Now let's install some mTCP applications. Each of these will utilize your mTCP configuration file so you can go ahead and use them directly. You can use this to automatically set your computer's clock to the correct current time, which is very handy on ancient computer hardware with bad CMOS batteries. After running the above, you should see your current system time as well as the current NTP server time listed as "Time should be set to".
To actually set the time, use the -set parameter. To always set your system clock to the appropriate time on boot strongly recommended , add the above, with -set to autoexec. Bonus tip: once you get the mTCP utilities installed, try running telnet towel.
Feel free to play around with the others, though. The bad news is that you lose the ability to concurrently use many but apparently not all other PD-based applications.
The reason is that XFS installs it's own driver literally on top of your packet driver, which conflicts with most other PD applications. If you only otherwise use NDIS-based applications, this is not an issue.
If you only use PD-based applications, theoretically you should be able to get them to work with the XFS driver loaded by configuring them to use interrupt vector 0x62 instead of 0x60 search for "redirected PKTDRVR" in xfs. See the end of this section for an alternative approach that you can use instead. It was a commercial program, but as noted above it's long since been abandoned, so grab a copy if you're so inclined and let's get to work. Note: Before installing, take a look at kernels. Note that XFS requires a local hostname to be set.
If you're using a static IP address, this should be taken care of. If everything worked, you should be able to do run dir f: and see a list of files on your NFS server. Switch to F: and run ls or lsx to see the long file names. Be sure it's added after any other PD applications included in autoexec. However, XFS provides the ability to temporarily unload and then reload it's PD shim as needed, so you can leverage this to run other PD applications without completely tearing down NFS support or rebooting.
As an example of how to do this, say you want to SSH to another system while you have an NFS share mounted; you can do this by calling the following additional commands before and after SSH:. While in the "stopped" state, your mounted shares will still exist but will not be accessible. Issuing the restart will make them available again. It's not ideal, but it's a fairly reasonable compromise, and can be made less annoying by using a 4DOS alias to simplify that much more see the 4DOS section below.
Whew, now that we're finally finished with networking, everything else should be a breeze in comparison. As an alternative I recommend the Toshiba driver linked above. This driver should offer roughly the same compatibility and capabilities, but only uses a svelte 7 KB of memory. SYS v2. SYS driver. To install the driver, copy cdromdrv. Then, edit config. Next, edit autoexec.
Reboot to load the new driver. If both the driver and MSCDEX were loaded properly, you'll see the following message in the output while the system is booting:. Next we'll install a mouse driver. This is optional, as DOS itself doesn't utilize mice, only the applications programmed to support them such as Pedit. So, unless you plan on running an application or game that uses a mouse, you can skip this. The first option is to use the original mouse driver provided by Microsoft with Windows 3.
COM, and can again be downloaded from the Computer Hope hardware downloads page. The second option is a much newer, open source mouse driver called CuteMouse. It's still actively developed for the FreeDOS project and available from the site linked above. CuteMouse provides support for modern mice and mouse features such as wheels though few applications support the wheel , and is significantly smaller than MOUSE.
COM, using only about 3. COM if preferred. Then, edit autoexec. CuteMouse supports quite a few options, so run ctmouse. Auto-detection should generally work fine, though. Run the above command to manually load the driver. Pedit supports mice, so you can fire that up to verify that your mouse was properly detected and enabled, or use the included mousetst. Next up is sound. You'll need to install drivers appropriate for your sound card.
Your setup should be at least somewhat similar, but certainly some of the details will be different. To begin, unpack and copy over both the driver disk and configuration manager linked above , then change to the driver disk directory. We'll need to reboot to activate the sound card, so do that now. This will let you verify that your sound card is installed and working properly.
While here, you can also run mixerset. I find the default config too loud leading to noticeable distortion on my speakers , so I turn the Master volume down a couple clicks. You may also like to try enabling 3DSE 3D Stereo Enhancement and see if that improves the sound; I generally don't care for this, but it can make a positive difference with cheap stereo or embedded monitor speakers.
At this point it's time to do some configuration cleanup and memory optimization. My system, after installing everything listed above and despite tweaking the config files a bit, currently has only KB of conventional memory available. This is actually pretty decent given everything I have loaded, but unfortunately it's not enough for some of the other programs I want to install, and definitely isn't large enough for many games. Startup order is very important under DOS; loading drivers and programs in the "wrong" order can drastically increase memory usage.
