Title:
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Cost and time control practice of construction projects in the UK : the pursuit of effective management control
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The aim of project control is to ensure projects finish on time, within budget and achieve other
project objectives. It is a complex task undertaken by project managers in practice. During the
last few decades, numerous project control techniques, methods and software packages have
been developed. Despite this many projects still do not achieve their cost and time objectives.
Research in this area has so far has mainly been devoted to identifying causes of cost and time
overruns. There is limited research geared at studying factors inhibiting the ability of
practitioners to effectively control their projects, issues surrounding the usage of the various
project control techniques in practice and dedicated development of mitigation for identified
problems. To address this, a detailed study of the cost and time control practice of projects in
the UK was conducted utilising a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods.
The study identified the most important factors inhibiting effective control of cost and time
during construction projects and revealed the topical issues affecting project control in practice
from practitioners' viewpoint. A model that can be used to effectively control the cost and
time objectives during the project control process was also developed and evaluated using the
Delphi technique. The model also incorporated a good practice checklist containing 90
measures developed for the mitigation of the top five leading project control inhibiting factors
(design changes, risks/uncertainties, inaccurate evaluation of project time/duration,
complexities and non-performanceo f subcontractors).T he study concludest hat the developed
model can help project managers improve the effectiveness of control of their projects and
recommends that practitioners not only need to apply appropriate cost and time control
methods but also need to consider and manage the potential impact of project control
inhibiting factors and the other bottlenecks affecting their ability to actualise effective project
cost and time control in practice.
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