A Study on the Public Construction Project Cost-Saving Practice

Information Provision Service Method

Hyun Ok and Tae-Hak Kim

Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, Goyang-si, Republic of Korea

Keywords: CODIL(COnstruction technology Digital LIbrary), CPIPS(Construction Project Information Portal System),

Design Value Engineering, Cost-Saving Practices, Public Construction Projects.

Abstract: Cost saving in construction projects consists in building structures with the most economical method while

satisfying the user requirements with regard to the features and quality. Cost saving through systematic cost

management is required to improve the competitiveness in line with the changing construction environment.

Organizations affiliated with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport are striving to save on

construction costs by reviewing the economic efficiency of their designs, process management, and project

management when implementing public construction projects. They are sharing the design value engineering

(VE) results information among the public ordering agencies during the design stage, but the sharing of the

cost-saving practices in the construction stage is still insufficient. This study presented step-by-step

information systems development and service methods so that people can refer to and utilize cost-saving

practices in similar construction projects while carrying out public construction projects. The results of this

study are expected to contribute to more rational decision-making in and the higher investment efficiency of

public construction projects through the analysis and provision of cost-saving cases information for each stage

of the construction project life cycle, such as the planning, design, construction, and maintenance stages.

1 INTRODUCTION

It is difficult to estimate the profit and loss of

construction projects compared to the projects in

other fields or industries because there is a high

degree of uncertainty in the contract execution

process. Therefore, the cost of the whole process of a

construction project must be managed economically

within the specified budget through cost management

[1]. Cost saving consists in building structures with

the most economical method while satisfying the user

requirements with regard to the features and quality.

Cost saving through systematic cost management is

required to improve the competitiveness in line with

the changing construction environment. The Ministry

of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (MOLIT) and

their affiliated organizations, such as corporations

and industrial complexes, are striving to save on

construction costs by reviewing the economic

efficiency of designs in the design stage (“Design

value engineering” or “Design VE”), as well as the

process and project management during the

construction stage. At present, the design VE results

information is being shared among the public

ordering agencies during the design stage, but the

sharing of cost-saving practices in the construction

stage is still insufficient.

This study was conducted to build an information

system for sharing cost-saving practice information

during the performance of public construction

projects, and to present an information service

method for utilization in the public and private

sectors. The results of this study will contribute to the

efficient execution of public construction projects

through the reference and utilization of related

information by the MOLIT-affiliated organizations,

local governments, public ordering agencies, and

construction companies.

2 STATUS ANALYSIS

2.1 Construction Management System

Status

The cost-saving practices of public construction

projects refer to success stories that enabled cost

savings in construction projects through technical

development and project management by MOLIT and

248

Ok, H. and Kim, T-H.

A Study on the Public Construction Project Cost-Saving Practice Information Provision Service Method.

DOI: 10.5220/0006083202480253

In Proceedings of the 8th International Joint Conference on Knowledge Discovery, Knowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management (IC3K 2016) - Volume 3: KMIS, pages 248-253

ISBN: 978-989-758-203-5

its affiliated organizations, local governments, public

ordering agencies, and construction companies [2].

MOLIT requires a review of the design VE during the

basic and working design stages for public

construction projects with a minimum total project

cost of 10 billion won, in accordance with the

"Enforcement Guideline for the Review of the

Economic Efficiency of Designs, Etc." Furthermore,

the results of the design VE are registered and

managed through the Design VE Madang in the

Construction Project Information Portal System, and

the design VE information is shared among the

MOLIT-affiliated organizations, local governments,

public ordering agencies, and construction-related

organizations. The design VE information is limited,

however, because it contains only the ideas and

improvements in the basic and working design stages

as well as summarized information regarding cost-

saving practices. The MOLIT-affiliated

organizations, such as corporations and industrial

complexes, are sharing information by publishing

their collections of cost-saving practices in the

planning, design, and construction stages. The

regional construction and management offices,

however, which are affiliated with MOLIT, are not

yet publishing or sharing their cost-saving practices.