Unfortunately, there's no way to guarantee an optimal order. You can find a lot of advice about tweaking MS-DOS memory settings on the internet, but the basic advice I've found that works the best boils down to three parts:.
I recommend giving it a shot, though; it may work better on your hardware, and even if it doesn't it provides an option to easily undo the changes. In order to hit KB I'll need to disable some things. Good candidates:. I elected to disable MS-Client and just load the native packet driver, which took me way beyond my target to KB free. Aside from mapped drives, MS-Client provides almost no benefit to a home user over the PD applications, and even mapped drives is very flaky with recent versions of Samba.
At this point, I'd consider the base OS install to be complete. Everything we installed should be very stable and functional, and should, for the most part, be usable under Windows for Workgroups 3.
Using this base, you can install additional applications, games, utilities, drivers, etc. I'll cover a few of the more useful or interesting additions I've found here. It provides a great many significant enhancements over the default DOS shell, command. To read up on it and download a copy, visit it's home page. The open source version called "Free 4DOS"?
Basic installation is quite easy. You can choose to have it automatically update autoexec. Edit autoexec. That's a bummer. Run help keystack. If you don't need this, comment out the kstack. You can run option. There are a lot to play with, but I personally like to set the following non-default options:. One handy feature 4DOS provides is the ability to use aliases. If you're familiar with the concept from Linux, it works similarly; if no, it's easiest to see it in action.
You should get a directory listing in the same style as the default ls command on Linux. This is a pretty trivial example, but you can use it to provide a number of useful conveniences. For example, here's my aliases. It isn't necessary to use an alias file, but I find it convenient to keep all alieses grouped together.
Another neat, but this time entirely superfluous, trick is to enable support for colored directory listing output. This is similar to what modern Linux distributions do by default as shown in this simple example if you're not familiar with it , and makes it possible to quickly and easily recognize common file types at a glance. I modeled the following configuration based on Linux's default scheme for dircolors, with a couple differences and pruned down a bit:.
There are a couple additional points to be aware of. The extension list can also be a special type of file, such as dirs directories , hidden hidden files , rdonly read-only files , etc. So, the first item in the line sets my directories blue. The color code is also fairly flexible; as shown above, you can specify both normal colors yel and bright colors bri yel bright colors tend to be easier easier to read against dark backgrounds.
You can also change the character background color: bri blu on yel , for example, will display blue text on a yellow background. You can run the above with the set command to activate, then run dir to test the results. Feel free to customize it a bit, then once you're happy with it you can make it permanent by either adding it to autoexec.
I recommend the latter, as it won't clutter up your environmental variables. For more advanced 4DOS features, refer to the online documentation by running help. Support for modern web standards is quite limited, as should be expected, but basic web browsing should work pretty well. The name of the browser is Arachne, and it can be obtained from it's home page. After a four year hiatus, it very recently had a new release, so it's good to see that it's still under active development.
Installation is a bit involved, but not too complicated. The largest hurdle is that this requires at least KB of free conventional RAM, and if you installed everything listed in this walkthrough so far, you will almost certainly be under that threshold.
Please see the above System Optimization for tips on freeing up enough memory i fnecessary. You'll also want to use a mouse for this, so be sure to follow the mouse driver instructions above to get that setup. After everything is unpacked, the GUI setup process will start.
If you have just barely more over KB free, the installer will exit with a low memory error, as the memory from the unpacker was still in use at the time, pushing you under the threshold. Set the video options to your preference. Try to go with at least x, higher if possible and you have a reasonably large monitor , but you'll probably be limited by your video card memory.
You'll be prompted to set your computer speed profile next; it's probably best to go with Arachne's recommended setting here, as it will do a quick benchmark of your computer first. Select your preferred option and click Next. You'll then be prompted for some system configuration changes. This is entirely personal preference I prefer to update my files manually after installation, but I do have it create the shortcut batch file for me , so choose what you like and click Next.
