Model Based Estimating System for Civil Concrete Structures

An earlier CRC-CI project on ‘automatic estimating’ (AE) has shown the key benefit of model-based design methodologies in building design and construction to be the provision of timely quantitative cost evaluations. Furthermore, using AE during design improves design options, and results in improved design turn-around times, better design quality and/or lower costs. However, AEs for civil engineering structures do not exist; and research partners in the CRC-CI expressed interest in exploring the development of such a process. This document reports on these investigations. The central objective of the study was to evaluate the benefits and costs of developing an AE for concrete civil engineering works. By studying existing documents and through interviews with design engineers, contractors and estimators, we have established that current civil engineering practices (mainly roads/bridges) do not use model-based planning/design. Drawings are executed in 2D and only completed at the end of lengthy planning/design project management lifecycle stages. We have also determined that estimating plays two important, but different roles. The first is part of project management (which we have called macro level estimating). Estimating in this domain sets project budgets, controls quality delivery and contains costs. The second role is estimating during planning/design (micro level estimating). The difference between the two roles is that the former is performed at the end of various lifecycle stages, whereas the latter is performed at any suitable time during planning/design.

Nation & internation practices in decision support tools in road asset management

This document provides a review of international and national practices in investment decision support tools in road asset management. Efforts were concentrated on identifying analytic frameworks, evaluation methodologies and criteria adopted by current tools. Emphasis was also given to how current approaches support Triple Bottom Line decision-making. Benefit Cost Analysis and Multiple Criteria Analysis are principle methodologies in supporting decision-making in Road Asset Management. The complexity of the applications shows significant differences in international practices. There is continuing discussion amongst practitioners and researchers regarding to which one is more appropriate in supporting decision-making. It is suggested that the two approaches should be regarded as complementary instead of competitive means. Multiple Criteria Analysis may be particularly helpful in early stages of project development, say strategic planning. Benefit Cost Analysis is used most widely for project prioritisation and selecting the final project from amongst a set of alternatives. Benefit Cost Analysis approach is useful tool for investment decision-making from an economic perspective. An extension of the approach, which includes social and environmental externalities, is currently used in supporting Triple Bottom Line decision-making in the road sector. However, efforts should be given to several issues in the applications. First of all, there is a need to reach a degree of commonality on considering social and environmental externalities, which may be achieved by aggregating the best practices. At different decision-making level, the detail of consideration of the externalities should be different. It is intended to develop a generic framework to coordinate the range of existing practices. The standard framework will also be helpful in reducing double counting, which appears in some current practices. Cautions should also be given to the methods of determining the value of social and environmental externalities. A number of methods, such as market price, resource costs and Willingness to Pay, are found in the review. The use of unreasonable monetisation methods in some cases has discredited Benefit Cost Analysis in the eyes of decision makers and the public. Some social externalities, such as employment and regional economic impacts, are generally omitted in current practices. This is due to the lack of information and credible models. It may be appropriate to consider these externalities in qualitative forms in a Multiple Criteria Analysis. Consensus has been reached in considering noise and air pollution in international practices. However, Australia practices generally omitted these externalities. Equity is an important consideration in Road Asset Management. The considerations are either between regions, or social groups, such as income, age, gender, disable, etc. In current practice, there is not a well developed quantitative measure for equity issues. More research is needed to target this issue. Although Multiple Criteria Analysis has been used for decades, there is not a generally accepted framework in the choice of modelling methods and various externalities. The result is that different analysts are unlikely to reach consistent conclusions about a policy measure. In current practices, some favour using methods which are able to prioritise alternatives, such as Goal Programming, Goal Achievement Matrix, Analytic Hierarchy Process. The others just present various impacts to decision-makers to characterise the projects. Weighting and scoring system are critical in most Multiple Criteria Analysis. However, the processes of assessing weights and scores were criticised as highly arbitrary and subjective. It is essential that the process should be as transparent as possible. Obtaining weights and scores by consulting local communities is a common practice, but is likely to result in bias towards local interests. Interactive approach has the advantage in helping decision-makers elaborating their preferences. However, computation burden may result in lose of interests of decision-makers during the solution process of a large-scale problem, say a large state road network. Current practices tend to use cardinal or ordinal scales in measure in non-monetised externalities. Distorted valuations can occur where variables measured in physical units, are converted to scales. For example, decibels of noise converts to a scale of -4 to +4 with a linear transformation, the difference between 3 and 4 represents a far greater increase in discomfort to people than the increase from 0 to 1. It is suggested to assign different weights to individual score. Due to overlapped goals, the problem of double counting also appears in some of Multiple Criteria Analysis. The situation can be improved by carefully selecting and defining investment goals and criteria. Other issues, such as the treatment of time effect, incorporating risk and uncertainty, have been given scant attention in current practices. This report suggested establishing a common analytic framework to deal with these issues.

