Volume 7, Issue 5, May – 2022 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology

ISSN No:-2456-2165

Development of Computer Aided Model for Digital

Estimation of Building Materials and Civil
Engineering Quantities
Abayomi, Oluwajuwon Debola, Akinkuolie, Bisola Oluwaseun, Oguntelure, Temitope Elizabeth and Ubalua, Okechukwu Charles
Department of Civil Engineering, Federal University of Technology Akure, PMB 704, Ondo State, Nigeria.

Abstract:- Over the years, there have been ineffective Estimating of quantities and cost in building and civil
and inaccurate results being noticed to have been gotten engineering works is a very complex task to undergo,
over time when bill of civil and engineering quantities are because it requires a careful and full understanding of the
computed manually. However, with the aid of a construction methods and construction materials to get a
developed software package in calculating the bill of reasonable forecast due to the uncertainty in the price of item
quantities, effective and efficient results would be gotten. to be used for a construction project as a result of
From the foregoing this study aims at developing a environmental change, change in political environment,
computer aided model to digitally compute building and price trend as well as change in technological demand of
civil engineering quantities using C# programming goods and services, estimating of quantities and cost of
language. The approach used in this study is developing construction work as proven to be very complex, full of
the digital computation program and testing the errors and time consuming (Oluyemi, 2016). These days,
computational program using the manual taking off Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is
from both residential building and road plans to validate responsible for the entire construction process from
the software. The results obtained from this study information being generated, transmitted and interpreted
indicate that, with reference to the residential building to enabling the project to be built, maintained and eventually
plan, 100% of the substructure items found in the bill fall recycled (Ikechukwu et al.,2011). Although communication
within 0 to 0.05 percentage difference and 75% of the is an essential value in construction projects, the construction
superstructure items have 0 to 0.4 percentage industry is confronted with the importance and use of
differences. In road plan, 100% of the items in site information and communication technology (ICT). As most
clearing and earthworks (Bill no. 2) have 0 percentage firms in developed countries have increased and will
differences, while 86% of the items in bill no. 3 ( increase further their investment in ICT, this has raised
drainage and culverts) have 0 percentage differences. productivity within their construction industry and resulted
All items in bill no.4 (Pavement and surfacing) have 0 in an increase in the quality and speed of work, financial
percentage differences between the manual and digital controls, communications, and access to common data.
computation. Since there are little or no difference in Firms in the third world countries are yet to understand this
the result obtained from manual computation and essential value and its importance to the development of their
digital computation. Therefore, the developed digital construction sector (Ikechukwu et al., 2011).
computation program is efficient and reliable and can be
used in lieu of the manual estimation. This study aims to develop application software by
using C# programming language for the measurement and
I. INTRODUCTION quantification of building and civil engineering works by
validating the software and comparing the results with
The recent development in the computer field, and the manual computation.
evolution of powerful and affordable microcomputers which
now out-perform old minicomputers have created great II. AIM AND OBJECTIVES
potential for their use in the building and civil engineering
industries. Computing is a very essential application in our The aim of this research is to develop application
day-to-day activity. Also, computing has come a long way software for the measurement and quantification of building
in enhancing excellent results in engineering applications. and civil engineering works.
Introducing the concept of computing to all professions has The objectives are to:
been a tremendous step in ensuring effective output/results  review the concept of quantity estimation.
for every input. In addition, the proliferation of construction  develop application software using Microsoft Visual
related software has resulted in the development of more SEE-SHARP (C#) programming language for digital
efficient decision support systems for the management of computation and
both the construction company and its construction sites.  evaluate the software for suitability, reliability and
recommend accordingly.

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Volume 7, Issue 5, May – 2022 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
III. MATERIALS AND METHODS  Cost Estimate
Cost estimating is a fundamental ingredient for budgeting
 Materials Used and preparation of bid for any construction project. A good
In the course of this research, the materials used are: estimate depends on many factors including time given to
 Microsoft Visual C# software. the estimator, estimator’s experience, and a wide range of
 Building plan and construction processes. assumptions regarding the project. Construction cost
 Road plan and construction processes. estimating involves collecting, assaying, and recapitulating
all available data for a construction project.
 Methods
The method adopted in the development of the A construction cost estimate is a vaticination of the
software can be divided basically into two: total cost of a construction project. It is the estimator’s
 developing the digital computation program and responsibility to help the owner of the project to plan and
 testing the computational program budget for the construction of the project.

