Abstract—Saudi government ministries have depended on transparent outsourcing regulations, to contract independent competent companies to estimate costs during the conceptualization phases of construction projects. Aforementioned companies often face the errors in their estimations. Unprofessionalism, inflation, lack of standardised industry cost estimation methods and uncertainty play vital role to failure the project estimations. To attain more accurate project cost estimations, the Saudi ministries must regulate their cost estimation methods and should incorporate recent technological solutions into their cost estimation processes. This paper qualitatively analyses project cost estimation processes adopted by Saudi government ministries, identifies their shortcomings and examined the effects of adopting multi-dimensional computer aided design (MDCAD). The information used for this analysis has been collected from ministries, contract companies and academic literature.

Index Terms—MDCAD, construction, cost estimation, Saudi Arabia

Cite: Ibrahim Alrashed, Michael Phillips, and Komali Kantamaneni, "Implementing Multi-Dimensional CAD Models to Reduce the Project Cost Estimations Gap between the Financial Ministry and Other Government Ministries in Saudi Arabia," Journal of Advanced Management Science, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp. 170-175, September 2014. doi: 10.12720/joams.2.3.170-175