Procurement Issues in Construction

Procurement Issues in Construction We refer to your management in taking the opportunity to rebuild three of the Cinnamon Grand hotels in South East of the UK, to a better quality and facilities than before they were destroyed by the bad weather and storm. The rebuild hotels are requiring being in line with the clients policy on architectural significance and aesthetics of the building. The quality of the building is thus a major factor to be considered. As the hotels are situated in the prime location, construction is proved to be a challenge in terms of time factor and accessibility of work. In phase 1, the completion date is critical as the building require to handover by 28th February 2015 and the operation of the hotels for roofs, guest rooms, restaurant, and swimming pools will be made possible. Time is an essence and a procurement route of saving overall design and construction time is priority. Time saving will enable the client to operate the business on time or earlier, therefore reducing the time of closing down business. The planned construction start date at the site is 1st March 2014, and the planned reopening date is schedule on 1st April 2015. Hence, the actual construction period is last than a year. In phase 2, new facilities such as dance studios, health and fitness centre, conference and meeting rooms will be constructed for the enhancement of the health and well-being of the hotel visitors. The Interfacing works such as the integration of the services from phase 1 to phase 2, and the new construction works for phase 2, while the hotels is in operation requires good controls and management skills for the complexity of the work. In consideration of some of the very important points of the above, we have looked into carefully on selecting the most appropriate route to achieve the time, quality and cost of project success. Analysis of the key procurement issues When selecting the procurement routes, the following key issues are considered; Factors outside the control of the project team. Client resources Cost issues Project characteristics. Quality and performance Risk management The need to accommodate changes, variation. Time The client has managed to obtain a substantial finance so as to ensure that the dignity of the building and the services are not compromised from the reconstruction. Hence, the reconstruction quality of the building will not be hinder by much financial difficulty, but the project will have to work strictly within the budget require, to prevent cost over run. The client despite been in the market for their experienced at renovation of buildings, do not have an in-house executive who is either experience enough or is able to devote his time for this project. Therefore, it is important to choose a procurement route to avoid the risk and at the same time with the experience of client and their contact, select those contractors whom have the expertise of working with them previously. This will also help in resolving of quality and design issues. As Cinnamon is highly concerned about project delays and overrun of cost, price certainty at the outset is of great important. Procurement route which enable the client to know the total financial commitment of the project early will provide the solution to this matter. The procurement route can also have guaranteed maximum price to affirm to this. Time and cost is of most important because of the opening of the hotels for business. The selected procurement route must be able to reduce the time for design and construction. This can be done by selecting a procurement route that enables the design and construction to perform concurrently. Thereby, shorten the overall project duration. Shortening the period of project completion allows the client to operate the hotels and back to business at an earlier date. As the clients requirement in terms of architectural and aesthetics of the building to be in line with their policy, and also to improve on the quality, facilities of the new buildings, it will be advisable to consider procurement route that is able to take care of the quality and performance aspect as well. Procurement route that allows the client to choose and appoint a contractor with architectural merits or director is an architect would be a plus for considerations. There is no correlation between procurement method and perceived quality of product. Due to the unavailability of an experience in-house execute form the client; risk allocation to the contractor for the selected procurement route is most important. However, this method of procurement may compromise the risk of the design and quality of the project. Therefore, in order to overcome this setback, selecting of a procurement method that conforms to the sets of employer or clients requirement is necessary and will help in a one way or another. As the client is use to dealing with construction of hotels, and assuming that the new hotels that are to be built will have most of the base designs from the previously built hotels in place, or having little difference , therefore changes in design may not be significant . The short construction duration may also not allow for many changes, as the client will also have to balance between the desire to changes with the earlier time of project completion for business. Most the time the choice of to be back in business earlier or in time will rule out any desire to changes. In phase 1, the completion of the key areas in the hotel such as roofs, guest rooms, restaurant and swimming pools is essential for the operation of the hotels . The timing from the start date on site to the completion of phase 1 is approximately one year which is a very short period. Hence, a selected procure to reduce the project time is critical, if possible start earlier on the construction stage. This can