 Bill Of Quantities  Odays Technologies Associated For Detailed Cost

A bill of quantities (sometimes referred to as a 'BoQ' or Estimate
'BQ') is a document, typically prepared by a cost consultant As one can see, detailed cost estimating is a clumsy
(often a quantity surveyor) that provides measured quantities process that involves a lot of data and calculations. Today’s
of the items of work identified by the drawings and estimating technologies include, but are not limited to,
specifications in the tender documentation for a project. It is spreadsheets, cost estimating software, digitizing tablets, on-
issued to tenderers for them to prepare a price for carrying screen digitizing systems, and the yet to be matured 3-D
out the works. CAD parametric estimating software (Samphaongoen,
2010).
Manual estimating can be an inefficient use of time,
and so cost consultants often use BoQ software packages to
make the process easier and to reduce errors. Databases may  Programming Language
already exist providing design information from a building Coded language used by programmers to write
model, and specifications, and so quantities can be instructions that a computer can understand to do what the
calculated and tender documents generated. During the programmer (or the computer user) wants. The most basic
design process, new measurements can be filed and (called low-level) computer language is the machine
included, with the result that every item, as well as the totals, language that uses binary („1‟ and „10‟) code which a
is updated automatically. computer can run (execute) very fast without using any
translator or interpreter program, but its tedious and
Elbetalgi (2014) indicated that the objective of complex. The high level languages (such as basic, c, java)
preparing the Bill of Quantities is to assist estimators to are much simpler (more English like) to use but need to use
produce an accurate tender efficiently and to assist the post another program (a complier or an interpreter) to convert the
contract administration to be carried out in an efficient and high-level code into the machine code, and are therefore
cost-effective manner. It should be noted that the quality of slower.
the drawings plays a major part in achieving theses aims by
enabling the taker-off to produce an accurate bill and also by There are dozens of programming languages and new
allowing the estimator to make sound engineering judgments ones are being continuously developed (programming
on methods of working. language, 2016). Also called computer language, the
computer language used in this project is a C# programming
language.

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Volume 7, Issue 5, May – 2022 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165

Fig 1: An excerpt of the graphical interface in C# environment

Fig 2: Computerized design of digital computation

Fig 3: Computerized design for checks

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Volume 7, Issue 5, May – 2022 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165

Fig 4: Validated output for checks

 Application Flow Chart

Fig 5: A Flow Chart Diagram Illustrating step by step process of the Building Program

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Volume 7, Issue 5, May – 2022 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION building materials and civil engineering quantities to ease
the rigor of quantity estimation. In the course of execution
The methodology adopted in accomplishing the aim of of the computer program, ease-of use and flexibility was a
this project involves two steps; developing and validating major consideration.
the computational program. The process of validating the
computational program in order to measure the efficiency of The developed program was validated using a proposed
the digital estimation of building materials and civil residential development at Sunshine estate, Oba Ile, Akure,
engineering quantities followed the same style and Ondo State and an assumed road plan. The table 1 below
procedure normally used in a manual calculation. With this shows the draft billing obtained from the manual
package, one can slot in any value provided the value falls computation of the proposed building while table 2 shows
within the validity of the model of the program. The the draft billing obtained from the digital computation of the
result obtained from the implementation of this study is the proposed building.
development of a rational procedure for the estimation of

Table 1: Draft Bill Obtained From the Manual Computation of the Proposed Building
SUBSTRUCTURE
ITEM DESCRIPTION QUANTITY UNIT
A Site Clearing 229.00 m2
B Top Soil Removal 183.30 m2
C Trench Excavation 88.20 m3
D Level and Ram 73.49 m2
E Foundation Blinding 73.49 m2
F Foundation Concrete 16.91 m2
G Foundation Block work 129.70 m2
H Backfilling 49.72 m3
I Cart away 79.98 m3
J Laterite Filling 43.35 m3
K Hardcore 43.35 m
L DPM and BRC Mesh 73.50 m2
M Formwork for Oversite 54.00 m2
N Concrete Slab 25.60 m3

SUPERSTRUCTURE
ITEM DESCRIPTION QUANTITY UNIT
A Block wall 225.00 m2
B Lintel Concrete 2.25 m3
C Formwork for Lintel 9.94 kg
D Reinforcement 388.40 kg

