A Research Of Steel Structure Engineering Claim And Counter-claim Management

Construction business has been always the pillar industry for China because of its capability of activating many of the upstream and downstream industries and bringing about a lot of employment opportunities. Since opening-up and reform, the construction market has witnessed the rapid development, especially after introduction of fiscal stimulating policy of4trillion RMB made by the China’s government with a large amount of capital put into the construction infra structure projects to deal with the financial crisis in2008.With the China’s entry of WTO, foreign companies with modern management mentality are entering the China’s construction industry to do business, and therefore the layout of the China’s construction industry has seen a big change. According to the Agreement on Government Procurement, the China’s construction market shall be fully opened, and the foreign construction enterprises shall enjoy the equal treatment compared with the China’s domestic enterprises. After the opening-up of the market, with the better understanding of the project claim-making rules and the strong capability of grasping the claiming opportunity, the foreign enterprises would surely outperform its China’s counterparts in taking-on of the construction contract.The research on claim in China began in the1980s, which is far behind that in the developed countries in the West. In order to avoid the passive situation during the cooperation with the construction companies from developed countries, experts and scholars in the construction field in China have done a lot of research in this regard including how to avoid the claiming by the contractor from the owner’s perspective, and how to avoid the claiming by the owner from the contractor’s perspective. Meanwhile a lot of work has been done in terms of how to make correct calculation of the schedule and the fees for the claim.For example, Ding Shi Zhao has made special research on the contractor’s claiming management, grasping of the claiming opportunities, collection of claiming evidence, and how to deal with the claiming in his books of Construction Project Contract Management in2006and International Project Construction Claim in2008, which provide a good guideline in the projects, especially in the project overseas for construction enterprises on how to deal with claim. The article has made a preliminary inquiry to the claim and counter-claim during fabrication of steel structure in the construction projects from the contractor’s perspective in combination of the claiming cases as encountered during my work, it also provides relevant claiming prevention measures.A lot of discussion has been made in the broad sense of construction projects in China, however, the claim research in steel structure is almost zero. It is hoped that through the analysis in the article, it can provide some reference for China’s steel structure enterprises in their implementation of go-out strategy and their undertaking of projects in overseas market so that they can focus on the key point, act according to their capabilities, take full consideration of the risk involved and look at the internal risks seriously so as to avoid the claim made by the owner and economic looses during the implementation of the contract.It is inevitable to have mistakes in the article due to my incompetence and shortage of information. Your comments are appreciated.