ABSTRACT

The aims of this thesis titled ‘UTILISATION OF CONSTRUCTION

MANAGEMENT AS A PROCUREMENT METHOD IN THE NIGERIAN

CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY’ are to ascertain the various roles played by construction management in contract administration, to consider the history and evolution of construction management in order to ascertain the state-of-the art techniques, to analyse construction management as an indispensable tool for cost saving in construction and to analyse construction management as a vehicle to speedy,

efficient and on-time project delivery, while

the objectives are to ascertain the activities/functions that enable the smooth running and execution of project, and successful completion, to understand how the client’s briefs can be translated into physical reality whilst satisfying his design, technical, cost and time requirements, to find out the various avenues of minimising the amount of outgoings from a company, whilst maximising the amount of incomings in order to have significant cost savings on a project and to determine the height of departure of the current practice of construction management from the primitive method.

The method employed in gathering information is through site visits during which oral interviews and oral questions were held with clients, contractors, engineers and other professionals including even the workmen which bothers on budgeting techniques, cost and time

control, cashflow, construction execution, quality assurance, etc.

Summarily, construction contractors and the owners of construction projects should effectively use Earned Value Management system as a means of ensuring viable project performance and as well serves as an Early Warning System so as to guard against cost and time overrun.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Construction Management was fully developed in the 1970s out of the need to develop an alternative project delivery system that would incorporate the positive features of the traditional system which was based on long established professional and craft roles (Okolie, 2002). In the traditional system, clients employed architects to produce the overall design of their buildings, and design its appearance in detail, quantity surveyors to ensure that the designs can be afforded within the client’s budget, and engineers to design the structural elements and the internal engineered  services that ensure the building is safe and comfortable. These professionals are employed by the client as consultants. A planning supervisor was also brought into the team who may architect or someone employed as an external consultant. In addition, specialist contractors might by employed as part of the design team because their expertise is needed for the design of key elements or systems of the building.

The design information is used in selecting a main contractor to construct the building. Most of the direct construction work was undertaken by specialist contractor employed by the main contractor as sub-contractors. The construction work was supervised by the consultants to ensure the design was correctly interpreted and the building is of the required quality. The diagram below shows the main contractual relationships in the traditional system.