This study aimed to design optimal workload and cost for successful management and promotion of Regional Community Reinforcement Project (RCRP) and accordingly, Rural Development Project. First of all, the pending issues in RCRP were investigated through the literature review and on-site survey and interview. The strategies for workload allocation and optimal cost estimation were then suggested to enhance the performance of project framework.
The findings from the study are summarized as follows.
For responsible management of the project, followings are necessary; 1) to establish standard framework of the project, 2) to provide institutional guideline for project manager, and 3) to improve their professionalism in managing the project. Subsequently, the alternative rate system seems to be required for efficient implementation of the RCRP.
To develop an optimal rate system, the tasks in project were categorized into 7 sectors: preparation, project management, education, consultation, marketing, information management, and management support. Based on the categorization, the study evaluated current systems for workload allocation and cost estimation of RCRPs which are under promotion in total 30 zones over South Korea. As a result, averaged workload to complete a project was estimated as 1,499 hours over the zones and among the sectors, the management workload accounted for about 44%. The project cost ranged from 3 to 10.4 billion won and management for the zones taking under and over 0.5 billion won accounted for greater than 42% and 46%, respectively. In both cases, the management cost accounted for more than 40%. For the expenses of project supervision and management, 9% of the cost was also taken under the pretext of management. To sum up, the cost estimation methods used in current RCRP were found to have several drawbacks such as, inefficient rate system, inadequate cost allocation, and unclear division of ‘supervision’ and ‘management’.
As an alternative, Construction Management (CM) system was applied for optimal cost estimation in each process from project planning and design to construction and post-maintenance. As a result, averaged cost for project management over the zone was estimated approximately 21.7% when considering workload, personnel expenses, and other expenses (e.g., direct costs, overhead costs, etc) of management. In regard to the scale of projects, the projects taking under 0.5 billion won and over 0.6 billion won, were recommended to assign 28% and 15% of the total cost for management, respectively.
Finally on the basis of the analyses, about 15% of the total cost at least, is suggested to be assigned to ‘responsible management expenses’ in RCRP. Furthermore, in other Rural Development Projects, the special concerns in designing optimal workload and cost allocation would need to be taken considering level of 1) awareness of the importance, 2) workload, and 3) professionalism of general management.