Set the max video resolution to the same resolution you selected previously and click Next. Up next is the network configuration. The next page, Arachne Options, can be configured at any time later on to your preferences, so click "Use new settings" to complete setup. You'll be kicked back into DOS at this point, so now would be a good time to make any system config file changes.
Consider changing the following in config. Finally, run arachne. It won't look very pretty, but you should see all of the content in its complete, barely styled glory. Arachne supports a ton of layout options, performance options, etc. To get started, click on the Desktop link in the right navbar or press F10 , then click Options. This is a fairly random collection of utilities I found while researching this project that I consider useful or interesting. I won't cover them in great detail, but I do recommend checking them out.
This is by far the best such utility I've found, is one of the only such utilities that is completely free and not crippled, and is even under reasonably active development.
As a bonus, it even can even perform a basic CPU benchmark. If you have any questions about what's in your computer or how it's performing, this is a very worthwhile utility. Snarf is a simple screenshot utility for DOS.
Total Views , Older Stats. Total Items Older Stats. Internet Archive's 25th Anniversary Logo. Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. User icon An illustration of a person's head and chest. Sign up Log in.
Web icon An illustration of a computer application window Wayback Machine Texts icon An illustration of an open book. Books Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker. Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3. Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses.
Media Type Media Type. Year Year. Collection Collection. Creator Creator. Language Language. Windows 98 boot disk Topic: win98 windows98 boot disk boot-disk dos. Collection of Commodore 64 disk images. Out of the library of David Wolf. Contains numerous disks of cracked software with corresponding demoscene shoutouts.
Topic: commodore. A collection of imaged 3. This is a dump of the Windows 3. All disks were dumped from original media and show up as unmodified, except for disk 4 and disk 7 Included are Kryoflux dumps and scans of the disks. Care has been taken not to overwrite the BPB, including the volume label and volume serial number.
The Kryoflux log This is Microsoft Windows for Workgroups 3. Published by Microsoft in Found at a flea market, in a box of loose floppies. Disk seems to have been written to after distribution, in and Includes KryoFlux stream files. A large collection of imaged Macintosh Floppies, generally k images, sourced from donated boxes of software just floppies over the course of by Jason Aller. Names are generally derived from what was written on the outside of the floppy. Some floppies with professional printing have been additionally scanned.
The disks were dumped from original media using a KryoFlux and check out as unmodified, although the first disk was missing and the only version I have available of it is a copy. I also included scans of lots of the material NOTE: The internet archive is really confused about the format of these files. Just get the zip or torrent version and ignore the others.
It usually used single-sided disks, but in November of they switched to a double-sided format but using a special bootsector that made them look like single-sided disks. This is called the "Heidi Format", and allows the disks to be used on a single-sided drive although they'd only be This is a dump of the Netscape Navigator 3. Allocation of risks to the parties able to manage them at least cost. This indicated that the private companies were absorbing risk that would previ- ously have been borne by the taxpayer.
Greater exploitation of assets — additional income from shared use of facilities or the sale of redundant assets. Integration of design, build and service operation. What are the real costs of all the elements of a PFI contract?
Are PFI bids tendered on a competitive basis? The bid takes place in three stages: 1. Invitation to negotiate stage leads to firm bids from a short list of tenderers. A preferred bidder can then be selected.
Negotiation to complete the detailed contract terms with a preferred bidder. There is also a cost check against a public sector comparator. This is a calcu- lation showing what it would cost to provide the outputs from the private sector by a non-PFI route. Are all risks transferred to the private sector? Not necessarily. Risks will be different for different projects.
For older buildings, for example, there might be a greater emphasis on maintenance. Furthermore, there could be defects which have been ignored for a number of years — backlog maintenance. Who can provide the service to the public sector? This is formed by a contractor joining forces with an FM service provider and various developers and financiers. How does a public body test the willingness of the private sector to engage in the tender process?
The simple answer is by discussing the scheme with potential operators before sending out the invitation to negotiate. Estimating methods for PFI construction It can be seen in Chapter 5 that the estimating method chosen will depend on the amount of information available and the design stage reached. The project team must read the extensive enquiry documents carefully to understand the requirements for the formal submission. In particular the finan- cial aspects must comply with the forms to be submitted.
