Discrete Construction Activities

The moment the sequence of carrying out the work is written down - as above - these different activities themselves constitute, in most cases, the components of work that can 

be considered for estimating. While identifying the components, it is important to consider the two aspects of that component : 

1. amenable for isolated treatment with regard to its material, labour/equipment requirements, and 
2. when integrated together, should result in the whole project without any omission of item require incurring of costs. 

A building project, therefore, may involve a very large number of discrete activities - in fact - thousands of activities theoretically. But on practical considerations, these activities are to be grouped into a manageable number of discrete components - each component comprising a set of activities. Each of these components would then comprise supply and use of certain labour or equipment to handle and convert these materials into required size and shape so that a finished product similar to a manufacturing system is turned out. As an example, let us consider masonry in foundation as a discrete activity. It may involve the use of masonry units (say, bricks or blocks of stone or concrete) laid in mortar by a skilled mason in a manner described in drawings and specifications with the  assistance of semi-skilled/unskilled workers and other tools and equipment. Hence, each activity, by itself can be visualized as composing specified amount of materials (e.g. masonry units and mortar), and labour (skilled/semi-skilled/unskilled  workers) with or without the use of tools/equipment/plant. It is an agreed practice to group discrete components of similar nature for purposes of estimating.