be done by the procurement route which allows the construction stage to be overlapping with the design stage, where both design and construction of the project progress concurrently. In the phase 2, in order for the hotels to enhance the opportunities for health and well- being of the visitors, the new facilities of dance studios, health and fitness centre , conference and meeting rooms is to be built. Here complexity is an important issue due to the incorporating of the high technology multimedia facilities with air-conditioning. The selected procurement route may need to be b ase on the employers requirement which has been incorporated with the name of the specialists. This is one solution of resolving the technical complexity of the project. Appraisal of the procurement routes and selection criteria The design and build procurement route will enable the project to be responsible by solely one contractor whom has the control of the design and the construction process in his ability. A single point of responsibility for design and construction in this aspect is to cover the clients shortfall of an in-house executive who is either experience enough or is able to devote his time to advise on the reconstruction of their properties. As for the Traditional route, the client firm out the whole design with his consultants before construction process begins. The contract is administered by the contract administrator who is normally the clients consultants. It is advantage if the client is experienced and dedicate his/her time in firming out the design with his/her consultants , which is not the case here. Likewise with the Management Contracting route, an inexperienced client or full time client will not be suitable as well. In the DB procurement route, with the whole packaged of design and construction is responsible by a single contractor, therefore the lump sum contract price of the construction can be firmed up easily on the outset which is required by the client for early cost certainty and avoiding of project cost overruns and delays. Time is an essence in the project, the undertaking of the design and construction by a single contractor will also enable to reduce the overall project duration in comparing to the traditional procurement route and most of the risk is with the contractor. Design and construction can be concurrently in progress unlike the traditional procurement which is consecutive in its method and has a longer overall project time and construction may start early as the design work proceed in parallel. Shortening of project time means also to reduce the business downtime. On the whole, time and cost saving of project as compare to traditional procurement route. In the traditional procurement route, the process of procurement is sequential where there is no concurrency. That is, in the preparation stage which is selecting and engaging the consultants to do the Design Brief, follow with the actual design development. Upon confirming the design, the pre-construction stage will kick in to prepare and awarding of the tender. The actual construction stage will only starts after the all the earlier mentioned stages completed and the process of procurement in the preparation, design and pre-construction is lengthy and the overall construction programme duration is being stretch longer. This route will not be appropriate for this project, as the priority of the project should be given for rapid construction which enables the hotels to be opened for business at a specified date. In the traditional procurement route, the design is completed before the contractors is appointed and therefore the design risk is bear by the client. Any requirement by the clients policy in terms of its architectural significance and aesthetic requirement, design and build procurement will allow the client to confirm his design during the preparation and design stage and reducing its cost on the design and changes which may happens in the other procurement route such as construction management when the client has to work with too many parties and design changes may be too many from time to time while the construction is in progress ,thus resulting in too much additional cost and time spent on the whole. The clients direct controls of the project and his involvement in every item have exposed him to a higher risk than the other procurement route, which the clients have had problems with as they have not appreciate the risk associated with control. The overall duration of the project of such procurement route may become longer and no price certainty can be achieved at the outset. In the design and build procurement route, the contractor will be the one developing the design and this will somehow have a high design risk imposed on the project. Therefore, in order to mitigate the problem, the develop and construct procurement route can be used. In this case, the client prepares the clients requirements documents and contractors tender with their proposals and the wining contractors will be appointed with the design content including estimated cost of the project..In this case the appointed contractor then completes and constructs base on the design. The novation of initial design team is required and thus reduces the risk of the design. The relationship between the risk of the client and the contractors can be understood for the tabulation of the Typical Risk Distribution. Proposed procourement From the analysis of the few types of procurement above, design and build type shall the most appropriate in terms of the clients requirement and the overall project characteristic. Design and build procurement route is a single point contact and responsibility that fits perfectly for his lack of resources in terms of experience key person to be full time for the project and the risk of the project can be solely with the