Unified construction measurement standards to be published next year

7th August 2015

By: Sashnee Moodley

Senior Deputy Editor Polity and Multimedia

  

Font size: - +

The International Con-struction Measurement Standards (ICMS) coalition was launched at the International Monetary Fund headquarters in Washington DC, in the US, last month, following the gathering of more than 30 worldwide professional bodies.

Representative bodies of the international construction industry formed the coalition with four objectives in mind – ethics, standards, benefits and implementation.

The ICMS coalition aims to create overarching international standards in construction that will harmonise cost, classification and measurement definitions to enhance comparability, consistency, statistics and the benchmarking of capital projects.

ICMS coalition member the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) South Africa country manager TC Chetty says that the first coalition meeting will take place next month.

“Following this, an expert standard-setting committee will be established [with its members] to write the standards. The initial publication of the standards is expected in December 2016,” he says.

Further, the ICM coalition declaration states that ethics will guide industry activities and foster public trust. To complement construction measurement standards, representatives will follow ethical principles that guide the international profession.

Once the standards are created, members will promote and adopt them and will encourage international markets to accept and adopt these standards.

In its standards alignment process, the coalition will use a tried and tested collaborative problem-solving model to develop international accounting standards, valuation standards and property measurement standards.

Each coalition member will have an equal stake in devising and communicating the standard to “promote a spirit of cooperation and compromise to reach a global consensus”.

The coalition believes that inconsistency in a fundamental aspect such as construction measurement and reporting can create huge uncertainty and misunderstanding and lead to risk.

According to research firm Global Construction Perspectives, the global construction industry is estimated to be worth $15-trillion by 2025.

Chetty says construction is an increasingly mobile and global industry, and investors, world bodies and national governments will benefit from the harmonisation of construction cost definition and measurement so that the costs of projects can be compared on a consistent, international basis.

“On an individual level, qualified construction professionals need to be able to communicate on an international basis, on a common basis, and use the data that is classified in a standard way,” he adds.

The ICMS coalition will continue to grow as further professional organisations join and industry corporations, contractors and key government stakeholders are encouraged to contribute to and lead the adoption of the new international framework in their capital markets.

Some of the organisations that have signed the declaration to become members include the International Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering; the Association of Cost Engineers in the UK; the Association of South African Quantity Surveyors; China Engineering Cost Association; the European Council of Construction Economists; the Canadian Institute of Quantity Surveyors; the Ghana Institute of Surveyors; and the African Association of Quantity Surveyors.

Edited by Martin Zhuwakinyu
Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

Comments

The content you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.

If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.

If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.

For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.

Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):

Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format

Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):

All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.

Already a subscriber?

Forgotten your password?

MAGAZINE & ONLINE

SUBSCRIBE

RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA

SUBSCRIBE

CORPORATE PACKAGES

CLICK FOR A QUOTATION