UCEC Members Come Together in Houston for Annual Meeting

This year’s annual meeting of IPA’s Upstream Cost Engineering Committee (UCEC 2024) was held on Thursday, June 13, 2024, in downtown Houston, Texas. In addition, live webinars will be held for key presentations following the meeting for those who could not attend in person.

The annual meeting is an opportunity for the member companies’ cost engineering professionals to gather and review the latest UCEC metrics packages prepared by IPA. In Houston, IPA shared the updates and highlights of this year’s metrics program in addition to the research topics listed below:

• Systemic Overestimation: This study explores the accuracy of facility authorization estimates across different concept types, owners, estimating methodologies, and cost accounts. It highlights the nature of misestimation occurring across Industry, the drivers and consequences of this misestimation, and the path forward to address this issue.
• Missing the Mark: This study looks at the reasons projects in the post-COVID-19 market are taking longer to execute and missing their targets more often. It examines schedule slip by phase, comparing the current schedule performance with that during previous hot markets.

Two previous UCEC studies were also presented at this year’s UCEC:

• Cost Estimation Work Processes and Best Practices
• Internal Benchmarking Work Process Review

The UCEC is a committee of IPA clients that have a common interest in cost engineering and metrics development. The committee’s primary focus is the development and analysis of upstream cost metrics. Member companies use UCEC cost, schedule, and quantity-based metrics to validate their internal estimates with industry data. UCEC also provides research into practices and project characteristics that drive better cost and schedule outcomes.