WJEC Vocational Award Constructing the Built Environment Level 1/2

7 Time (remains the one true constraint in the construction industry) 1 Preliminaries 2 Labour 3 Plant 4 Materials 5 Overheads and profits £ 6 Total estimated cost APPLICATION What is the ratio of tools below? Tools KNOWLEDGE Costs Estimated costs help the construction industry to remain sustainable. In broad terms, the costs incurred by a contractor operating in the construction industry often must be recovered long (several weeks) after the expenditure by the contractor has occurred. This gives rise to commercial risk and many contractors have businesses that fail due to this reason alone – they simply have too many outgoings (see points 1–6 in the diagram at the bottom right of this page), for too long (point 7 in the diagram) and they are often not entitled to payment from the client until the work is completed. Therefore, the estimated costs must be accurately scheduled by the contractor. Many contractors use commercial managers called Estimators for this very purpose. Estimators specialise in the discipline of predicting accurate construction project costs. They are not to be confused with the function of quantity surveying, as this is a slightly different, although similar, profession. All the costs shown on the right and discussed on the following page will always have a time constraint (limit) in one form or another that will influence the estimated cost. On completion of the project, the actual costs may vary, sometimes greatly, from the original estimated cost . : : : : : : : : 79 AC2.2 Calculate materials required to complete construction tasks