contractors. There is a provision in the Contractors Design 81 for the client to nominate an Employers agent whom can be an independent architect acting on behalf of the client and protect his interest that take care of this shortfall. The designs liability by the contracted can be extended to include fitness for purpose, which is a great advantage for the client to exercise. The shortening of project duration from using this method of procurement will also enable the project to complete in time or earlier, thus allowing the hotels to be back in business earlier and the return of investment earlier. The client can also directly and easily communicates with the contractors for his needs. The client has decided to obtain finance of estimated at  £120 million shows that there is a fixed budgeted amount for the project. The nature of the damage of the buildings significantly varies and the amount demolition work may not be certain prior to assessment. The contractor in the design and build procurement route can undertake and be a single point of responsibility for this, therefore, providing price certainty of the project at the outset. The integration of the designers and builders produces a more economic building, likewise is the production process. Buildability is also an advantage in this procurement as the contractors involves in the design at an earlier stage. The nature of design and build procurement route will require the client to make changes at their expense of cost incurred, and careful consideration the short duration of the project and cost budget, allowing for changes becomes less important. The experienced of the client at renovation of buildings will has his network with his pool of consultants, architect, contractors, and hence the client can appoints his consultants to develop the design and novate to the contractors that is awarded for the project. This inherent flexibility is a plus point for this procurement method. In this way, the client is able to adhere and be in line with his policy on the architectural significant and aesthetics of the building. However there is no design overview before consultant is appointed, but this small drawback can easily be resolved by engaging the consultant earlier. This can also overcome the difficulty of the client to prepare adequate brief. The design and build contractor proprietary may lack the aesthetics appeal, the client is able to see the examples of the products when his proposal are being made. The client is able to visualise their needs more readily in three dimensions by moving with and sampling an actual building, then by the study the drawings and specifications. As the client are very established in the markets, the contractors may have work with them before, examining and experiencing some of their pass projects may be more easily gauge on the quality to be built. Conclusion Design and build is an appropriate procurement route for project requires a shorter time frame with priority on cost certainty. The contractors single point responsibility undertakes the risk for the client while at the same time protecting the interest which is favored by most clients. The design brief must be earlier and well prepared to ensure the clients requirement is fully captured with a good design is done. For commercial projects, time and cost is of most important as it means return of investment or business opportunity, to have also the quality and design not compromising in this case is highly commendable in the sense. Other procurement routes may be suitable for projects with different requirements and characteristics on a case to case basis, however design and build is seems to be utmost suitable in this case.

Free Essays - Social Themes in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn :: Adventures Huckleberry Huck Finn Essays

Social Themes in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel that will continue to be read for decades to come. Why? The novel by Mark Twain, or Samuel Clemens, has many themes that relate to society today. Even today society continues to talk about whether the novel should be read amongst high- school curriculums. Society is also continuing to deal with racism, and its effects on the lives of African-Americans. Another theme that is prevalent in society is lying among American children. Huck Finn is a self taught liar, and a very good one at that. On the raft, while floating down the Mississippi, Huck has an opportunity to exercise his gift for lying. The boy enjoys mendacity; he lies for the sake of lying and keeps the reader turning the page piling on one fiction after another. Just before the runaways get started, Huck visits a neighboring town to get information and encounters a farmer's wife. He is dressed in an old dress and is pretending to be a young girl searching for her relatives. The woman suspects his sex and tries various devices to ascertain if her suspicions are true. Among these is threading a needle and throwing a bar of lead at the rats which swarm around the house. Finally she makes Huck own up that he is a boy. In any case, this is a great example of a young boy lying until his nose is a foot long. Lying is prevalent among today's children as well. Racism has an obvious connection to today's society. In the novel Huck says many "racist" comments. In this scene Aunt Sally hears of a steamboat explosion. "Good gracious! anybody hurt?" she asks. "No'm," comes the answer. "Killed a nigger." Aunt Sally later refers to the "nigger" as if they are not even a person, regarding the death as if it did not even matter. "Well, it's lucky because sometimes people do get hurt." At first glance at the novel Huckleberry Finn, many would protest to the explicit use of the "N" word which was used over two-hundred times. As a result Huck Finn, one of the greatest American novels is noteworthy.