2.2 Investigation and Analysis of the

Current Research Trends

The studies on the cost-saving practices of

construction projects have been mostly about the

application cases of design VE and the improvement

of the construction and engineering methods. Other

studies include those on the cost management and

saving methods for unit constructions as well as on

the construction types, cost-saving methods through

schedule management, and analysis of the factors

influencing the construction cost.

The analysis of the current research trends

revealed that there have been few studies on the cost-

saving practice information sharing and service

methods for improving the efficiency of public

construction projects. Therefore, research on

information sharing and service is required for the

integrated and systematic management and utilization

of cost-saving practices in the execution of public

construction projects in the future.

2.3 Analysis of Cases of FMMS-based

Bridge Inspection and Analysis

FMMS’s inspection and diagnosis menu consists of

planning in line with the above workflow,

management of the inspection history, inquiry about

the damage photos by member and about the maps of

damages by visual inspection, internal approval, and

confirmation of the inspection book. Fig. 1 shows

cases of the history of inspection and diagnosis.

3 INFORMATION SYSTEM

DEVELOPMENT AND

SERVICE METHODS

In this study, to develop a cost-saving practice

information system for construction projects, the

design changes, design standards, and operation

process revisions were analyzed based on the

"Collection of Expressway Design Work Practices"

published by Korea Expressway Corporation.

Furthermore, a database (DB) of cost-saving practices

and original data such as project outlines, status,

problems, improvements, and conclusions with

regard to construction cost-saving practices was

constructed through the preparation of metadata [2].

The construction project cost-saving practice DB

was designed to consist of four major types of

information: “cost-saving practices”, “cost-saving

practice application details”, “cost-saving practice

utilization plans”, and “cost-saving practice common

codes”. The cost-saving practice information includes

the general status information of construction

projects, including the project outlines. The cost-

saving practice application details consist in the

processing status and the results of requests for cost-

saving practices in public ordering agencies and

construction companies. The cost-saving practice

utilization plans allow the entry of a detailed

utilization plan to view or download cost-saving

practice information or attached files. The cost-saving

practice common codes define classification names,

classification types, and codes according to the

integrated construction information classification

system to improve the search and view convenience.

In this study, a step-by-step information system

development method was prepared for the utilization

and integrated management of cost-saving practice

information in the future by MOLIT and the regional

construction and management offices.

First, the construction project cost-saving practice

information system was set up in such a way that it

can be serviced from CODIL (Construction

Technology Digital Library), which corresponds to a

unit system of the Construction Project Information

System, one of MOLIT’s operation systems. CODIL

is easily accessible by the MOLIT-affiliated

A Study on the Public Construction Project Cost-Saving Practice Information Provision Service Method

249

Figure 1: Concept diagram of the CPIPS (Construction Project Information Portal System).

organizations, local governments, public ordering

agencies, and construction companies because it is

located on the Internet. When MOLIT and the

regional construction and management offices,

however, which are on the organization network

(internal network), want to view cost-saving

practices, they must change from the organization

network to the Internet before logging on to CODIL,

which is inconvenient.

To address this problem, an upgrade plan was first

established for the development of the cost-saving

practices view feature on the Construction Project

Information Portal System (for agencies/public) and

for service provision in connection with CODIL, and

for later enabling integrated management through the

development of management features for cost-saving

practices in the future.

The construction project information portal

system is a gateway to the construction project

information system. It works as a single-access

window and performs public services by integrating

the information from each construction project

information unit system and their operating

environments. The system enables the sharing of

diverse construction information. The figure below is

a concept diagram of the said system. The

construction project information portal system

consists of the agency portal system, which is used by

the MOLIT headquarters and subagencies, such as

five regional construction and management

administrations, and the public portal system, which

is used by the MOLIT subagencies, other

departments, municipalities, construction companies,

and the general public. The agency portal system has

10 major functions, including the operation of the

central committee, and the public portal system has

10 major functions, including the post-evaluation of

construction projects, design VE square, online

turnkey square, design drawing information square,

and cost reduction cases of construction projects. For

the development of the view feature for construction

project cost-saving practices, a DB of cost-saving

practices will be developed and managed in CODIL

before developing OpenAPI. Next, for the public

portal system, a metadata collection feature for cost-

saving practices will be developed for linking with

CODIL. Lastly, information linking with the public

portal system will be developed so that the MOLIT

users can access the agency portal system to search

and view cost-saving practices [3]. The following

figure shows a conceptual diagram for the

development of a cost-saving practices view feature

[4].

