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I’ve followed a discussion on LinkedIn recently where a student posted a comment seeking help on advice for the measurement of centre lines for some taking off he was doing. It caused quite an interesting conversation to develop given that, instead of giving the guy the actual answer he was looking for, a whole debate ensued about the merits or otherwise of measurement.

One part of the debate centred on a client’s view that he did not see it necessary to pay for a BoQ to be produced anymore, accepting that someone had to do it, but not his consultant QS. His view being it gave him little or no value, so why pay for it.

It ended up in a traditional ’old school’ view that BoQs are very necessary against a more modern and pragmatic approach, to what is really important in the process of construction quantification.

So should we be bothering to measure out all sorts of quantities in great detail anymore?

Or should we be taking a different approach?

This kind of continues on from about BIM and bills of quantities being on the way out.

I don’t think we’ll ever get away from the need from having to have projects quantified, as at some point someone has got to put either a cost plan or a budget together and eventually someone will end up constructing the project and will need to understand the basic component parts of it.

After all somewhere along the line the costs have got to be controlled, and with the correct quantification of the project you stand a very good chance of at least achieving that!

It’s just to what level of detail will you be going?

And who will it be produced by?

Man or machine?

This article first appeared on Derek Mynott’s blog, which you can read