Eharmony Examination

What kind of a platform business is the online personals market? What kind of network effects (direct, cross-sided, positive, and negative) does it leverage? How structurally attractive is it? The online personals market is a specific niche of social networking, and it is a sole-sponsor, proprietary platform business. In terms of network effects, it could be seen as a one-sided network (users can instigate an interaction, or can have someone else instigate an interaction with them), but is better described as a two-sided market with men on one side, and women on the other (with the exception of homosexual sites which are clearly one-sided markets). Within this, there are both direct and cross-sided network effects. For direct, there are small positive effects (as a man, you want enough men on your side to attract women on the other side), but primarily negative effects (the more people on your side, the more competition you will have finding a match). For cross-sided, there are positive effects (the more of the opposite sex there are, the more likely you will find a match), and negative effects (if there are too many people on the other side, it may be hard to search through the noise to find an actual match—not to mention that there can be liars, frauds, and other undesirable people on the other side of the network). To examine the attractiveness of the industry structure, a five forces analysis will offer us insight. First, we can consider buyers’ power. In this case buyers (prospective daters) do have some power in that there are a plethora of other options online (from Match to free sites), as well as any number of venues in the real world. However, since they are individual consumers, they do not have scale power and must accept prices. Further, there is an overall opinion that meeting the right person is very hard, and thus there is a significant willingness to pay for a quality service. Second, looking at the competitiveness of rivals, it is clear that there is a significant amount of competition (though concentrated within a few main players). Match is trying to copy eHarmony with Chemistry, and they have been increasing spend on advertising. Yahoo! also boasts a strong installed base that they can funnel into their Personals site. In addition, free sites keep everyone in check in terms of the amount they can charge. Nevertheless, the main players have demonstrated price discipline, as prices have remained steady or even risen (in the case of the competition). Third, the threat of new entrants is low / moderate. There are a hundreds of niche sites starting up every year, but for the most part, the built-in network effects of the three main players, as well as multi-homing costs, have kept the three leaders consistent over the years, and each year the vast majority of new sites fail. The biggest threat would be for a behemoth like Facebook to activate its users on a proprietary site, but so far this has not materialized for a number of reasons. Fourth, the threat of substitutes is always present. In addition to the numerous ways that people can meet partners in the real world, there are also real world match services that pre-date the internet (as well as the threat of new technology and innovations changing everything). However, for the time being, online personal sites are clearly the most efficient and affordable option for the masses. And lastly, there is really no bargaining power of suppliers. eHarmony controls all of its inputs. Thus, the sum of these parts leads to a pretty attractive industry. It is not a winner-take-all market (multi-homing costs, while present, are not overwhelming, and the case mentions that many people are members of multiple dating sites), but the significantly strong network effects and stability of a few main players lead this to be a profitable industry ( primarily for the incumbent leaders). What is eHarmony's competitive advantage? What differentiates it from its competitors? How does the company create value? What is the value proposition to the customer? What kind of customer benefits the most? Can we calculate the company's competitive advantage by relying on the equation of willingness to pay minus cost, as discussed in the Google versus Microsoft session? Is the competitive advantage sustainable? The main competitive advantages of eHarmony are in its ability to offer high quality customers (which is the really the â€Å"product† they are offering), and more accurate matches with superior ensuing relationships. Just as Google’s research and continual adjustments give it an advantage in offering more relevant searches, eHarmony’s research department has created a match algorithm that greatly outperforms the results of its competitors (and arguably the traditional methods of meeting, as well). Further, their long initial setup process serves to self-select only the most serious of consumers, which leads to an increased WTP of everyone who makes it through (and additionally, this has led to more women than men signing up—an extraordinary feat since women have been the hardest customers to acquire in the online dating world). The company differs from its competitors in its guided matchmaking (though Match has recently tried to copy this). Rather than allowing free range for the users to search through the database of potential mates, eHarmony first weeds out the non-serious and non-desirable applicants with its extensive questionnaire, and then uses its patented algorithm to find the best potential match. It takes this even further by then scrutinizing each potential match with additional questions before an actual interaction can begin, and this has ensured a much more accurate product than its competitors. The company creates value by doing a lot of the work for its clients. While the initial time investment (45 minutes) may be longer than the traditional model, it then provides the service of searching through the