Cost control of urban engineering projects under the EPC mode

In the traditional project management process, there are several issues in the stages of design, procurement, and construction. The engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) engineering general contracting mode has become the mainstream approach for reducing costs and increasing efficiency in large-scale urban infrastructure projects. This paper briefly introduces the EPC mode for engineering project implementation. A case study was conducted on the cross-river passage project within a city of China. Combined with the implementation logic of the EPC mode, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy comprehensive analysis method were used to evaluate and analyse the cost control effect of the engineering project. It was found that the construction stage was the core of cost control in EPC municipal engineering projects. Parallel resource utilisation, dynamic target monitoring, and change claim management were the key points. The current imperfect procurement and on-site construction control mechanisms were the main reasons for the low overall cost control level. The AHP combined with the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method could achieve quantitative analysis of the entire process cost of EPC projects.