Table 2: Draft Bill Obtained from the Digital Computation of the Proposed Building
SUBSTRUCTURE
ITEM DESCRIPTION QUANTITY UNIT
A Site Clearing 229.00 m2
B Top Soil Removal 183.30 m2
C Trench Excavation 88.00 m3
D Level and Ram 73.40 m2
E Foundation Blinding 73.40 m2
F Foundation Concrete 73.40 m2
G Foundation Block Wall 129.70 m2
H Backfilling 50.00 m3
I Cart away 79.98 m3
J Laterite Filling 43.35 m3
K Hardcore 43.35 m
L DPM and BRC Mesh 73.50 m2
M Formwork for Oversite 54.00 m2
N Concrete Slab 26.00 m3

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Volume 7, Issue 5, May – 2022 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
SUPERSTRUCTURE
ITEM DESCRIPTION QUANTITY UNIT
A Block wall 225.00 m2
B Lintel Concrete 2.20 m3
C Formwork for Lintel 9.90 Kg
D Reinforcement 388.40 Kg

Table 3: Comparison of Draft Bill Results for the Proposed 3-bedroom flat at Oba Ile, Akure, Ondo State.
SUBSTRUCTURE
MANUAL DIGITAL
COMPUTATION COMPUTATION
ITEM DESCRIPTION QANTITY/UNIT QUANTITY/UNIT DIFFERENCE % DIFFERENCE
A Site Clearing 229.00 m2 229.00 m2 0.00 0.00
B Topsoil Removal 183.30 m2 183.30 m2 0.00 0.00
C Trench Excavation 88.20 m3 88.22 m3 0.02 0.02
D Level and Ram 73.40 m2 73.40 m2 0.00 0.00
E Foundation Blinding 73.40 m2 73.40 m2 0.00 0.00
F Foundation Concrete 73.40 m2 73.40 m2 0.00 0.00
G Foundation Block work 129.70 m2 129.70 m2 0.00 0.00
H Backfilling 49.72 m3 49.73 m3 0.01 0.02
I Cart away 79.98 m3 79.98 m3 0.00 0.00
J Laterite Filling 43.35 m3 43.35 m3 0.00 0.00
K Hardcore 43.35 m 43.35 m 0.00 0.00
L DPM and BRC Mesh 73.50 m2 73.50 m2 0.00 0.00
M Formwork for Oversite 54.00 m2 54.00 m2 0.00 0.00
N Concrete Slab 25.60 m3 25.60 m3 0.00 0.00

SUPERSTRUCTURE
MANUAL DIGITAL
COMPUTATION COMPUTATION
ITEM DESCRIPTION QUANTITY/UNIT QUANTITY/UNIT DIFFERENCE % DIFFERENCE
A Block wall 225.00 m2 225.00 m2 0.00 0.00
3
B Concrete in Lintel 2.25 m 2.20 m3 0.05 2.27
C Formwork for Lintel 9.94 kg 9.90 kg 0.04 0.40
D Reinforcement (12mm) 388.40 kg 388.40 kg 0.00 0.00

The result shown in table 3 can be summarized as dynamically interactive. The application has the capability
follows; to accept, run, perform, execute and give the final answers to
numerical iteration method adopted, thereby computing
Substructure- 100% of the 14 items found in this quantities and costs.
bill fall within 0 to 0.05 percentage difference.
The results obtained indicate that substructure has
Superstructure- 75% of the items has 0 to 0.4 100% of the 14 items found in this bill falls within 0 to 0.05
percentage difference. From the summary above, the result percentage difference, Superstructure 75% of the items have
shows that there are little or no difference in the final outputs 0 to 0.4 percentage difference. Also, from Bill no.2, site
of the quantities obtained through the manual clearing and earthworks, 100 percent of the items in this bill
computation and the digital computation for the project. have 0 percentage difference, Bill no.3 drainage, 86% of
Therefore, the developed digital estimation program can the items in this bill has 0 percentage difference and 14%
be said to be efficient and accurate in its final outputs and has 1.354 percentage differences in it.
can be used in place of manual computation with its other
advantages. Therefore, it is recommended to use the application
software developed using a combination of Microsoft visual
V. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION C SHARP (C# version 2012) and Microsoft visual studio
Environment (version 2012) as it is proven to have the
The development of the software was achieved using a following:
combination of good programming Microsoft visual C  The developed program will solve the problem of fatigue
SHARP (C# version 2012) and Microsoft visual studio and limit potential errors in quantity estimation and bill
Environment (version 2012), which allows an artistic preparation as well as reduce the time consumed.
application to be created, visually appealing and  The program was designed in such a way that the users

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ISSN No:-2456-2165
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