Financial control of public- and private- sector construction projects in Singapore

Abstract

The financial control of construction projects is an integral part of effective project management. The subject has benefited from a number of advances in theory and techniques that have resulted from research. These have included value engineering, lifecycle costing, elemental cost planning, cost modelling, buildability, and the use of knowledge-based systems. Limitations to the use of these techniques often arise owing to a short-term view of construction being taken, the one-off nature of buildings, and the lack of continuous workloads. The paper describes two case-study financial-control systems from the public and private sectors in Singapore. It then evaluates them against a critical framework of effective practice developed in the paper. The paper describes the limitations of the two systems, and suggests how they could be improved. © 1992.