Hi-Tech Construction: Practice Management and Business Ethos Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of construction practice management, focusing on a case study involving a medium-sized family-owned construction firm, 'Hi-Tech Construction company,' aiming to restructure its operations. The report delves into the historical development of the construction industry, emphasizing the roles and relationships of various parties involved, including owners, contractors, architects, and funders. It examines different types of tenders, with a justification for the selection of a negotiating tender in the case scenario. Furthermore, the report explores the evolution of construction company structures, highlighting functional and departmental designs, and evaluates the development of business ethics within the industry. It also presents different types of construction companies, such as small renovation contractors, general contractors, owner-builders, and real estate developers, and their relationships within a project. The report further discusses the modern construction process, contract planning techniques, and the impact of Building Information Modeling (BIM) on construction operations. Lastly, it addresses the integration of health and safety into construction processes, government legislation, the role of collaboration and communication, and the impact of health and safety legislation on the industry.

Construction Practice
Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
a) Development of construction industry ..............................................................................1
b) Presenting the scope and linkage between all parties during construction........................1
c) Identifying different types of tendered by contractors.......................................................2
d) Presenting how construction industry has developed overall in terms of structure,
employees...............................................................................................................................3
e) Critically evaluate how construction companies have developed their structure and business
ethos........................................................................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
a) Presenting different types of construction companies with features..................................4
b) Relationship which exist between the companies working on construction project..........4
c) Link which connects construction companies....................................................................5
d) Factors that differentiate between construction company contract and tenders ...............5
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................6
a) Presenting the modern construction process and sequence that used by today's industry. 6
b) Presenting contract planning techniques............................................................................6
c) BIM impacts upon operations and construction companies...............................................7
(d) Describing construction has developed innovation designs within contracts for micro and
macro projects within the context of BIM..............................................................................7
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................8
(a) Explaining how health & safety become an integrated part of the construction process. 8
(b) Describing the government legislation which has benchmarked health & safety within
construction............................................................................................................................8
(c) Explaining the role of collaboration industry and communication in ensuring safe working
practices..................................................................................................................................9
(d) How the construction industry has benefited through changes in health & safety
legislation...............................................................................................................................9

(e)Evaluate the impact of health & safety legislation, how it has evolved the drivers for it, and
its advantages or weaknesses within construction................................................................10
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Construction practice management plays an important role in small as well as big
companies. Construction is the fastest and one of the most developing industry in UK in which
both private as well as public sectors are concerned. Report aim is to provide deep knowledge
about construction sites and it is based upon a case scenario in which medium size family owned
construction firm wants to change its structure, wants to maintain relationship through form,
contracts and tendering and the name of a company is 'Hi- Tech Construction company'. Study
presents the history of construction industry and the importance of all parties which are involve
during construction organization. Further it also critically evaluate how companies have develop
their structure and business ethos. Further report also presents different types of construction
companies in a market and their relationship within a tendering process. It discuss the key stages
in a construction project and how building information modelling informs different stages.
TASK 1
a) Development of construction industry
In UK, construction industry contributes a more than 60 Euro million in country's
economy in 2004. After some years in 2009, the industry employed more than 2.2 million
peoples in which 194000 construction firm are involved (Ashworth and Perera, 2018). Earlier,
the sector was not as much confined and did not contributed much amount to the GDP of a
country but a sudden change occurred in 2012. One of the largest construction project in UK
took place named as Cross-rail. In 2018, a new railway line is open which is running from east to
west and consider Europe's one of the largest project and at time this industry comes into
professionalism with a cost of 15 Euro billion. Before the company follows flat structure but as
the time passes they wants to follow hierarchical structure. Therefore, as the developing times
passes, construction industry changes their structure in order to get professionalism in this
modern world. So that they will helps to contribute their part in the modern world.
b) Presenting the scope and linkage between all parties during construction
As per the case scenario, there are different parties got involved while construction
project such as :
Owner: As per the case scenario, it is a first party under which owner is one who owes
the project or wants to construct. As per the case scenario, owner is one who wants to construct a
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couple of near parallel highways 12 km apart which link London to international airport in
outskirts of London, Heathrow (Hammond, 2018).
Contractor: It is second most important party who takes whole responsibility to
complete the work on time and he is engaged by the owner itself. In the context of case scenario
Contractor is a person who finalises the budget and maximizes the resources efficiency through
labour, material and equipments and helps them to complete all the work on time.
Architect: It is the third party in the case scenario who basically provide designing for
the project which is going to be executed. Architect provides a detail plans with his strong vision
as well as creative ideas in order to satisfies the client or owner (Javed, Zhan and Pan, 2018).
Funder: It is the third party in the case scenario who invest or provide some funds to
start the work on time.
These all parties are linked with each other such that when the owner initially mind make
to get the work start at that time they need a contractor in order to finalize the budget while on
the other side architect provides design layout so that to how the project looks in future. To get
start the work early they needs funder who provide funding so that entire work will start.
c) Identifying different types of tendered by contractors
There are different types of tenders which are presented by contractors some of them are
mentioned below:
Open tender: Under this, contractors are advertise their project and permits many
contractors to apply for tender documents. Sometimes this method is said to be wasteful for
contractors because it spends so many times in order to prepare tender.