National practices in investment decision making in road sector

This document provides the findings of a national review of investment decision-making practices in road asset management. Efforts were concentrated on identifying the strategic objectives of agencies in road asset management, establishing and understanding criteria different organisations adopted and ascertaining the exact methodologies used by different sate road authorities. The investment objectives of Australian road authorities are based on triple-bottom line considerations (social, environmental, economic and political). In some cases, comparing with some social considerations, such as regional economic development, equity, and access to pubic service etc., Benefit-Cost Ratio has limited influence on the decision-making. Australian road authorities have developed various decision support tools. Although Multi-Criteria Analysis has been preliminarily used in case by case study, pavement management systems, which are primarily based on Benefit Cost Analysis, are still the main decision support tool. This situation is not compatible with the triple-bottom line objectives. There is need to fill the gap between decision support tools and decision-making itself. Different decision criteria should be adopted based on the contents of the work. Additional decision criteria, which are able to address social, environmental and political impacts, are needed to develop or identify. Environmental issue plays a more and more important role in decision-making. However, the criteria and respective weights in decision-making process are yet to be clearly identified. Social and political impacts resulted from road infrastructure investment can be identified through Community Perceptions Survey. With accumulative data, prediction models, which are similar as pavement performance models, can be established. Using these models, the decision-makers are able to foresee the social and political consequences of investment alternatives.

Whole of life cycle cost analysis in bridge rehabilitation

The report presents a methodology for whole of life cycle cost analysis of alternative treatment options for bridge structures, which require rehabilitation. The methodology has been developed after a review of current methods and establishing that a life cycle analysis based on a probabilistic risk approach has many advantages including the essential ability to consider variability of input parameters. The input parameters for the analysis are identified as initial cost, maintenance, monitoring and repair cost, user cost and failure cost. The methodology utilizes the advanced simulation technique of Monte Carlo simulation to combine a number of probability distributions to establish the distribution of whole of life cycle cost. In performing the simulation, the need for a powerful software package, which would work with spreadsheet program, has been identified. After exploring several products on the market, @RISK software has been selected for the simulation. In conclusion, the report presents a typical decision making scenario considering two alternative treatment options.

ARCS collaboration tools and support workshop

Registration fees for this workshop are being met by ARCS. There is no cost to attend; however space is limited.----- The Australian Research Collaboration Service (ARCS) has been supporting a wide range of Collaboration Services and Tools which have been allowing researchers, groups and research communities to share ideas and collaborate across organisational boundaries.----- This workshop will give an introduction into a number of web based and real-time collaboration tools and services which researchers may find useful for day-to-day collaboration with members of a research team located within an institution or across institutions. Attendees will be shown how a number of these tools work with strong emphasis placed on how these tools can help facilitate communication and collaboration. Attendees will have the opportunity to try out a number of examples themselves, and interact with the workshop staff to discuss how their own use cases could benefit from the tools and services which can be provided.----- Outline: A hands on introduction will be given to a number of services which ARCS is now operating and/or supporting such as:--- * EVO – A video conferencing environment, which is particularly suited to desktop or low bandwidth applications.--- * AccessGrid – An open source video conferencing and collaboration tool kit, which is great for room to room meetings.--- * Sakai – An online collaboration and learning environment, support teaching and learning, ad hoc group collaboration, support for portfolios and research collaboration.--- * Plone and Drupal – A ready-to-run content management system, that provides you with a system for managing web content that is ideal for project groups, communities, web sites, extranets and intranets.--- * Wikis – A way to easily create, edit, and link pages together, to create collaborative websites.

First interim report : cost of tendering

This is the first interim report on the Cost of Tendering component of the Best Value project. This report provides some insight from ‘cost of tendering’ literature and discussions with CRC partners. With the completion of this scoping project, sufficient understanding will be developed to determine the need for more detailed research. This scoping project does not intend to provide guidance for the way to change the tendering process, although a need will be demonstrated for control and reduction of cost of tendering.

Report : stochastic analysis of road asset data for maintenance cost prediction

Reliable budget/cost estimates for road maintenance and rehabilitation are subjected to uncertainties and variability in road asset condition and characteristics of road users. The CRC CI research project 2003-029-C ‘Maintenance Cost Prediction for Road’ developed a method for assessing variation and reliability in budget/cost estimates for road maintenance and rehabilitation. The method is based on probability-based reliable theory and statistical method. The next stage of the current project is to apply the developed method to predict maintenance/rehabilitation budgets/costs of large networks for strategic investment. The first task is to assess the variability of road data. This report presents initial results of the analysis in assessing the variability of road data. A case study of the analysis for dry non reactive soil is presented to demonstrate the concept in analysing the variability of road data for large road networks. In assessing the variability of road data, large road networks were categorised into categories with common characteristics according to soil and climatic conditions, pavement conditions, pavement types, surface types and annual average daily traffic. The probability distributions, statistical means, and standard deviation values of asset conditions and annual average daily traffic for each type were quantified. The probability distributions and the statistical information obtained in this analysis will be used to asset the variation and reliability in budget/cost estimates in later stage. Generally, we usually used mean values of asset data of each category as input values for investment analysis. The variability of asset data in each category is not taken into account. This analysis method demonstrated that it can be used for practical application taking into account the variability of road data in analysing large road networks for maintenance/rehabilitation investment analysis.

