1, scope of engineering change
The scope of engineering change in a broad sense refers to the change that constitutes any part of the contract documents, and is not limited to the part related to the construction drawing stipulated in the design change. It not only includes the change of form in the progress of the project, the increase or decrease of project quantity or the change of project quality requirements and standards; At the same time, it also includes the modification of contract conditions.
2, the nature of engineering change and the importance of engineering change work.
The owner, supervisor and contractor may propose any part of the project change. However, according to FIDIC contract conditions, any changes proposed by any party shall be submitted to the supervision engineer for final treatment, and reported to the owner for approval and filing. The supervision engineer will issue relevant change instructions, which will be regarded as a part of the contract documents once issued. Therefore, engineering change has certain legal compulsion. Without the supervision engineer's change instruction, neither party to the contract can make any changes to the project and its related aspects, and both parties to the contract must implement the engineering change instruction issued by the supervision engineer. Engineering change is essentially to modify and supplement the contract documents to make them more perfect.
Generally speaking, during the implementation of civil engineering projects, changes are allowed as long as they are made within the scope of the original contract and within the scope stipulated in the contract, and the parts that must or need to be changed are generally stated in the original contract.
Engineering changes often occur in the process of project contract execution, which are usually unpredictable and cannot be agreed in advance, and require supervision engineers to make on-site decisions with the progress of the project. If it is delayed for a long time, even reasonable changes will hinder the progress of the project; In addition, most engineering changes will involve costs. If it is not handled properly, it will not only cause a waste of funds, affect the quality of the project, bury hidden dangers of claims, but even make the owner's investment in his own project out of control or damage the interests of the contractor, and the image of the supervision unit will also be affected.
3. Suggestions and considerations for engineering changes
Engineering changes are generally carried out according to the block diagram shown in Figure 1:
3. 1 engineering change proposal
Engineering changes can be proposed by the contractor, the owner or the third party of the adjacent blocks of the project, and sometimes the supervision engineer will also propose engineering changes.
In one case, the engineering changes proposed by the contractor are unforeseeable geological conditions or underground obstacles. In another case, the contractor may speed up the construction progress in order to save the project cost or facilitate its construction conditions. Such suggestions usually increase costs or cause claims. The FIDIC contract conditions particularly emphasize that the contractor shall not make any changes without the instruction of the supervision engineer.
Most of the changes proposed by the owner are at the request of the local government or change the nature of the project. When the owner proposes a project change, the supervision engineer should consult with the contractor to see whether it is reasonable and feasible, mainly depending on whether the content of the project change proposed by the owner is beyond the scope stipulated in the contract. If it is a new project, it cannot be regarded as an engineering change, and only a separate contract can be signed, unless the contractor agrees to make the change. Also need to put forward the reasons for the change, design drawings and related calculations.
The design changes proposed by the third party in the adjacent bid sections of the project can be divided into categories proposed by the owner. When it puts forward engineering change requirements, the supervision engineer should report to the owner first, and the owner will come forward to coordinate with the third party to facilitate the progress of the project.
Supervision engineers often put forward engineering changes according to the situation of on-site engineering progress and the change of environmental conditions, in line with the principles of saving engineering cost, speeding up engineering progress and ensuring engineering quality, and some of them are to make up for the shortcomings in design or correct mistakes. If the change proposed by the supervision engineer is within the scope authorized by the owner, a change order can be directly issued and reported to the owner for the record; Otherwise, you should negotiate with the owner or apply for authorization.
3.2 Review and approval of engineering changes
No matter what kind of engineering changes are proposed, they must be approved by the supervision engineer and reported to the owner for approval and filing. The principle of multi-project review is:
(1) The use standard of the changed project cannot be lowered.
(2) The change project must have both technical feasibility and reliability.
(3) The changed project cost is more reasonable than the whole project.
(4) The changed construction technology should not be complicated, and the change of construction technical scheme should not affect the construction period.
The examination and approval of engineering changes should be graded according to the nature of the changed project or the amount of expenses involved, and the corresponding grades should be accepted by the corresponding supervision institutions.
According to the current construction supervision system in China, resident supervision engineers directly deal with contractors and other personnel involved in project construction every day. Therefore, the first hurdle of engineering change management and audit should be handled well. The resident supervision engineer and his team are responsible for verifying the quantity of the changed project, providing relevant information and certificates on the site, examining whether the reasons for proposing the engineering change party are sufficient, and drafting the engineering change order; Then report to the chief supervision engineer or his representative, who will be responsible for the final review of the engineering change order. If the engineering change is basically agreed, it can be reported to the owner for approval and filing. If the owner does not approve the change for other reasons, the supervisor should explain the advantages and disadvantages of the change to the owner realistically according to the site progress. If it is necessary to change, try to persuade the owner to adopt reasonable suggestions and agree to the change. In case of emergency, the supervisor can handle the engineering change first, and then notify the owner as soon as possible.
For the changes that belong to the scheme, for example, it is planned to be converted into a bridge in order to prevent the settlement of high fill subgrade, the approval of the supervision engineer is generally not needed, but should be evaluated by a special group organized by the owner (the supervision engineer should participate in this group), and then approved by the owner.
