Social Life Cycle Assessment of construction projects developed by a public administration
A public administration wants to encourage construction projects under its responsibility to include a Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA) calculation. It has requested that ITeC verify whether these S-LCAs can be produced using TCQi software with the data included in the BEDEC database, as this would make the calculation easier for project designers without compromising the accuracy of the results.
Multilingual edition of product certification documents
Different companies whose products have European certificates written in English and/or Spanish have requested versions in other languages in order to ease their market entry into another countries. DAU and ETA documents have been issued in five other EU languages (French, German, Italian, Polish and Hungarian)
Consultancy on certification for manufacturers of construction products
All construction products on offer in the European Union have to bear the CE marking if they fall within the scope of a harmonized standard. This makes manufacturers responsibile for knowing which are the requirements that affect their products, which may vary considerably depending on the nature of the product and the functions it assumes, and also depending on the degree of regulatory development. ITeC advises manufacturers to clarify the legal status of each product and guides them in the steps prior to CE marking: technical dossier, production control system and declaration of performance.
Checking the cost variances in the construction of a public building
The exceptional inflation rise in 2022 pressed the Spanish government to offer compensations to those contractors who were executing public works according to budgets drawn up in a context of stable prices, provided they met all the conditions specified in the Royal Decree-Law 3/2022. A municipal contracting authority received a request for compensation from the company that had been awarded the construction of a public building. In order to fairly determine whether all the requirements for compensating the contractor were met, ITeC was asked to perform a thorough check.
SEEtheSkills project: meeting the demand for workers with energy-related skills
The European construction sector has a chronical deficit of skilled workers and SEEtheSkills aims to strengthen the knowledge and skills in one of the most estrategical fields: energy efficiency and renewable energy integration in buildings. To do so, the project will emphasize the transfer and replication of successful training schemes between countries, and also the visibility of the workers and trainers with the right know-how, creating an on-line database.
In-company training on Lean management for construction works
A construction company is interested in some Lean tools that could be useful for a better adaptation to the changes that appear in construction sites that hinder workflows and lengthen delivery times. ITeC has designed a 10-hour course that starts with an explanation of the tools with the most potential for the company. Next they are applied to a real pilot case example that can provide the foundations for the company to continue using these new management methods on its own.
Analysis of price deviations in a public work
A public entity has put out to tender the execution of an architectural project and the company that has won the contract alleges costs well above those estimated in the tender budget. ITeC has analysed the bill of quantities and the prices of the initial estimate and compared them with the actual quantities and prices that the contractor intends to charge. The result identifies the situations where the architectural project was not enough accurate and the situations where the construction company has operated with prices clearly far from the market references.
BIMzeED Project: upskilling the construction sector in the fields of BIM and nZEB
This is a Erasmus+ project that intends to update the knowledge and skills of educators and trainers and SMEs in the construction sector, through provision of specific new educational materials on the fields of BIM and nZEB. ITeC has contributed to BIMzeED by sharing its experience on creation of BIM objects, and especially in assuring the interoperability of these objects among the different BIM platforms available in the market.
Good practice guides in public procurement
Guides aimed at civil servants who draw up tender specifications for maintenance work or construction work in public roads or in public buildings. They provide guidance on how to define award criteria and distribute the scoring among them. They are based on real cases of different administrations that take into consideration not just the price offered by the bidders, but also technical, environmental or social issues, among others. In those situations where the examples have shortcomings, ITeC makes its own recommendations.
Providing an objective measurement of environmental quality in public tendering
A public developer must put out to tender the design and construction of a housing project and wants to take into account sustainability criteria in the selection of bids. ITeC has proposed a set of administrative clauses for rewarding environmental quality both at project and execution stages. In order to avoid value judgements in the comparison of offers, each bidder is asked to provide an explicit calculation of the environmental impact of the materials chosen for the structure of the building, and then a formula provides a score.