A feasibility study for model based estimating for concrete bridges.

Designing and estimating civil concrete structures is a complex process which to many practitioners is tied to manual or semi-manual processes of 2D design and cannot be further improved by automated, interacting design-estimating processes. This paper presents a feasibility study for the development an automated estimator for concrete bridge design. The study offers a value proposition: an efficient automated model-based estimator can add value to the whole bridge design-estimating process, i.e., reducing estimation errors, shortening the duration of success estimates, and increasing the benefit of doing cost estimation when compared with the current practice. This is then followed by a description of what is in an efficient automated model-based estimator and how it should be used. Finally the process of model-based estimating is compared with the current practice to highlight the values embedded in the automated processes.

Strategies for minimising the whole of life cycle cost of reinforced concrete bridge exposed to aggressive environments

n design of bridge structures, it is common to adopt a 100 year design life. However, analysis of a number of case study bridges in Australia has indicated that the actual design life can be significantly reduced due to premature deterioration resulting from exposure to aggressive environments. A closer analysis of the cost of rehabilitation of these structures has raised some interesting questions. What would be the real service life of a bridge exposed to certain aggressive environments? What is the strategy of conducting bridge rehabilitation? And what are the life cycle costs associated with rehabilitation? A research project funded by the CRC for Construction Innovation in Australia is aimed at addressing these issues. This paper presents a concept map for assisting decision makers to appropriately choose the best treatment for bridge rehabilitation affected by premature deterioration through exposure to aggressive environments in Australia. The decision analysis is referred to a whole of life cycle cost analysis by considering appropriate elements of bridge rehabilitation costs. In addition, the results of bridges inspections in Queensland are presented

Identification of critical input variables for risk-based cost estimates for road maintenance and rehabilitation

An estimation of costs for maintenance and rehabilitation is subject to variation due to the uncertainties of input parameters. This paper presents the results of an analysis to identify input parameters that affect the prediction of variation in road deterioration. Road data obtained from 1688 km of a national highway located in the tropical northeast of Queensland in Australia were used in the analysis. Data were analysed using a probability-based method, the Monte Carlo simulation technique and HDM-4’s roughness prediction model. The results of the analysis indicated that among the input parameters the variability of pavement strength, rut depth, annual equivalent axle load and initial roughness affected the variability of the predicted roughness. The second part of the paper presents an analysis to assess the variation in cost estimates due to the variability of the overall identified critical input parameters.

The legality of tissue transplants for the benefit of family members in the UK and Australia : implications for saviour siblings

The ethics of creating ‘saviour siblings’ for the benefit of another has received much attention, but little consideration has been given to the legal position of those saviours born who may be asked to provide tissue for transplantation to another during childhood. This article examines the ethical issues surrounding minor donation as well as the existing legal framework in the UK and Australia that regulates minors providing tissue for the benefit of another. Against this background the position of minor saviours, who are called upon to donate bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cells, is examined. This analysis suggests that the law does not provide sufficient protection for minor saviours who are called upon to donate to another. It is argued that specific ethical obligations are owed to saviours—that ought to be reflected in the law—in order to protect them from exploitation while they remain minors.

The cost-effectiveness of routine follow-up after primary total hip arthroplasty

Routine postsurgery assessment of primary total hip arthroplasty (THA) is recommended in many countries. Whether the benefits of this activity are justified by the costs is not known. We used a decision-analytic Markov model to compare the costs and health outcomes of 3 different follow-up strategies after primary THA. If there is no routine follow-up of patients for 7 years after primary THA, there would be cost savings between AU$6.5 and $11.9 million and gains of between 1.8 and 8.8 quality-adjusted life years. Policy makers should investigate less resource-intensive alternatives to common routine postsurgical assessment.

Building for competitive advantage in early stage start-ups : the role of entrepreneurial capabilities

Recent theoretical work has suggested “entrepreneurial capabilities” themselves may provide the resource foundations to deliver competitive advantage for entrepreneurial firms. This paper empirically examines how start-ups use such entrepreneurial capabilities to build competitive advantage. We investigate the effects of technological and marketing expertise, knowledge of market trends, flexibility and networking on the ability to obtain a cost leadership or differentiation advantage. Using a large dataset of 1,108 start-ups obtained after random sampling of over 30,193 households, we find that differentiation strategies benefit from most resource advantages. Cost leadership strategies, however, seem only to benefit from technological expertise and flexibility and not related to market-based advantages. By doing so, this study contributes to both entrepreneurship and RBV-theories by showing how entrepreneurial capabilities lead to competitive advantages in nascent and early-stage start-ups.