It is sometimes difficult to assess how much the design should be developed, particularly when bidding costs must be kept under control. At an early client meeting it would be wise to ask for a copy of the selection criteria. Start the submission document from day one! The preparation of the submission document can be a mammoth task.
A senior member of staff should be nominated as presentation manager. Agree with members of the team what they are going to provide. Although clients ask for documents to be exchanged electronically, they often demand paper copies, sometimes running to 30 or 40 copies. It is prudent to ensure that the lorry delivering the tender can reliably transport over a tonne of cargo! There are three stages as follows: 1. Target setting; 2. Cost control and net construction cost; 3. Submission documents. New build and reconfigure Assess where accommodation can be provided in retained estate.
Potentially convert Pathology into University labs and Fred Jones ward into outpatients. Inflation can be dealt with separately.
Costs workbook 1. Single spreadsheet workbook with elemental cost plans, and summaries of risk, fees, pre- lims, cashflow and inflation. Schedule of equipment costs. Produce early cost plan, by week three if possible.
Your financial adviser will need some costs in order to set up a spreadsheet model. Pick an architect who fully understands the market sector.
For example, up-to-date experience in education is vital for a school project. There is a tempta- tion to choose an architect or engineer because he is well known by the client or is willing to work at risk in the early stages.
Decide who is responsible for each aspect of cost. Show on a chart who is pricing: capital maintenance, routine maintenance, decanting, life cycle fund, new furniture, up-grading existing building stock etc.
Do people understand their roles? Completing the price Design fees Infrastructure charges Risk Inflation Margin Cashflow forecast Input to financial model, may also be required for submission.
Life cycle costs analysis capital replacement costs What information is needed for the life cycle cost model? Tender submission Including FM, site developments, variant bids and finance.
The tender team will not have sufficient time for collating and binding submission documents. Decide on estimating method to adopt It is important to know the construction cost from an early stage.
An approxi- mate estimate method should be used at the start, such as superficial cost plan or unit of accommodation. Then costs can be refined when design information is available from the designers. There is a reliance on cost planning and approximate esti- mating techniques. Figure 2. Clients have a wide choice of standard contracts for construction work, in particular the forms used for building, which cover most of the common procurement systems.
The alternative approach would be to produce a common form of contract for all construction work whether in the public or private sector, building or civil engineering, English or Scottish law.
This idea is not new; it was one of the principal recommendations of the Banwell Report in Sir Michael Latham also addressed the problem in One of his recommendations was for public and private sector clients to begin to use the New Engineering Contract NEC family of contracts, in particular the Engineering and Construction contract. These ideals have not borne fruit, and there are more forms of contract published every year using different principles, terminology and apportionment of risk.
Where a standard form of contract is proposed, an estimator must carefully examine the information which will be inserted in the Appendix and note any amendments to the standard conditions so that the terms of the offer can be evaluated. An estimator should assess the cost of complying with certain terms and advise management of any onerous conditions that may influence the bid.
Non-standard forms of contract are sent to the commercial department, com- pany secretary or director so that the conditions can be evaluated before the final review meeting. Essentials of a valid construction contract Construction contracts are the same as any other contract, and in the end, will depend on general principles of law. In construction, the contract is generally for producing a building or part of the built environment, and can be entered in one of four ways: 1.
Implied by conduct of the parties; a contractor may submit an offer and later have access to the site. By word of mouth; typically where an offer is accepted by telephone. By exchange of letters; common for small domestic works of extension, alter- ation or repair. Using a written contract; the contract documents often include the enquiry documents, the written offer, minutes of meetings, tender-stage correspond- ence, a programme, a method statement and a formal contract with the agreed terms.
An estimator should keep a separate file containing all papers which will form the basis of the agreement. This is most important where negotiations take place after a formal offer has been made.
The importance of written evidence cannot be overstressed because usually the formal documents will be the only evidence of what exactly had been agreed at the beginning of a project.
To make a contract valid and legally enforceable, certain simple rules are applied, as follows: 1. There must be an offer by one party and an acceptance by the other or others.
Each party must have the legal capacity to make a contract. The parties must have exercised their own free will, without force or pressure. A contract comes into existence when an offer has been unconditionally accepted. This ambiguity should be avoided wherever possible. A contractor expects to receive an acceptance in clear terms from the client or his adviser. A letter of intent is often used to let a contractor know that he should prepare to start work.
