International Construction Management Standards

Introduction

Developed by the ICMS Coaliton, the ICMS standard addresses the need for international consistency in the interpretation of construction and other life cycle costs. Historically, these processes have followed local and regional custom and practices, which makes global comparison challenging.

ICMS is a principles-based international standard that set out how to classify and measure construction project life cycle costs in a structured and logical format. Although life cycle costs include only construction, renewal, operation, maintenance and end of life costs, ICMS also makes provision for including acquisition costs, which may significantly impact a project’s budget. The standard enables a seamless, global, hierarchical classification of construction and other life cycle costs: from high-level global cost benchmarking to a granular, local cost measurement perspective across four levels, and incorporates 388 cost categories.

The scope of ICMS

The standard caters for both buildings and civil engineering (infrastructure) projects. Buildings are defined in ICMS as ‘a construction with a cover and enclosure to house people, equipment or goods’ and include all functional types, such as residential, offices, retail and industrial. The definition of which functional type applies is then set out in the relevant description of the project.

Civil engineering and/or infrastructure projects are presented as separate project classifications, each defined by their principal purpose. The project classifications are:

• Building
• Road
• Railway
• Bridge
• Tunnel
• Waste water treatment works
• Water treatment works
• Pipeline
• Well/borehole
• Power-generating plant
• Chemical plant
• Refinery
• Dam/reservoir
• Mine/quarry
• Offshore structures
• Nearshore works
• Ports
• Waterway works
• Land formation and reclamation
• Common

Projects are containers for both their respective cost measurements and the attributes that define each unique asset.

The standard can be downloaded from the ICMS Coalition website here. There is also an XML data standard, published by the RICS, available from their ICMS webpages.