4. Preparation of engineering change documents
A project change design, from proposal to implementation, generally needs to be checked and negotiated by contractors, supervisors and owners many times, especially for the needs of specific implementation, measurement and payment, delivery and completion acceptance, as well as the needs of construction management inspection and audit, a complete project change document must be prepared.
Engineering changes shall include the following documents:
4. 1 engineering change order
For an engineering change order, it has a certain legal nature, so it should be strict and fair. It is not a simple statement to decide which part to change, but a complete document, including the following contents:
(1) Reason and basis for change
(2) Technical standards to be adopted
(three) the content and scope of the change
(4) estimate the price of engineering change
Another aspect of engineering change under FIDIC contract is different from previous design changes in China, that is, every engineering change must determine the cost of the changed project, including its unit price, and calculate the changed price according to the unit price and the changed engineering quantity.
4.2 Bill of Quantities
The bill of quantities in engineering change is one of the important engineering change documents, which is basically the same as that in the original contract. The difference is that each item needs to fill in the unit price, quantity and amount before and after the change in order to check the impact of the change on the contract price.
4.3 Design drawings
4.4 Other relevant documents
5 My humble opinions on the determination of engineering change price
After the supervision engineer approves the engineering change according to Article 5 1 of FIDIC contract conditions, the original contract shall not be invalidated or invalidated in any way. However, because the engineering change is not included in the original contract cost, it involves the increase or decrease of the engineering cost, that is, the evaluation of the engineering change. This will directly affect the vital interests of the owners and contractors and the image of the supervision engineer. In many engineering construction processes, the most common dispute among supervision engineers, owners and contractors is the pricing problem after engineering changes.
However, most contractors believe that as long as there are engineering changes, they should renegotiate the project to make up for the losses caused by the low original bid price or obtain high profits, which is the most direct purpose for contractors to propose engineering changes.
It needs to be clarified that not all engineering change projects need to determine the new price according to the contractor's expectation, and there are two main types of projects that need to determine the new price:
-Changes in the number of items increased or decreased in the bill of quantities beyond the scope stipulated in the contract.
-Changes beyond the bill of quantities.
In addition, if the nature, form, construction sequence and time and technical standards of the items in the bill of quantities change, it is possible or necessary to determine a new price. Even if it meets the above two categories, it does not mean that a new price needs to be determined again, and the supervision engineer has the right to determine the price he thinks fit. In addition, the new price has not risen as safely as the contractor expected, and will be lowered in some cases. Generally speaking, the unit price adjustment of the original estimated engineering quantity based on the actual engineering quantity decreases-the unit price increases; Increase of engineering quantity-decrease of unit price.
In order to reflect the management level of engineering construction and the adequacy of construction preparation, if the actual estimated engineering quantity is proved to be different from the engineering quantity recorded in the bill of quantities after re-measurement, it does not belong to the category of engineering quantity change, and it is not necessary to make changes or issue engineering change orders. Only when this change is beyond the scope stipulated in the contract will it be automatically handled according to the above first category.
Generally speaking, the quantity of individual projects in the FIDIC contract conditions change list: the rate or price of the priced bill of quantities in the original contract should not be changed casually, unless the accumulated amount involved in individual projects exceeds 2% of the contract price, and the actually implemented quantities under individual projects exceed or are less than 25% or more of the original bill of quantities. If the quantity increased or decreased does not exceed 25% of the quantity in the list, it shall be understood as the risk of the contractor, and the unit price in the original list shall be adopted and paid according to the price in the original contract list.
At the same time, if the supervision engineer thinks that the price can be re-determined, only the part exceeding 25% will be paid at the new price, and the rest will still be paid at the price in the original list. It must be noted that all payments cannot be made at the new price due to the quantity change of more than 25%. When the number of projects increases or decreases, the treatment method can be vividly described as follows:
In the above two cases, the "quantity to be adjusted" is essentially different in terms of its engineering quantity and price: when the engineering quantity increases by more than 25%, the engineering quantity to be adjusted should be the actual engineering quantity, and the re-determined price represents the actual material consumption and the use fee of labor and mechanical equipment (based on the unit price of the original list); When the number of projects is reduced by more than 25%, the number of projects that should be subject to price adjustment should be considered. To symbolize the quantity of the project that has occurred, the re-determined price is only the replenishment on the basis of the original list, and the payment involving this quantity should be understood as the superposition of the second payment (original list unit price+replenishment = new unit price).
FIDIC contract conditions also stipulate that:
Supervision engineer in the issuance of the completion of the whole project handover certificate, if there is a due to:
(1) All the change items have been implemented according to the valuation specified in FIDIC contract conditions;
(2) Various adjustments to the estimated quantities listed in the bill of quantities after measurement;
The total increase or decrease of the contract price exceeds 65,438+05% of the "effective contract price". Any increase or decrease beyond this percentage may require an adjustment to the contractor's accounts receivable. The adjustment mainly considers the contractor's site management expenses and total management expenses in the contract, and the adjustment amount is only limited to the increase or decrease of 15% over the effective contract price. However, any other price adjustment must be deducted and cannot be recalculated.
The cost of engineering change in FIDIC contract conditions must be solved with the progress of the project, and cannot be solved by additional budget afterwards. The supervision engineer should conscientiously perform the power of pricing and rate determination given by the contract, correctly handle the problem of engineering change, and be very familiar with the reasonable determination of pricing and rate after engineering change, so as not to cause claims or contract disputes.
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