTIC CONTRACTORS

Construction cost management is the most important function for project success, and the construction project performance is generally expressed in terms of cost and its variance from the budget. However, it has not been effectively used due to the presence of a large quantity of data with many complex interrelationships. Construction firms, being project based organizations, have to develop their project management capacity in order to accomplish firm and project objectives successfully. Hence contractors need to focus on project cost management process. The study presents the limitations, drawbacks and shortcomings of each project cost management functions related to current practices of domestic contractors, which need to be improved for achieving the predefined project objectives and the profitability of contractors along with the proposed improvement recommendations, through critical literature review.

Maximizing expected contractor profit using an integrated model

PurposePlanning for increased contractor profits should start at the time the contract is signed because low profits and lack of profitability are the primary causes of contractor failure. The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated profit maximization model (IPMM) that aims for maximum expected profit by using time-cost tradeoff analysis, adjusted start times of activities, minimized financing cost and minimized extension of work schedule beyond the contract duration. This kind of integrated approach was never researched in the past.Design/methodology/approachIPMM is programmed into an automated system using MATLAB 2016a. It generates an optimal work schedule that leads to maximum profit by means of time-cost tradeoff analysis considering different activity acceleration/deceleration methods and adjusting the start/finish times of activities. While doing so, IPMM minimizes the contractor’s financing cost by considering combinations of different financing alternatives such as short-term loans, long-term loans and lines of credit. IPMM also considers the impact of extending the project duration on project profit.FindingsIPMM is tested for different project durations, for the optimality of the solutions, differing activity start/finish times and project financing alternatives. In all cases, contractors can achieve maximum profit by using IPMM.Research limitations/implicationsIPMM considers a deterministic project schedule, whereas stochastic time-cost tradeoff analysis can improve its performance. Resource allocation and resource leveling are not considered in IPMM, but can be incorporated into the model in future research. Finally, the long computational time is a challenge that needs to be overcome in future research.Practical implicationsIPMM is likely to increase profits and improve the chances of contractors to survive and grow compared to their competitors. The practical value of IPMM is that any contractor can and should use IPMM since all the data required to run IPMM is available to the contractor at the time the contract is signed. The contractor who provides information about network logic, schedule data, cost data, contractual terms, and available financing alternatives and their APRs can use an automated IPMM that adjusts activity start times and durations, minimizes financing cost, eliminates or minimizes time extensions, minimizes total cost and maximizes expected profit.Originality/valueUnlike any prior study that looks into contractors’ profits by considering the impact of only one or two factors at a time, this study presents an IPMM that considers all major factors that affect profits, namely, time-cost tradeoff analysis, adjusted start times of activities, minimized financing cost and minimized extension of work schedule beyond the contract duration.

Modeling of Waste Material Costs on Road Construction Projects

Material waste is a term from the amount of waste material percentage and is one of the serious problems in the implementation of road construction project. The research objective is to calculate the average percentage of waste material in road construction projects and obtain waste material influencing profit and make a regression model of % material waste to % profit contractors. The data obtained are 158 projects in East and North Kalimantan divided into 51 road building projects and 107 road improvement projects. The percentage of waste material on road building project is B aggregate as the largest (26%) and ready mix concrete (5.3%) as the smallest. The percentage of waste material on road improvement project is B aggregate as the largest (24.2%) and ready mix concrete (6.14%) as the smallest. The influencing waste material on the road construction project is B aggregate, lean concrete and ready mix concrete with regression equation to determine the estimated % profit contractor as a function of % material waste is Y = 7.363 -0.032 X3 - 0.078 X4 - 0.066 X6. The influenced waste material on road improvement projects are cement, B aggregate, and Land Fill with the regression equation to determine the estimated % profit of contractor as a function of % material waste is Y = 8,702- 0,037 X4- 0,054 X5- 0,044 X7.

Platform collapse incident of a power plant in Jiangxi, China

This short communication gives a brief report of a recently anthropic hazard of collapse of a working platform for a cooling tower during construction in the city of Fengcheng in Jiangxi Province, China, which occurred on November 14, 2016. This collapse resulted in 74 people dead and 2 people injured. This short communication presents the accident background, accident scene, and related emergency response at first. The main reason for this collapse is the reduction in construction duration and lack of scientific management. Following control measures of this kind of collapses in the future are proposed: (1) to establish more meticulous laws to keep the rational profit of contractor; (2) to establish more strength punishment law; (3) to conduct site inspection during each step of significant construction; and (4) to train construction labors including both technical and law senses. By conducting these scientific management measures, the sustainable development can be achieved and benefits for the mitigation of construction induced hazards in China.

Modeling Foreseeable Risk Factors Affecting the Contractor's Profit in the International EPC Project

Modeling Foreseeable Risk Factors Affecting the Contractor's Profit in the International EPC Project

Eliminating enforced idleness of resources and job waiting time in time-constrained construction activities using waiting line theory

Waiting of labour on construction site is a waste of energy and has been described as a shortcoming and production waste that can affect work performance and profitability of contractors. Labours are expected to be flowing through the construction site and not to be stationary; but when activities are not well-designed, their capacities are withheld and are forced to be idle. Also, conventional job-design techniques focus on planning of operations and required operatives without considering the elimination of waste related to operatives. Hence, this study explored the application of waiting line theory to eliminating the cost of waiting time of resources using the construction of a hypothetical upper floor slab. The practical application of waiting line theory was demonstrated and conclusions were drawn from the findings of the study. The findings revealed that waiting line theory can be applied in the design of time-constrained construction activities so as to eliminate enforced idleness on construction sites through reduction in the waiting time of resources.