Systems analysis of urban low cost house building process in Tanzania
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Date
1988
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Publisher
University of Dar es Salaam
Abstract
Many studies have been done, and some courses of action taken in the effort to either increase the rate of building-production in order to cope with demand, or arrest the rise of (or reduce) the building costs, or both simultaneously, depending on what is dominant in a particular situation. The summary of the literature surveyed in this study indicates that research work is necessary in every context in order to determine the relevant course of action for handling the above problems. This study is a step towards that direction, based on the Tanzanian context. The building process used for low cost urban houses was analysed for a housing project of 300 similar units. Parameters of the effect of experience, change on productivity factor, change of technology and the combinations of these, were used to test their influences in both the project duration grid construction costs. The results were controlled by the corresponding values for the assumed practiced process. The results of the analysis showed that construction duration has a strong influence on costs, and that the real source of this influence is inflation. Reduction in construction time was therefore seen to have a considerable effect in reducing the inflation costs and other time dependent costs. The parameters of experience, productivity factor and the in combination proved to be most effective in reducing time, costs and even labor input requirements. The change of technology by simply using prefab elements only, also showed time cuts, but its effect in cost could not be ascertained in this study. The analysis also showed that under conditions of no inflation cost reductions as a result of reduced construction time were insignificantly small due to the small contribution in cost of the time dependent costs. However the results revealed that reduction in material costs, though may result in increase of other direct costs, its reduction may achieve a remarkable overall saving.
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Available in print form
Keywords
Building, Systems engineering, House construction, low cost houses, Labor and laboring classes, Economic conditions, 1945-1990, Tanzania
Citation
Mbwambo, W. J. M (1988) Systems analysis of urban low cost house building process in Tanzania, Masters dissertation, University of Dar es Salaam. Available at (http://41.86.178.3/internetserver3.1.2/detail.aspx?parentpriref= )