No / There are problems in practice with dealing with inflation and exchange rate changes in the financial analysis of projects. This paper reviews existing procedures for dealing with changing prices, identifies problem areas and explains how they can be dealt with. The approach is manageable in its complexity, comprehensive in its coverage and consistent in so far as possible with both economic and accounting disciplines. It is illustrated with an example of a productive sector project with a ten-year life cycle.

In project appraisal of infrastructure projects, cost benefit analysis has an important role. One of the central concerns is to adjust the distortions in markets to provide a better guide to a more effective allocation of scarce resources. The objectives of this thesis are : to establish the lack of a comprehensive estimation of the shadow wage rate (SWR) in most project appraisals in the Australian context; to develop a model for the estimation of the SWR for groups of occupations; to estimate the SWRs for the major groups of occupations in Australia; to forecast the number of employees required for Sydney's second airport project and to apply the estimated SWRs to the project, followed by estimation of the total social cost of the project. The latter estimation is done using a novel approach which, unlike many previous studies of transport infrastructure projects, estimates the SWR entirely from published statistical sources. Overall, the results are significant not only in the context of Sydney's second airport, but for other airports, the transportation sector, and in general for Australian project appraisal. The study proposes the need to change the traditional approach to the treatment of labour costs in project appraisal in Australia and provides a framework which can be useful to other researchers and analysts who wish to examine the pricing of labour in Australian project appraisal. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

As competition in the business environment increases, knowledge management becomes a critical success factor. Firms should be able to gather, analyze and reuse knowledge to support their strategic decisions. Construction firms should also analyze information in hand (completed and on going project data) and make it a part of their learning mechanism. Post-project appraisal is an organizational learning mechanism aiming to form an organizational memory. Organizational memory is a remedy for organizational amnesia, which is a very common problem in the construction industry due to the project-specific nature of the industry and lack of systematic ways to manage knowledge. Particularly, information about risks and their consequences is an important piece of knowledge that the firms should refer to in the forthcoming projects in order not to do the same mistakes. v Risk management comprises of risk identification, analysis and formulation of risk response strategy to maintain an optimum risk-return structure in a project. It is agreed upon by many researchers that, although risk management is accepted as one of the critical success factors for construction projects, project participants generally do not have sufficient knowledge pertinent to risk management concept and the number of tools which facilitate the risk management process is rather low. Typically, companies carry out a risk assessment exercise at the start of a project and the obtained risk ratings are used to determine contingency. However, after the project is over, a final assessment is not usually carried out. The main idea in this study is that, in order to improve the risk assessment process in forthcoming projects, risk assessment should be a part of post-project appraisal. Risk events that actually happened may be classified according to their sources and impacts (monetary/nonmonetary) as well as the effectiveness of utilized response strategies. Consequently, companies may learn from what had happened in previous projects and prepare more realistic risk management plans in the future. The major objective of this thesis is to develop a project risk management information model for risk assessment using historical data in order to improve risk assessment process in forthcoming projects. The framework is modeled to ensure information continuity throughout the project life cycle by storing and reusing project information that resides in risk event databases. The applicability of the developed database system is tested on a real construction project and potential benefits are discussed.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Colorado State University, 1988. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 226-233).

This Master's thesis aims to perform a post-project appraisal of investment project under which it characterizes the quality of preparation, project evaluation and risk analysis in the form of feasibility study and specifies the objectives and content of post-project appraisal of investment project as a tool for learning from past mistakes and successes of investment projects. Within the achievement of the basic objective the thesis deals with the finding causes of variance between planned and actual project results through the usage of knowledge gained from the post-project appraisal and verification of benefits of its implementation. The thesis also processes through the gained knowledge of the post-project appraisal recommendations for improving the quality of the preparation, evaluation and risk analysis of similar projects in the future.

