Product Description

The period from starting a college course to successful completion of professional examinations represents a long and steep learning curve. The range of skills and the knowledge required to perform work efficiently and effectively might, at first, seem rather daunting. This guide will provide you with sufficient understanding and hold you in good stead for your early years in professional practice.

The Aqua Group Guide to Procurement, Tendering and Contract Administration is the merging of three established textbooks written by the Aqua Group – a highly respected group of architects and quantity surveyors. It has been edited, enlarged and updated into a single volume by Davis Langdon and now covers the entire building process from inception through to final account.

With clear and thorough explanations by practising professionals from this distinguished practice, you are taken through self–contained chapters covering the detail of:

∗ the briefing stage;
∗ procurement methods;
∗ tendering procedures; and
∗ contract administration.

Throughout, the emphasis is on current best practice and the book draws from the widely used Joint Contracts Tribunal (JCT) series of contracts, notably the 2005 edition of the Standard Building Contract.

This authoritative guide provides a detailed account of the building team′s roles and responsibilities, and industry practice required to ensure that projects meet clients′ expectations in respect of time, cost and quality.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13644 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Review
From the Foreword by Rob Smith, Senior Partner, Davis Langdon LLP:
The Aqua Group Guide… provides a comprehensive account of the systems, procedures, documents and industry practices encountered during construction projects. The guide also captures and contains the level of understanding that one is expected to have acquired in order to pass professional examinations and, therefore, provides a good grounding to a successful career in the construction industry.

From the reviews of previous editions:

‘These publications by the Aqua Group are absolutely essential reading for the young architect, civil engineer and QS.’ Chartered Quantity Surveyor

‘This is a good concise book for members of the building team.’ The Architects’ Journal

From the Publisher
* Competitive price: big cost saving for students who were buying both books
* Authors have a broad range of experience in private and public sector, and in teaching
* Part of a well-established line of Aqua books – has been running for over 40 years
* Combined volume will cover all the stages in the process, from inception to final account.

From the Back Cover
The period from starting a college course to successful completion of professional examinations represents a long and steep learning curve. The range of skills and the knowledge required to perform work efficiently and effectively might, at first, seem rather daunting. This guide will provide you with sufficient understanding and hold you in good stead for your early years in professional practice.

The Aqua Group Guide to Procurement, Tendering and Contract Administration is the merging of three established textbooks written by the Aqua Group – a highly respected group of architects and quantity surveyors. It has been edited, enlarged and updated into a single volume by Davis Langdon and now covers the entire building process from inception through to final account.

With clear and thorough explanations by practising professionals from this distinguished practice, you are taken through self–contained chapters covering the detail of:

• the briefing stage;
• procurement methods;
• tendering procedures; and
• contract administration.

Throughout, the emphasis is on current best practice and the book draws from the widely used Joint Contracts Tribunal (JCT) series of contracts, notably the 2005 edition of the Standard Building Contract.

This authoritative guide provides a detailed account of the building team’s roles and responsibilities, and industry practice required to ensure that projects meet clients’ expectations in respect of time, cost and quality.

Customer Reviews

Excellent, Buy this book
This book is fantastic.
I am currently in my second year of Quantity Surveying Consultancy at Kingston University, London.
This book sets out all you need to know about Procurement routes, tendering procedures and contract administration and it does it in a manner that is easy to read and understandable.
I fully recommend this book to anyone entering this type of profession, just begginning or someone who would like to learn more about this type of subject. It is an easy read and fully understandable to almost anyone.
A great book.

Could be better
I bought this book to guide me through the contract practice related areas of the APC (I am attempting to become a chartered building surveyor). Generally it is satisfactory, however I do have a few reservations.

Firstly it is stated "this book .......assumes the use of the JCT Standard Building Contract". WHY? It may very well be that this is the most widely used contract, but, for example, the practice where I work regularly use GC Works on some projects so SBC does not have a monopoly in the real world. As such the book should at least make a justification for concentrating on JCT and ignoring its rivals.

Also a professional needs to be able to advise a client which contract is the most appropriate for their project and I do not feel that this book has provided me with the knowledge and necessary processes to do this. I feel that a few worked examples of the process of contract selection would have greatly helped.

It appears that David Brent from "The Office" was recruited to write a section on something called "value management" which seems to merely be an excuse to use some clever-sounding phrases like "value engineering" and "function model". A worked example or two of this alleged process in action might do something to convince the reader that there is something of worth here and that it isn't really all just meaningless "management speak".

Chapter 23 consists of a 17 page long list of the rights, duties and liabilities under the SBC. What use is that? I bought the book to EXPLAIN how construction contracts work not to be presented with tedious lists.

The final two chapters go into Insolvency and Capital Allowances in detail. This would probably be useful in books aimed at budding solicitors or accountants respectively but the amount of detail is totally out of place here.

Overall it is a useful book but with a little more thought about its intended audience and how to present the subject to them it could have been so much better.

Excellent guide which is up to date
This book is an excellent guide to exactly what it says on the front!
As a Part 3 Architectural student at Kingston University in my 8th year of study I have found this guide essential to my many essays on Construction Management.
The text is authoritative, accurate, easy to understand and, most importantly, very up-to-date. Crucially, it deals with the 2005 suite of JCT contracts and references the 2007 CDM regs.
Plus, there's pictures!
Seriously though, if you are studying for your Part 3 this is essential, it removes the need to look in about 4 or 5 separate books.