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Following the report, the Group established a steering committee, with the brief to identify and develop Client-focussed common standards of measurement at each level of hierarchy in the construction process. This committee consulted widely within the industry and the result is the New Rules of Measurement. RICS intends to publish the NRM in stages, over the next two years. They will comprise three volumes:
Volume 1: Order of cost estimating and elemental cost planning. This was officially launched on 30 March 2009. It is held to be the first of its kind although BCIS, for example, produce a standard form of cost analysis, there has never been a set of rules for measuring for cost planning. This has been a source of frustration, particularly for clients, where the lack of commonality and consistency between cost plans has made benchmarking between projects difficult.
Volume 2: Procurement This is seen as an alternative to SMM7, rather than an immediate replacement, and is intended to assist those who dont need especially detailed bills of quantities. However, it is recognized that somebody needs to measure the work, as it is a very important tool for both tender evaluation, post contract cost control and variation evaluation. This part is currently under consultation with anticipated publication later in 2009.
The NRM suite will be compatible with stages in both the RIBA Plan of Work and the OGC gateway process. The authors clearly hope it will simplify the measurement process, as well as making it more relevant to todays construction procurement methods. The important thing now is to see whether the construction industry, which is notoriously slow to embrace change, buys into the concept. For further reading, visit www.ribabookshops.com/site/viewtitle. asp?pid=10326 roland.finch@theNBS.com
The RICS QS and Construction Professional Group commissioned a report, Measurement based procurement of buildings (BCIS, May 2003), which came to a number of conclusions. It confirmed that measurement still had an important part to play in the procurement of buildings, but perhaps not surprisingly it found that this measurement was used for different purposes by clients, contractors, subcontractors and suppliers.
Volume 3: Whole Life Costing It is intended that this part will allow reliable and trustworthy measurement and evaluation of costs in use probably based on the model contained in ISO 15686-1 Buildings and constructed assets Service life planning. It is anticipated this final document will be published in the summer of 2010.