This statement should state clearly that all work carried out by the contractor and specialists, even if the contract does not follow, will be paid for in full. In an auction sale, for example, an auctioneer invites offers which he may accept or reject.
In a similar way, a client seeking ten- ders is not bound to accept the lowest or any bid. An offer cannot be accepted once it has terminated. Termination happens: 1. On death of either party if the contract is for personal services. By the contractor withdrawing the offer. After a specified time usually stated in the tender instructions or stated by the contractor in his tender or after a reasonable time.
When there has been outright rejection by the client, or where the client makes a counter-offer, usually in the form of a qualified acceptance. Although contractors and sub-contractors can withdraw their tenders at any time before acceptance, this practice can lead to many problems for the recipi- ent.
A contractor can reduce this risk by thoroughly checking quotations for sufficiency, completeness and compliance with the tender requirements. Clearly it is important to maintain up-to-date lists of reliable trade contractors. Standard forms of contract The standard printed forms of contract have been developed over many years to take account of the many events which could occur during and after a construc- tion project.
Contract law will of course deal will many of the problems, but there are many matters peculiar to construction which need clarification. Once these terms have been incorporated, they reduce the likelihood of disputes which can lead to arbitration or litigation. Contract conditions are outlined by a reference being made to the standard conditions in the tender documents, with amend- ments to suit the particular project.
JCT contracts are now printed in two parts: the Agreement which is signed by the contractor and sub-contractor, and Conditions of Sub-contract, which are incorporated by ref- erence in the Agreement. Some clients require a contract to be executed under seal; the standard forms have provision for this after the Articles of Agreement. It is unwise to amend the conditions of a standard form because great effort has gone into producing a carefully drafted document with many links between clauses and other documents.
Nevertheless, all contracts take effect by agreement and so standard contracts can be amended in any way the parties choose. The standard form contracts currently in use between client and contractor are: 1. The Standard Form of Building Contract has six variants that cater for local authority and private clients, contracts with bills of quantities, without quantities and those with approximate quantities. The six forms do not differ in substance, but describing and costing the work is easier with bills of quantities.
The local authority forms are similar to private forms but contain extra terms for local government law and practice. Each of the variants creates a lump-sum contract: the lump sum is that which the contractor expects to be paid but is subject to adjustment in many carefully defined ways, mainly following the issue of an instruction.
The ICE conditions are alone in defining permanent and temporary works; the ICE form makes it clear that temporary works are solely the responsibility of the contractor except where they have been designed by the engineer. The NEC forms use non-technical language, which allows their use for a variety of construction and engineering projects. It can be seen that new editions of most standard forms have been published in the late s.
In particular many changes have been made for the following: 1. CDM Regulations. Construction Industry Scheme a contractor cannot pay a sub-contractor unless the sub-contractor has provided valid authorization in the form of a registration card or tax certificate.
Third party rights contracting out. Landfill tax addition to fluctuations clause. The appendix section of standard forms enables the parties to insert provi- sions that vary from job to job, such as: 1. Sums of money for liquidated damages and insurances; 2.
Periods of time for carrying out the work and making payments; 3. Percentages for retaining parts of the interim payments; 4.
Statements giving the options which apply to the contract, an important example would be to show which clause has been selected for dealing with price fluctuations. This information must be given to tenderers, otherwise they will make their own assumptions. Sub-contract forms The contractual links between parties using standard forms of contract are shown in Figs 3. Terms used Nominated sub-contractors are persons whose final selection and approval, for sup- plying and fixing materials or goods, has been reserved to the architect clause 35 JCT There is usually a right of objection to the nomination of particular sub- contractors because it would be contrary to contract law to insist that a party enters a contract involuntarily.
The ICE contract goes on to say that the contractor shall not sub-let all the works without the written consent of the Employer. Many contractors sub-let large portions of their work to specialist contractors, the main exceptions being where reliable building workers are needed for diffi- cult or small maintenance contracts. Under clause 19 of JCT98, there are two arrangements for sub-letting work to domestic sub-contractors: 1.
The contractor must choose a sub-contractor from a list of at least three names which have been included in the specification, schedules of work or contract bills, in the case of bills, for work fully measured in the bills and priced by the contractor.