millions of potential matches. This not only proves to be a more accurate way to find dates, but also saves a great deal of time (where most online daters spend a 7 times as much time searching for a partner as they do interacting). And for men, who are usually fighting over a scarcity of women, they benefit from the majority percentage of women who have become the core of eHarmony’s paid customers. Thus the value proposition for the customer is: better matches (and better quality people) with a much smaller time commitment. The customers who benefit most from this are people who are serious about finding a person for a long-term relationship (rather than those who are just browsing, or hoping to have flings with as many people as possible). With eHarmony’s superior product, we can calculate that their competitive advantage? (WTP-Cost)eHarmony> (WTP-Cost)Chemistry. In this case, eHarmony’s average price (of the four options) is $37. 45 versus $34. 14 for Chemistry, demonstrating the increased WTP of their customers. Further, their advertising strategy (avoiding costly broadcast networks in favor of more cost-effective national cable buys) has helped to keep costs down significantly in comparison to its rivals. By building up network effects and switching costs (including termination fees and amount of time / information invested in their platform), this can be a sustainable advantage. But as with all social media, creating insurmountable switching costs is never really possible, and there is always a risk of new competitors or a game-changing technological shift. And the uber-popularity of sites like Facebook pose a significant threat, as they could integrate a sophisticated dating platform into their current offering, and instantly have hundreds of millions of potential customers at their fingertips. How much of a threat is Chemistry to eHarmony? How could Chemistry break eHarmony's network effects (direct and cross-sided)? As with Google’s search versus Bing, eHarmony is in a very advantaged and enviable position versus Match’s Chemistry offering. The eHarmony product is clearly superior, with the eHarmony benefitting from years of learning and tweaking their algorithm (again, similar to Google’s position). Further, their ability to point to the number of successful relationships they have continues to grow, and thus feeds the virtuous circle by attracting new customers. That said, Chemistry cannot be taken lightly. Match comes in with the deep pockets of IAC, and the ability to match any investment that eHarmony makes—and we have seen this recently with their increased marketing spend. As a latecomer, Chemistry comes in with the benefit of being able to ride on eHarmony’s coattails, learning from their success and mistakes and copying their offering. Further, most of what eHarmony offers while sophisticated, is not inimitable. In terms of ways that eHarmony can break eHarmony’s network effects, they can certainly subsidize some of the switching costs (leave eHarmony and your first month or two are free). Since women are the hardest customers to attract (and wherever they go, the men will follow), they could selectively subsidize the women—e. g. – women pay half price, and once they have built up a vast network of women, they would be able to charge a premium for the male customers. They could also beef up their offering so that they not only cover meeting people, but weddings, having children, and other stages of life that would enable them to extend their customers’ lifetimes (as eHarmony has considered). Another potential idea would be to create a network of niche sites all under the Chemistry banner where there would be sub-sites focused on a number of specific niches (based on lifestyle, religion, sexuality, etc. ) and allow people to join the main site, plus one or two of the niche sub-sites for free. However, most importantly Chemistry needs to dramatically improve its matching competency. As a latecomer facing a dominant incumbent, it has to offer better results than eHarmony if it’s going to break the network effects and challenge for the top position in the market. That is not an easy task to accomplish, and it will cost a lot in research (to improve their matching skills), and then marketing (to let potential customers know about their improved product). Due to resource constraints (and need for strategic focus), eHarmony can only pursue one of the options: how would you go about ranking their relative merit? Once you have done that, choose your top-ranked option and evaluate it. To evaluate the four options on the table for eHarmony, we need to examine their merits on a number of key dimensions. First, how does the strategy fit in terms of the company’s current competencies and competitive advantage? Second, how does it serve to bolster network effects and strengthen the relationship with the current core customers? Third, how well does it address the competitive threat? And fourth, how does it position the company for future growth opportunities? {draw:frame} Upon consideration of these dimensions, it is clear to me that the best option is to grow the new business of handling life transitions. This is the most comprehensive strategy in terms of addressing the various needs of the business. If this were a winner-take-all market, then defending the niche by rapidly increasing the number of paying members would be the correct strategy, but since multi-homing costs aren’t overwhelming, we’ve established that this is not a winner-take-all market. Expanding to medium-term relationships does offer the upside of immediate growth opportunities, but more importantly, it unravels the competitive advantage and value proposition of having top-quality, like-minded individuals who are willing to pay a premium for a better chance to meet a life partner (in some ways it is almost a different business). Lastly, geographic expansion seems perfectly poised for disaster. While it would be the