Younes, B (2013) A framework for invoice management in construction. PhD thesis, University of Alberta, Canada.
Abstract
Construction project costs are exchanged in the form of large numbers of purchase orders, which translates into many thousands of invoices. In typical contractual relationships, these invoices are exchanged between all parties involved in a construction project, including owners, engineers, architects, general contractors, sub-contractors, and many trades. The research presented in this thesis recognizes two challenges associated with invoice management: (1) the cost of invoice processing, given the involvement of numerous full-time employees from all parties involved in the project; and (2) the cost of delayed invoice payments, which is typically a cost that is consequently added to overall project cost. Ensuring on-time payment of invoices, even when funds are available, can be a challenging exercise due to the variety, the volume, and the unpredictable number of invoices received at any given time. The need for implementing processing protocols to ensure efficient management of invoices as well as procedures to minimize the amount of rework in the process cannot be ignored. This research proposes an integrated model of lean manufacturing with cohort and discrete event simulations, in order to streamline construction invoice processing and payment, ultimately minimizing invoice-processing times and delayed invoices payments. This research also proposes a cash flow management strategy and a project financial support decision model. The proposed methodology is developed, implemented, tested, and validated for two distinct sectors of the construction industry: heavy industrial (oil sands) and homebuilding
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | construction project; cash flow management; contractual relations; manufacturing; payment; project cost; architects; employee; owner; sub-contractor; simulation |
| Index terms: | contractual relations, sub-contractor, lean manufacturing, construction project, contractual relationship, methodology, project cost, rework, strategy, general contractor, sand, construction industry, architect, owner, engineer, cash flow management, exercise, discrete event simulation, integrated model |
| Subjects: | profession, modelling and simulation, building materials, management, financial management, contract law, economics, industry analysis, sociology, health behaviours and lifestyles, practitioner, contractual relationship, analytical methods, operations management, production management, manufacturing engineering, research methods |
| Topics: | Legal Issues, Health and Safety, Engineering Principles, Project Management, Contract Administration, Cost Management, Business Strategy, Information Management, Research Practice, Roles and Professions, Stakeholder Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCTA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here