ABSTRACT
In the early 1990s my managing director at Bovis Construction undertook a short research tour of our company in the USA, the object of which was to discover why they were able to construct buildings around 30 per cent cheaper than we were able to in the UK – and this was despite higher salaries in the USA. The two big reasons that he uncovered were:
Once construction was underway changes were put on hold until the project was finished as originally intended. Then prices would be negotiated to change the project as required. Of course, sometimes once the project was complete, the client would be content with it and no longer require the change. Nevertheless it was still considerably cheaper to finish and then change than to change halfway through. There was a much smaller and tighter project management team on our American sites.