The Royal Botanic Gardens (RGB) is used as an umbrella name for the institution that runs Kew and Wakehurst Place gardens in Sussex The RBG has a large number of glasshouses at Kew and Wakehurst sites that consume lots of heating energy which is a major concern and the group is looking for an alternative heating system that will be more efficient and sustainable to save energy, cost and reduce CO2 emissions. Glasshouse due to greenhouse effect trap solar energy in the space with the slightest solar gains but the energy trapped in the space most often is vented through the roof wasted to keep the space temperature to the required level. An environmental measurement was carried out in twenty one zones of the glasshouse to establish the temperature and humidity profiles in the zones for at least three weeks. The investigation established that large amount of heat energy is vented to the atmosphere wasted and therefore need a heating system that could absorb and store the waste thermal energy. Phase change material (PCM) thermal energy storage technique was selected to be the best options compared to the others. It has been established that active and passive solar systems could provide enough thermal energy to meet the glasshouse heating requirements. PCM filled heating pipes will be installed to absorb the heat energy trapped in the glasshouse and use it when needed. The research analysis established that 204 MWh of the trapped energy wasted could be saved. The space temperature of the glasshouse could be maintained through melting and freezing of the PCM filled in the heating pipes. The site CHP waste heat could be useful. The research results have shown that nearly zero CO2 emission heating system could be achieved and the project is technically, economically and environmentally viable.

The annual budget cycle in urban road/transport authorities by implication requires transport infrastructure projects to be ranked in terms of their relative value, to enable project selection by starting from the most deserving proposal. This follows from the fact that the total cost of feasible projects practically always exceeds available funds, signalling the need for some kind of selection protocol. Cost benefit analysis (CBA), when applied in a narrow sense, is not suitable for this purpose as it focuses on economic efficiency only. Attempts to broaden it have been criticized by some scholars. Although the diversity of impacts points to a multi-criteria analysis (MCA) approach, this is considered unscientific in certain quarters; at best, its practical value needs to be demonstrated. In the case of the City of Tshwane (CoT), problems with current project appraisal are evident in that different methods – none of which is defensible – are used, sometimes resulting in rankings that are contradictory. This thesis therefore attempts the following: (a) to develop a basic approach that combines the best elements of traditional methods; (b) to customize this approach to the specific context and needs of road authorities in the municipal sphere of government, using CoT as an example; and (c) to demonstrate the application of the resulting appraisal framework, utilizing appropriate decision-support software for this purpose. Recommendations include the following: An appraisal framework should combine CBA and MCA by adopting an overall MCA approach with economic efficiency – focusing on the optimal allocation of scarce resources – as one of the decision criteria. For completeness‟ sake, three additional decision criteria are deemed necessary: equity (focusing on income distribution impacts); sustainability (focusing on environmental impacts); and compatibility (focusing on the alignment of projects with stated goals and objectives). This framework may well apply to road authorities in other spheres of government – the optimum application in each case will depend on the composition of the relevant decision-making team. The inherent nature of project appraisal requires a two-phased approach in all cases: the evaluation of mutually exclusive alternatives, followed by the ranking of independent projects. State-of-the-art decision support software is indispensable for implementing this framework. / Transport Economics / D. Com. (Transport Economics)

The annual budget cycle in urban road/transport authorities by implication requires transport infrastructure projects to be ranked in terms of their relative value, to enable project selection by starting from the most deserving proposal. This follows from the fact that the total cost of feasible projects practically always exceeds available funds, signalling the need for some kind of selection protocol. Cost benefit analysis (CBA), when applied in a narrow sense, is not suitable for this purpose as it focuses on economic efficiency only. Attempts to broaden it have been criticized by some scholars. Although the diversity of impacts points to a multi-criteria analysis (MCA) approach, this is considered unscientific in certain quarters; at best, its practical value needs to be demonstrated. In the case of the City of Tshwane (CoT), problems with current project appraisal are evident in that different methods – none of which is defensible – are used, sometimes resulting in rankings that are contradictory. This thesis therefore attempts the following: (a) to develop a basic approach that combines the best elements of traditional methods; (b) to customize this approach to the specific context and needs of road authorities in the municipal sphere of government, using CoT as an example; and (c) to demonstrate the application of the resulting appraisal framework, utilizing appropriate decision-support software for this purpose. Recommendations include the following: An appraisal framework should combine CBA and MCA by adopting an overall MCA approach with economic efficiency – focusing on the optimal allocation of scarce resources – as one of the decision criteria. For completeness‟ sake, three additional decision criteria are deemed necessary: equity (focusing on income distribution impacts); sustainability (focusing on environmental impacts); and compatibility (focusing on the alignment of projects with stated goals and objectives). This framework may well apply to road authorities in other spheres of government – the optimum application in each case will depend on the composition of the relevant decision-making team. The inherent nature of project appraisal requires a two-phased approach in all cases: the evaluation of mutually exclusive alternatives, followed by the ranking of independent projects. State-of-the-art decision support software is indispensable for implementing this framework. / Transport Economics / D. Com. (Transport Economics)