Next, the development of cost-saving practice

management features is identical to the development

of the cost-saving practices view feature, but first, a

public portal system-CODIL cost-saving practices

synchronization process must be developed. Next, the

cost-saving practices search, view, entry, and

modification features through the agency portal

system will be developed for the MOLIT users.

KMIS 2016 - 8th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing

250

Figure 2: Development of a view feature for construction project cost-saving practices.

Figure 3: Development of construction project cost-saving practice management features.

Furthermore, the downloading feature for the

attached files regarding cost-saving practices will be

developed in such a way that the downloading of such

files will be allowed only after a utilization plan is

entered [3]. The following figure shows a conceptual

diagram of the development plan for the cost-saving

practice management features.

A cost-saving practice icon was added to the initial

screen of the Construction Project Information Portal

System for agencies so that it can be used to view the

same information as the cost-saving practices entered

in CODIL [4].

The initial screen of the agency portal system was

developed in such a way that selecting the

construction project cost-saving practice icon on the

initial screen will show the list of cost-saving

practices, and selecting an item in this list will allow

the user to download the details of and the attached

files regarding the selected cost-saving practice [4].

The MOLIT-affiliated organizations, local

governments, public ordering agencies, and

construction-related organizations such as associa-

tions should maintain a cooperation system for the

continuous expansion of the cost-saving practice DB

for public construction projects in the future.

Furthermore, the services must be increased and the

features must be upgraded so that construction sites

and workers can frequently refer to the cost-saving

practice DB [2]. In particular, such issues as double

management of data and synchronization between

CODIL and the Construction Project Information

Portal System could arise due to the development of

the construction project cost-saving practice

management features. Therefore, the integrated

information service of the construction project cost-

saving practices requires the preparation of system

upgrade plans considering the efficient management

of the computing resources.

A Study on the Public Construction Project Cost-Saving Practice Information Provision Service Method

251

Figure 4: Initial screen of the construction project cost-saving practice portal system for agencies.

Figure 5: Detailed screen of the construction project cost-saving practice portal system for agencies.

4 CONCLUSIONS

This study aimed to improve the efficiency of

construction project execution through the sharing

and propagation of cost-saving practice information

among public ordering agencies, such as the

organizations affiliated with the Ministry of Land,

Infrastructure, and Transport (MOLIT), by building a

database (DB) and providing information services

based on the cost-saving practices of the affiliated

organizations, such as Korea Expressway

Corporation, for public construction projects. For this

purpose, step-by-step information development and

cost-saving practice information service methods

were presented so that cost-saving practices can be

referred to and utilized for similar public construction

projects.

The analysis and provision service of cost-saving

practice information by life cycle stage of public

construction projects, such as the planning, design,

construction, and management stages, are expected to

contribute to more rational decision-making in, and

the higher investment efficiency of, public constru-

ction projects in the future.

REFERENCES

H. P. Woo, “A study of cost management and reduction

strategy in construction work [master’s thesis]”,

University of ULSAN, pp.1-3, (2012).

KMIS 2016 - 8th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing

252

Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs

(MOLIT), “15 Operation of Construction Technology

Knowledge Information Database and Service System,

final report”, Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and

Building Technology (KICT), pp.79-118, (2015).

MOLIT, “ 14 Operation and Technical Improvement of

Construction CALS System (Ⅱ) final report”, KICT,

pp.208-212, (2014).

MOLIT, “ 15 Operation and Technical Improvement of

Construction CALS System (Ⅱ) final report”, KICT,

pp.64-67, (2015).

CPIPS(Construction Project Information Portal System),

http://www.calspia.go.kr

CODIL(Construction Technology Digital Library), 

http://www.codil.or.kr

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