The latter arrangement is used sometimes to replace nominated sub-contractors with a short list of specialists who may have expressed an interest in doing the work. Where large service installations are required, the quantity surveyor can send the drawings and specification to each of the sub-contractors on the list so the main contractors can avoid unnecessary duplication.
The estimator just sends his enquiry letter with details of the conditions which the sub-contractor will be expected to sign. If a single firm is named in the contract bills to carry out work that is meas- ured, then it should in effect be a nominated sub-contractor.
In fact this would be bad practice because SMM7 requires a PC sum for work to be executed by a nominated sub-contractor. This problem is unfortunately all too common. An example is where a client or consultant wants a particular window system but wishes to avoid setting up a formal nomination.
The standard form of contract does not allow the architect to choose a specialist who is to become a domestic sub-contractor. The standard forms commonly used between contractors and their sub- contractors are: 1. These conditions are widely used by main contractors often with amendments. JCT is to publish a short form of domestic sub-contract in that can be used in connection with most standard forms of contract but principally with the Agreement for Minor Building Works.
The JCT version of this sub-contract is due for publication late in The Engineering and Construction Sub-contract. Most sub-contract forms are printed in two parts: the articles of agreement and conditions. This could be to save money since only the articles of agreement are needed each time contracts are signed.
Non-standard forms of sub-contract are sometimes used by main and manage- ment contractors to impose extra obligations and ensure the sub-contractor is bound by the same conditions found in the main contract. The trade bodies which represent the views of specialist sub-contractors claim that their members have suffered under terms such as: 1. Reduced attendances provided by main contractors, in some cases expecting sub-contractors to provide their own scaffolding, temporary services, disposal of rubbish and hoisting.
The main contractor can hold wide-ranging rights to take sums of money from payments, sometimes without having to prove that a loss has occurred. A requirement for a sub-contractor to protect his work even when he is not present on site. Both main and sub-contractors when faced with such enquiries should submit their tenders with a statement asking to discuss the terms of contract with the client before entering a formal agreement. The practice of nominating sub-contractors has declined to the point of extinction because although the main contractor is contractually responsible for all the works there is a reduced liability for the work sub-let under the nomin- ation system.
Delay by a nominated sub-contractor is a relevant event that can lead to an extension of time under clause Breach by the nominated sub-contractor imposes a duty on the architect to nominate a new sub-contractor if the first is incapable of performance.
Failure of design by a nominated sub-contractor under clause Delay caused by a nominated sub-contractor who gives late information. In a traditional contract, where a decision to adopt a particular supplier or sub-contractor is needed before appointing a main contractor, a nomination is required.
It allows the architect to prepare full working drawings, integrating and coordinating specialist design with building design. Costs are saved at tender stage because the specialist prepares one tender on a standard set of conditions. The main documents for nomination introduced by the JCT80 contract are: 1. The client also has obligations, mainly to pay for design work and materials before and after the start of construction works. All the standard forms contain terms for insurances but only the ICE conditions include a recommended form of bond.
For example, there is no longer a discount retained by the contractor from PC sums for nominated sub-contractors. Valuations made monthly by reference to a pre-determined stage payment chart would undervalue the work at the begin- ning of a contract.
Selection of contract forms For many clients the choice of contract will be dictated by the type of work, size of contract and their position in society. Perhaps the most difficult decisions to be made by a client are the composition of the pro- fessional team and how financial risks will be shared. In particular he must decide whether to commission a bill of quantities or ask for tenders on a lump sum.
Figure 3. Clearly a non-construction client would need professional advice in selecting a contract that satisfies all his needs. The Joint Contracts Tribunal publishes a guide to selecting the appropriate JCT form of contract which is available on their website: www. The documentation is the vital link between design and construction.
Adequate and accurate drawings and specifications are indispensable if the team is going to achieve success in terms of quality, time and cost. Drawings in particular have served the construction industry well for hundreds of years as the primary means of communication. Unfortunately, poor specification writing continues to be a weak link in the information chain and leads to disputes, par- ticularly in a competitive market where estimators will use a strict interpretation of the documents to arrive at the lowest tender.