best opportunity for growth in both the near- and long-term, it also goes against the competitive advantage of offering the best matches based on detailed knowledge and understanding of their consumers. To do it properly, they would not be able to transplant the knowledge they’ve gained in the US, but would need to start again with new research in each country they wanted to expand into which is not an efficiently scalable model. Thus that leaves us with expanding into the new business of handling life transitions. This offers the opportunity to have balanced growth—the lifetime of the customer grows from the â€Å"finding a partner stage† to a potential for many years or even life. It also allows the company to capitalize on and build on the goodwill that they earn from their customers when they provide a positive (and life-changing) match, and diversify its revenue stream from purely subscription based into a mix of subscription and advertising. Further, the ability to keep customers longer can help to bolster the network effects as the network becomes larger and offers more value. It also increases switching costs the more that one invests in building up a personal eHarmony ecosystem. In doing so, it addresses the competitive threat by beating the competition to further innovate and lock-in the customer base. And lastly, it builds on the current competencies and competitive advantages by leveraging the advanced research skills that are a large part of eHarmony’s success, with the collective R and knowledge serving as a barrier to entry for potential new entrants. In order to successfully execute this strategy, there will be the need for additional resources. However, this will not be overwhelming and can all happen with internal investment. They will only need to build out and expand eHarmony Labs to continue the expanded focus from forming relationships, to the ensuing events that occur in each relationship. With the project already underway and experienced research scientists already on the payroll, eHarmony is in a much better position to act on this than its competitors. There will some additional marketing and sales investment needed to attract new customers who are already involved in committed relationships, but the majority of its growth will be organic in that they will be able to keep their â€Å"matching services† customers for much longer, and greatly reduce the churn rate. In terms of the competitive threat, I believe this will be enough to stay ahead of Match / Chemistry, and Yahoo! (as well as other new entrants). The name of the game is bolstering network effects, switching costs, and multi-homing costs to carve out a significant and stable market share, and this strategy accomplishes all three. With more offerings, eHarmony should be able to capture more users (as well as keeping them longer) which will continue to feed its network effects. Additionally, having all of these services under the eHarmony banner will increase the amount of time and information supplied by the customers, and thus increase both switching and multi-homing costs. As a response, eHarmony can expect the others to copy, though eHarmony is far ahead and better positioned in this field, so this is not an immediate threat. Additionally, they may find pricing pressure as the ompetition resorts to more desperate measures of cutting price (since they will not be able to compete on the product). In regards to this, they need to be firm in their pricing, knowing that they have the superior product, and continue to build up switching costs to keep their customers captive for the long term. With a superior product and strong network effects in place, eHarmony can expect a profitable life in the near future. EXT RA CREDIT: â€Å"Yellow Submarine,† â€Å"With a Little Help from My Friends,† â€Å"Act Naturally†

Analysis Of The Movie Lila And Eve Essay - 1632 Words

In the movie Lila And Eve Lila suffers from a number of disorders. All combined is what makes her schizophrenic. What I would like to know is can or did her major depression trigger Lila s schizophrenia? If so how does schizophrenia and major depression go hand and hand as well as how does one go about treating both. In the movie Lila and eve, Lila is a single mother of two. Lila is struggling to raise to raise two boys, when her oldest son Stephen is killed in a drive by shooting. Lila stayed In a provident stricken neighborhood (the ghetto) that was majority African American. In the midst of a gang war over turf Lila s oldest son Stephen was killed walking home, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time. At first Lila was in denile, then she felt guilty then after the guilt she was angry. These are some of the basic symptoms of grief. It was not until she met â€Å"Eve† that she started to actually come to terms with her son Stephens death. One of the main reasons for her anger was that the police officers that was overseeing her case seemed not to care. To them Stephen was just another black kid that was killed due to gang related violence. Another set back came when she found a gun in her sons book bag her world came crashing down. Lila copping mechanism or a way to block out the p ain as well as the world was to clean, so she developed obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). As time went on she became more and more angry She decided that inShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of The Movie Lila And Eve Essay1637 Words   |  7 Pagesplease remove this when submitting your paper In the movie Lila and Eve Lila suffers from a number of disorders. All combined is what makes her schizophrenic. What I would like to know is can or did her major depression trigger Lila s schizophrenia? If so, how does schizophrenia and major depression go hand and hand as well as how does one go about treating both? In the movie Lila and eve, Lila is a single mother of two. Lila is struggling to raise to raise two boys, when her