Previous researches have suggested that there is only little improvement in the accuracy of building forecasts as design develops. It has been criticized that established conventional forecasting methods also lack measures of their own performance. An early stage price forecasting model, the...

James? Storey Enclosure Method (JSEM), developed in 1954, is considered by many to be the most sophisticated single-rate method ever devised for early-design-stage tender price forecasts. However, the method is seldom used in practice partly because it has been superseded by multi-rate methods...

Typical measures of goodness of construction price forecasts are the mean and standard deviation, coefficient of variation and root mean square of the deviations between forecasted and actual values. This can only be valid, however, if the pain, or loss, incurred as a result of such deviations...

Building client/owners need estimates of likely construction costs for budgeting purposes early in the procurement process when little detailed design information is available beyond the type, size and location of the facility. One of the more sophisticated techniques available for this purpose...