Selective tender: Under this, employers are selected by those contractors which have
enough knowledge and skills of doing construction in an effective manner (Winge and
Albrechtsen, 2018). Therefore, contractors are also pre- qualified and it is quite difficult for them
to reject lowest contract.
Negotiating tenders: It is obtained by the employer where contractors are going to be
invited, in order to submit their prices for a project. It is one the good satisfactory tender all the
queries are being settled and this is for specialized work when particular equipments are needed
to complete the work (Types of tender, 2018).
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Justification: among, all Negotiating tender is being chosen as per the case scenario
because various price list are being offered by contractors and it is up to the owner to choose best
and lowest price for the completion of construction (Abidemi and et.al., 2018).
d) Presenting how construction industry has developed overall in terms of structure, employees
Construction company has developed overall in the terms of company structure. As the
industry mainly follows following organizational structure such as:
Functional Design: It is a common form of traditional and hierarchical organizational
structure which includes well defined lines of top- down communications .
Departmental Horizontal separation: It helps to determine the size of a company in
which business owner assumes general management roles as well as responsibility (Liao and
Teo, 2018).
Inter- departmental design: Under this, specific job roles follows the same hierarchical
structure in which decision making as well as communication flows. For example, authorities in
the construction industry have hierarchical structure in which operations department head to
project executives (Hurlimann and et.al., 2018).
Justification: Functional design is quite suitable for the case scenario because it is
traditional and follows hierarchical structure in which different authorities and communications
flow from the owner to the management team in order to rank and file construction employees.
e) Critically evaluate how construction companies have developed their structure and business
ethos
Construction industry developed their structure in the form of functional design as well as
departmental horizontal design while on the other side, business ethos are those moral principles
which must be follow during the time of contract. Such as in context of case scenario, every
decision must be taken in right manner so that a system must have some moral principles in
which human actions and proposals are being judged in respect of particular class of human
actions (Belle, 2017). However it has been critically evaluated that companies needed both
structure and business ethics and it creates positive impact for the construction industry because
it helps to determine all moral standards which are used to guide the decision making that going
to effect entire process of construction.
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TASK 2
a) Presenting different types of construction companies with features
There are various kinds of construction companies that are being running in the market
area. They are described as follows:-
Small renovation Contractors: These are small amount based companies who do their
entire work from home. Some features are mentioned below:
 These companies generally work on jobs that requires small amount of capital and it is
not require to estimating for large construction organization.
 They have their office in their homes and perform all paper work at night (Ball, 2014).
General Contractors: These companies are experts when they needs some alteration
work and to work in new buildings. Some features are mentioned below:
 They are specialized in basically public work.
 They sub contract the major portion of their work in which they generally perform many
of the trades.
Owner building: They act as an owner builder not in the form of contractor such as they
either sell on completion or rent it. Some features are:
 These type of companies basically build only for their own ownership with a motive of
either to sell on work completion or to rent and operate.
Real Estate developer: They build companies on the basis of personal ownership and
features are
 These type of owner builder build for the ownership who wants to build in order to sell
before or after the completion of work.
Suitability: For the given case scenario, small renovation company will be suitable
because they work at small capital and provide best work and further their office is also at their
own home. Therefore, they also perform home alteration or small official work for the company.
b) Relationship which exist between the companies working on construction project
As the small renovation company in construction project helps and provide job
opportunities which are require at small amount of capital and further it does not require much
estimating for large organization. In the context of case scenario, as they wants to manage work
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and therefore it is quite necessary for a company to maintain relationship with contractors, owner
and labour in order to get work completed on time (Finkel, 2015).
These small renovation companies have the ability to grow from this type of contractors
into a general contractor which mainly depends on the training and ability of business.
Therefore,they has to maintain better relationship with all the co- workers who are involved
during a project. The relationship between main contractors and sub- contractors is such that
contractors allot work to their sub contractors and keep monitoring them in order to get the work
completed on time. They reflect positive relationship with their sub contractors so that the entire
work will be completed on time.
c) Link which connects construction companies
Construction companies have strong linkage with each other such that they contributes
maximum amount of its share to the economy of a country. All the construction companies are
link with each other such that small renovation contractor company provides good small
renovation contractor so that they may be expected to eventually move into the forward
directions (Ashworth and Perera, 2018). while on the other side, general contractors are expert in
their all work such as alteration in work or develop new building and for owner builder they may
uses the companies in their own personal way such that they may either sell or rent those
companies when the work is done on time.
d) Factors that differentiate between construction company contract and tenders
Contracts: it is an agreement that is entered between the buyer and some another party.
It is an execution of all work in order to supply of goods , works as well as services. This are
differ from tender because it belongs to various specific terms such as duration, quality of work
and specification etc. Or it is a legal binding agreement that is signed by owner and builder in
order to execute the work in specific time period.
Tenders: It is a formal invitation to trade under some specific terms which are accepted
by company's owner and builder (Hammond, 2018). Or it is a construction bidding process or a
proposal that is submitting before the construction is being started. This is undertaking of a
construction project which is not choose on the basis of low cost prices but it is selected by the
quality that they are offered.
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