Product development
The RICS New Rules
of Measurement
Whats afoot?
SMM7 the UK Standard Method
of Measurement for Building Works
celebrates its 21st birthday in 2009.
In reaching adulthood, SMM7 has
outlived the longest serving of its six
predecessors by more than 10 years. But
is it really the vehicle to take building
projects through the next two decades?
NBS Technical Author, Roland Finch,
investigates.
There appears to be a general consensus
that measurement in construction is in
terminal decline. In fact, nothing could be
further from the truth. Although the use
of traditional bills of quantities (B/Qs)
has reduced significantly over the years,
measurement of some kind is still being
undertaken throughout the construction
industry, probably in greater amounts than
ever before. In fact, rather than one B/Q per
project, each Tenderer is probably doing
their own version, as are the subcontractors
for their parts of the work.
The difference is that few of them are
being done in a standardized way. And
the allegation levelled at SMM7 is that it
is out of touch; it represents an era when
much detail was required to be measured,
although there was little discernible effect
on final cost of the job. Add to this the
fact that there has never been a proper
single standardized set of rules that covers
all measurement on a project, from cost
planning to completion, and it is easier
to understand the motivation behind the
RICS New Rules of Measurement (NRM).
The RICS QS and Construction
Professional Group commissioned a
report, Measurement based procurement
of buildings (BCIS, May 2003), which
came to a number of conclusions. It
confirmed that measurement still had an
important part to play in the procurement
of buildings, but perhaps not surprisingly it
found that this measurement was used for
different purposes by clients, contractors,
subcontractors and suppliers.
Following the report, the Group established
a steering committee, with the brief to
identify and develop Client-focussed
common standards of measurement at
each level of hierarchy in the construction
process. This committee consulted widely
within the industry and the result is the
New Rules of Measurement.
RICS intends to publish the NRM in stages,
over the next two years. They will comprise
three volumes:
Volume 1: Order of cost estimating
and elemental cost planning.
This was officially launched on 30 March
2009. It is held to be the first of its kind
although BCIS, for example, produce a
standard form of cost analysis, there has
never been a set of rules for measuring
for cost planning. This has been a source
of frustration, particularly for clients,
where the lack of commonality and
consistency between cost plans has made
benchmarking between projects difficult. The NRM suite will be compatible with
stages in both the RIBA Plan of Work
and the OGC gateway process. The
Volume 2: Procurement authors clearly hope it will simplify the
This is seen as an alternative to SMM7, measurement process, as well as making
rather than an immediate replacement, it more relevant to todays construction
and is intended to assist those who dont procurement methods. The important thing
need especially detailed bills of quantities. now is to see whether the construction
However, it is recognized that somebody industry, which is notoriously slow to
needs to measure the work, as it is a very embrace change, buys into the concept.
important tool for both tender evaluation,
For further reading, visit
post contract cost control and variation
www.ribabookshops.com/site/viewtitle.
evaluation. This part is currently under
asp?pid=10326
consultation with anticipated publication
later in 2009. roland.finch@theNBS.com
Volume 3: Whole Life Costing
It is intended that this part will allow
reliable and trustworthy measurement
and evaluation of costs in use probably
based on the model contained in ISO
15686-1 Buildings and constructed assets
Service life planning. It is anticipated
this final document will be published in
the summer of 2010.