Sparksman, Peter John (2015) Quantifying the time and cost associated with the Request for Information (RFI) OR Technical Query (TQ) process - a designers perspective. [USQ Project]
|
Text
Sparksman_P_Tilley.pdf Download (3MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Within the modern construction industry, shrinking budgets have forced consultants to significantly reduce costs to remain competitive. Inside the overall design and documentation structure, the Request of Information (RFI) process is identified as a critical but non-value adding activity. To reduce the impact of this process on the efficiency of the designer, this research project aims to accurately quantify the time and cost accrued by the designer.
To meet the defined research objective a detailed methodology was created to collect data from real world projects. This case study data includes the collection of the project factors, the designers costs and additional factors. This collected data was then manipulated and analysed to revel potential relationships between the project data and the cost to designers.
From this analysis it was identified that the construction value of a project had the strongest correlation with the number of RFI’s produced. This finding also confirms previous studies into this aspect of the process. More importantly to the research objectives, it was identified that the project factors with the strongest correlation to the average cost per RFI to designers, is the Construction Value, the Construction Duration and the Number of Construction Plans.
Following these conclusions, the factors identified were used to develop a method of estimating the number of RFIs on a project and the average cost per RFI to designers. By combining these methods, a means of estimating the total costs for responding to RFIs on a project, for within the limitations set for this research project, was developed.
These developed methods however do not reduce the number and cost of RFIs. To do this the root causes of RFI’s on the case study projects were investigated. This investigation revealed that the major cause of RFI’s within the data set includes the ‘Insufficient Information’ and ‘Other’ categories. To remedy these major causes several recommendations were made. These recommendations included; the better education of employees, the implementation of a definitive internal auditing process and the better definition of communication systems within the contract documents.
Following the above outline, this research project has achieved the defined objectives. By accurately quantify the time and cost to designers, developing an estimation method and by making recommendations the number, costs and impacts of RFI’s on future projects can be successfully quantified and potentially mitigated.
|
Statistics for this ePrint Item |
| Item Type: | USQ Project |
|---|---|
| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Bachelor of Engineering Honours (Civil) project |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Historic - Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - School of Civil Engineering and Surveying (1 Jul 2013 - 31 Dec 2021) |
| Supervisors: | Tilley, Paul |
| Date Deposited: | 06 Jun 2016 04:05 |
| Last Modified: | 06 Jun 2016 04:05 |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Request or information, technical query, construction, designer, construction projects |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 09 Engineering > 0905 Civil Engineering > 090599 Civil Engineering not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 40 ENGINEERING > 4005 Civil engineering > 400599 Civil engineering not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/29235 |
Actions (login required)
 |
Archive Repository Staff Only |