Another cause of friction is when bills of quantities differ from the drawings and specification. This often happens when the quantity surveyor is short of information from the designers. In , the report of the com- mittee chaired by Sir Harold Banwell stated: It is natural that a client, having taken the decision to build, should wish to see work started on site at the earliest possible moment.
It is the duty of those who advise him to make it clear that time spent beforehand in settling the details of the work required and in preparing a timetable of operations … is essential if value for money is to be assured and disputes leading to claims avoided.
It is also necessary for the client to be told of the need to give the contractor time to make his own detailed arrangements after the contract has been let, and of the penalties of indecision and the costs of changes of mind once the final plans have been agreed.
Tenderers will assess the quality of documentation, partly because poor infor- mation can add to the time wasted by site supervisors and partly because unreli- able information can lead to claims. If the contractor has enough information he can avoid guesswork, include all the important items in his tender and will not need to add global sums for poorly defined elements of work.
The committee published its recommendations in December for drawings, specifications and bills of quantities for building work; and included proposals for ways in which the following problems may be overcome: 1. Missing information — not produced, or not sent to site. Late information — not available in time to plan the work or order the materials. Wrong information — errors of description, reference or dimension; out-of- date information.
Insufficient detail — both for tender and construction drawings. Impracticable designs — difficult to construct. Inappropriate information — not relevant or suitable for its purpose. Unclear information — because of poor drafting or ambiguity. Not firm — provisional information often indistinguishable from firm information.
Poorly arranged information — poor and inconsistent structure, unclear titling. Uncoordinated information — difficult to read one document with another.
Conflicting information — documents which disagree with each other. Drawings Drawings are the most common means of communication for all types and sizes of project; the main exceptions being some maintenance contracts and minor works which can be scheduled or described in a written statement. The CPI ini- tiative includes a production drawings code that gives advice on good practice for planning and producing drawings.
The code stresses the need for careful coordin- ation of the information, shown on drawings, with the other documents. One way to avoid mistakes is to replace specifications on drawings with reference num- bers, which refer to the written specification. Would he need to be armed with the drawing and specification?
Probably not; because designers understand the need for clear information for those working on site and on large-scale projects, site engineers interpret the drawings for the operatives. This British Standard BS was being rewritten during the s and published in five parts. This revision was brought about by the need for international standardi- zation of drawing practice; and many industrialized countries have taken part in the search for suitable conventions and methods.
Part 5, dated , is a guide for the structuring of computer graphic information. The aim of the new standard is to provide good drawing practice which will provide communication with: 1. There are four main types of drawing commonly used in construction: 1. Survey drawings — which are based on a measured survey or an Ordnance Survey sheet; and are used to produce block and site plans.
Production drawings — include general arrangement drawings, layout draw- ings, assembly drawings, standard details such as those provided for highways drainage, schedules and additional detail drawings as necessary. They are used to go with applications for statutory approvals, to invite contractors to tender, and construction purposes.
Record drawings — are used to show a record of construction as it has been built and services installed. They provide essential information for mainten- ance staff. Since the publication of SMM6, some drawn information can now be pro- vided with bills of quantities. SMM6 recommended the use of bill diagrams to help describe an item of work.
In SMM7, general rule 5. The intention is for these diagrams to be prepared by the quantity surveyor and included in the bill of quantities. This might be because bills are pro- duced using text-based computer systems and more drawings are now sent to contractors at tender stage.
Specifications A specification is prepared by an architect or consulting engineer to provide writ- ten technical information mainly on the quality of materials and workmanship. The specification would be a contract document in its own right if the contractor tenders on the basis of drawings and specification only. Where bills of quantities are used for building work the specification is included with the bill of quantities as preambles.
In this way the specification again becomes part of the contract documents. There are some standard specifications published for civil engineering contracts — in particular specifications for highways and the water industry. A bill of quantities for civil engineering work will include specification clauses and a preambles section which is used to define any departures from the standard method of measurement. The designer notes the matters needing detailed specification clauses as he prepares the drawings.
The quantity surveyor will advise on a proper format for the bill of quantities. On small contracts, where a PQS is not appointed, an archi- tect could produce a specification which is broken down into parcels of work. The contractor would be expected to price the document to assist post-contract cost control, such as the preparation of valuations. In this context, this document is sometimes called a schedule of works or priced specification.
