One of the results of benchmarking is often direct comparison of cost and schedule performance between two or more projects. To make such comparisons meaningful, it is essential to have a shared understanding of the data that is being used for the comparisons. The purpose of this article is to introduce meaningful and practical steps to help with benchmarking tasks.
What data is important for comparing construction projects?
In order to compare construction projects, quantity surveyors need to consider a number of factors. Some of the most important data points include:
- The type of project (e.g. residential, commercial, industrial)
- The size of the project (e.g. number of square meters)
- The location of the project
- The materials used
- The construction methods used
- The construction schedule
- The number of workers needed
Other data points that can be considered include the project budget and the project completion date. However, these data points are not as important as the ones listed above. This is because the purpose of comparison is to find out which project is more efficient in terms of cost and time, providing this data to clients and other stakeholders can be key in project success.
The importance of cost data in construction project comparisons
As a Quantity Surveyor, one of the most important things you can do is compare construction projects. This helps you understand the cost of each project, so you can make informed decisions about which one is the most cost-effective.
There are a few key things to keep in mind when you're comparing construction projects. First, you need to make sure you're looking at the right data. Second, you need to understand how to interpret that data. And third, you need to be aware of the potential biases that can distort your comparisons.
Let's take a closer look at each of these points.
Make sure you're looking at the right data
When you're comparing construction projects, it's important to look at the right data. Otherwise, you might not be able to accurately compare the projects.
Some of the most important data to look at when you're comparing construction projects include:
- The cost of the project
- The size of the project
- The location of the project
- The type of project
Understand how to interpret that data
Once you've gathered the data, you need to know how to interpret it. This can be tricky, because construction projects can vary greatly.
To accurately compare construction projects, you need to understand how the data you're looking at relates to the other projects. For example, you might need to adjust for the size of the project when you're comparing costs or rebase the costs so they are relevant to the time/location.
Be aware of the potential biases that can distort your comparisons
It's important to be aware of the potential biases that can distort your comparisons. These biases can come from a variety of sources, including:
- Your own personal biases
- The biases of the people who are providing the data
- The biases of the people who are interpreting the data
If you're not aware of these biases, they can distort your comparisons and lead you to make inaccurate decisions.
By keeping these three things in mind, you can ensure that you're accurately comparing construction projects. This, in turn, will help you make informed decisions about which projects are the most cost-effective.
Construction programming and time management
One of the most insightful elements of data that can be used for direct comparison is construction programming and time management. This data can be used to not only benchmark future projects but also to understand the inefficiencies of current projects. It can also be used as a marker to review the progress of a project and to investigate the causes of any delays. Time management can be tricky however using our following process we can break it down into more manageable steps.
- Define the project’s scope, including a clear and concise description of what work needs to be completed.
- Identify similar projects that are appropriate for comparison
- Break down time scales into:
- Conception duration
- Design duration,
- Tender duration
- Construction duration
- defect rectification duration
- Average these values to give useful insight into how long each project stage will take.
- These averages can be applied to your project to generate a project schedule.
- This schedule can be used to monitor and review the project’s progress, highlighting any areas which are falling behind.
- If any delays do occur, these can be investigated and the root cause identified.
- Finally, once the project is complete, the data can be used to benchmark future projects.
Benchmarking Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) across projects
Key Performance Indicators are largely ignored in the benchmarking process with more emphasis placed on 'easier' metrics to track such as cost or program.
As the world progresses, the construction industry is becoming more and more competitive. In order to stay ahead of the curve, construction companies need to be constantly improving their performance and delivery. One way to do this is by benchmarking their projects against others.
However, benchmarking is not always easy, and it is often difficult to know which data is important to compare. This is especially true for Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
KPIs are a vital part of any construction project, but they are often overlooked in the benchmarking process. This is because they can be difficult to track and compare. However, KPIs are essential for measuring the success of a construction project.
There are a few key things to keep in mind when benchmarking KPIs:
- Make sure you are comparing apples to apples. It is important to compare projects that are similar in scope and size.
- Focus on the data that is important to you. There is no point in comparing data that is not relevant to your project.
- Make sure you are tracking the right KPIs. Not all KPIs are created equal, and some will be more important to your project than others.
If you keep these things in mind, you will be able to effectively benchmark your construction projects against others. By doing so, you will be able to improve your performance and delivery, and stay ahead of the competition.
Construction procurement methods
Procurement method selection can be tricky, especially on larger or more complex jobs. Comparison can help here though, and project benchmarking is a process that can provide some useful data. But what data is important for comparing construction projects?
In order to select the best procurement method, quantity surveyors need to understand the project’s objectives, evaluate the options, and understand the risks and rewards associated with each method. With that information in hand, they can begin to compare projects.
There are a number of factors that need to be considered when comparing construction projects, but some data is more important than others. Here are a few key data points that quantity surveyors should focus on:
- Schedule: How long will the project take to complete?
- Cost: What is the estimated cost of the project?
- Quality: What is the expected quality of the finished project?
- Risk: What are the risks associated with each procurement method?
By focusing on these key data points, quantity surveyors can get a better understanding of the pros and cons of each procurement method and make a more informed decision about which one is best for the project.
Procurement is often outcome based, meaning you want to collate other data first before making a decision about procurement methods. This data might include:
- The client’s objectives for the project
- The project scope
- The site conditions
- The construction market
- The availability of resources
Once you have this data, you can start to compare different procurement methods against each other. This will help you to identify which method is best suited to the project, based on the factors that are most important to you.
The Pros and Cons of Different Data Types
Benchmarking is similar to a fly wheel - the more data you have the better data you can get back out. However this isn't the full story, the quality of construction data is important too and this is where most quantity surveyors fall behind.
Older data is less relevant in construction due to the constantly shifting costs of material, labour and global economic activity such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting levels of high inflation.
What data is important for comparing construction projects?
- The data type - is it cost, time or quality data?
- The data source - is it from a reputable source such as a government department or an independent body? In house?
- The data accuracy - is the data reliable and up-to-date? Is the data from within your organisation, do you know it is good?
- The data level of detail - is the data too aggregated to be useful? Is the data too specific and not comparable?
- The data format - is the data in a usable format such as a table or graph? Is the data easy to understand?
The quality of data is important, but the quantity of data is also key to getting good benchmarking results. However as mentioned over aggregated data provides little nuance to accurately compare data types. The opposite is also true, if the data is too specific it can be difficult to compare like with like. Having enough data and enough quality of data takes a while to build up, however can provide immense reward if done correctly