Trends in project cost control systems

The salient features of a cost control approach that could make it effective in an engineering plant construction project environment have been analysed. Various project cost control approaches (pre- and post-network based ones along with PERT/COST) are reviewed. The trends indicate that future project cost control will be more decentralised but more closely integrated in terms of achieving total project objectives. This approach will move through several cycles associated with a near-optimum plan with respect to multiple objectives of various participants in a project, formulated by various operational research methods, such as simulation, heuristic and other programming and cost models. In addition, future project cost control has to be more adaptive, and will require further efforts from operational researchers, cost engineers and others before it may be made effective and versatile in a dynamic environment. A case example is incorporated to illustrate the application of some of the concepts referred to.