Another document in the CPI suite is a code for specification writing. The Project Specification Code is a guide to good practice. Normally, only a fraction of the work sections will be used on a simple project.
Specifications are prepared by design teams or contractors in the design and build contract using their own procedures and often vary widely in coverage and technical content. It has been said that specifications have lagged furthest behind drawings and bills for quality and helpfulness.
This is probably unfair where the NBS is carefully edited and changes thoroughly researched with assis- tance from manufacturers and specialist sub-contractors. Contain many standard clauses which are not relevant to the job.
Are usually too long. Are sometimes out of date. Traditionally the architect has been responsible for the specification, but may delegate the printing to the PQS. The CPI initiative assumes that the designer provides more reliable specification information before tender stage. The PQS must ensure the bill descriptions do not conflict with the specification. With the introduction of SMM7, bill descriptions include cross-references to the specifi- cation, which will remove duplication.
The Project Specification Code recommends improvements, so specifications will be: 1. Complete — covering every significant aspect of the work. Project specific — produced for the project, without irrelevant material. Appropriate — for available materials and skills; and can be checked and standards enforced.
Constructive — helping all the parties to understand what is expected of them. Up-to-date — using current good building practice and most recent standards. Clear — economically worded. Bills of quantities The traditional purpose of bills of quantities is to act as a uniform basis for invit- ing competitive tenders, and to assist in valuing completed work. Bills of quan- tity are first designed to meet the needs of estimators, although some estimators say the bill format has changed to assist the consultants, in cost planning exer- cises through the widespread use of elemental bills.
A contractor can also make use of the bill of quantities in many ways, for example: 1. To plan material purchasing note the danger in ordering from a bill: the con- tractor should always order materials from drawn information and the speci- fication, making the contract administrator aware of any differences. Preparing resourced programmes.
Cost control during the contract to ensure work is within budget. Data collection during construction for bonus systems and feedback infor- mation for estimators. The civil engin- eering methods include rules for highways and the water industry but the publi- cation for mainstream civil engineering works is the Civil Engineering Standard Method of Measurement CESMM3 now in its third edition Bills of quantities for building are divided into the following sections: 1.
Measured work. Prime cost and provisional sums. There are number of formats for civil engineering bills of quantities. CESMM3 gives the following sections: 1. List of principal quantities. Daywork schedule. Work items Class A General items may be grouped in a separate part of the bill of quantities. In both sectors of construction, the estimator prices sections 3 and 4 and the spe- cific items described in the preliminaries, having taken full account of all the requirements in the other sections.
The preliminaries general items section gives general details about the pro- ject and contract conditions, as follows: 1. Description of the work, location of the site, site boundaries, names of parties, and lists of drawings; 2. The form of contract used, with any amendments clearly defined, with con- tract appendix details giving information such as the retention percentage, liquid- ated damages, possession and completion dates and fluctuation provisions; 3.
CESMM3 and SMM7 provide for fixed and time-related items so that a con- tractor can show the cost of bringing plant or facilities to site, their maintenance during the job and removal on completion. He rarely does! There should also be space in the prelim- inaries section of a bill for the contractor to add to the list of items to suit his par- ticular methods of working.
In bills of quantities for building work, the preambles contain specification clauses which provide information about the expected type and standard of mater- ials and workmanship.
They should relate to the work in the bill and so reduce the length of work descriptions. The measured work section of the bill of quan- tities is divided into trade or element headings and measured according to the rules of a standard method of measurement. Bills of quantities shall fully describe and accurately represent the quantity and quality of the works to be carried out.
Clause 2. Accuracy in preparing a bill is essential because the contract conditions allow the contractor payment for any omission or error in description or quantity.
Clause 1. SMM7 begins with general rules for preparing bills, followed by details of preliminary particulars and about work sections under 24 main headings. Rule 4. Where ambiguity could arise the dimension shall be identified. This will typically occur when dealing with ground problems such as stone filling to make up levels, or mainten- ance work such as cutting out defective rafters. A provisional sum in a bill of quantities is for work which cannot be described and given in items, which follows the measurement rules.
SMM7 introduced two kinds of provisional sum, defined and undefined, both for work which is not completely designed.
0コメント