One of the most common phrases inany construction project has to be'How far over budget are you?' In

fact, it is almost an accepted position thatthe final cost of a project will be some wayover the initial estimated cost. And that is inspite of all of the project and financialmanagement tools that we bring to bear onthe subject.The problem is that, lacking a suitable

dedicated solution, contractors have reliedon the good old Excel spreadsheet - acurse as much as a blessing, as the effortinvolved in setting up and maintaining acomplex spreadsheet tended to exhaustthe originator, and precluded them fromexploring the deeper reaches of itscapabilities, or the possibilities that couldbe found with other systems.Excel spreadsheets tend to be realtime

systems, and don't provide easy access tohistorical data, or the means to use thatdata to qualify current information and tomake value judgements on it. They forceoperators to undertake much repetitivework, and manual re-entry, leading toerrors, or to create complex macros thatcan be ultimately deciphered solely by theircreators. The above problems exist because Excel

is not a database, and if users try to use itas one they’ll find that it has some severe

limitations. And yet in spite of all this Excelis still the tool of choice for manycompanies doing cost estimating.

WHAT IIS CCOST EESTIMATING?To get down to real basics, cost estimatingis the counting of how many bricks yourequire to build a wall, the cost of labour tobuild it, and equipment and other costsassociated with the job - material, labour,equipment, subcontractor andconsumables. These are pretty much thesame around the country - except ofcourse for London, where costs tend to berather higher than they are in Somerset -and are classed as resources. Resourcesare held on Relational Resource CostDatabases, and can be applied to anyapplication that can present it withquantities and volumes to come up withaccurate estimation of costs. One such application is CostOS,

developed by Nomitech. Recognising theneed for an effective estimating system forthe construction industry, Nomitech,founded in 2005, has brought togetherspecialists in software development, AECand EPC project management, planningand contracting to develop a powerfulsolution that would lead the market. The company also works with leading

universities to hone its estimating product

further, and to date has supplied majorEuropean PPP projects and a number of oiland gas projects in the Middle East. Todaythe estimating suite, CostOS, is sold in 15countries around the world, and itsimplementations are expanding fast.CostOS Estimating has been designed to

streamline the estimating process, locatingand extracting costs from the millions ofhistorical entries in such databases (byutilising Google-type algorithms) to provideplanners with a solid cost basis for theirplans - and, of course, to resolve thelimitations of MS Excel spreadsheets. Itallows users to assign resources andcreate WBS and Group codes, usingartificial intelligence to simplify and speedup the process of building project relatedresource databases. CostOS also works over the web, so that

teams of estimators can work on projects,with refinements, such as colour-coding ofBOQ items, roles of users and statistics tofacilitate rapid assimilation of data. To provide a complete solution from

design to implementation of a project,CostOS is able to work directly with both2D drawings and 3D models, extracting thequantities that are required to calculatecosts. At the other end, it can be set up tointeract with project planning solutions -such as Oracle's Primavera, or Asta Power

Counting bricks

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In this current climate of austerity, with its drive to make projects more efficient, it is more importantithan ever to ensure that cost estimates are accurate

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Project - to provide additional planninginformation and get updated by the projectplan, so that, for instance, extendeddeadlines with increased labour resourcerequirements can be brought into theplanning calculations, or new quantities thatare brought into the estimate can bereflected in the project's total duration.

MAINTAINING DDATABASESThere are a number of organisations thatdevelop and maintain cost databases,such as Reeds (RS Means) Database,Richardson's, Spon's and NODOC, etc.Using these databases through CostOSenables you to keep track of costs, utilisingCostOS's powerful search engines to findpriced items and, if necessary, allow themto be amended to suit a particular project'sneeds. Such databases store largeamounts of historical data, and can also beused by companies to build their own costdatabases. Nomitech, realising the value of such

relational cost resource databases and theneed to keep them constantly updated forits customers, does it all for you - anotherwise onerous task if you rely on yourown data or an Excel spreadsheet.Databases that are resource related, likethose above, can also be appliedinternationally, with estimators able toamend the productivities, salaries, materialprices and even currencies and apply themin each country. CostOS also takes intoaccount the local fuel prices and accuratelycalculates the equipment operating costs,which play a major role in heavy civilprojects. Users also have the ability to accurately

calculate their equipment depreciationcosts, and make predictions of futurematerial and subcontractor prices basedon trends created on their historical data.

3D TTAKEOFF TTOOLNow we come to the nitty-gritty. Havingensured that costs can be calculated usingup-to-date resource/cost databases, weneed to ensure that resources andmaterials reflect the current state of thedesign - or the project. That is, we need toensure that the estimate and the scheduleare in sync with each other.Estimates can be imported into Primavera

as resource-loaded lists of activities withactivity durations, WBS codes andbudgeted units, so that planners can startputting in the logic that drives the projectplan, or Primavera Projects can be loadedinto CostOS for the estimators to startcalculating the costs. However, utilising thebenefits of BIM, we can go one step further.Having previously developed the

integration with On Center's 2D cost Takeofftool, with which estimators could performTakeoffs from PDF or DWG files and storethe quantities in the On-Screen Takeoffdatabase, subsequently linking thequantities with the estimate, Nomitech nowenables estimators to work on a 3D modeland read-off the resources and the costrequired to build it - a cost-loaded 3Dmodel! Estimating directly on the modeldramatically reduces the time it takes toprovide a detailed estimate - and we aretalking minutes, instead of days! With just acouple of clicks, estimators can pick upquantities of materials from all the leadingBIM systems, ArchiCAD, Autodesk Revit,Bentley Architecture and AllPLan -processes that normally take hours ofmanual effort.Using CostOS with On-screen Takeoff

enables changes to the design that affectresources to be implemented immediately,at the click of a button - and if CostOS isalso integrated with a Project Planningsystem they will be reflected there as well.

STREAMLINING TTHE RRFQ PPROCESS Almost all general contractors' tenderingdepartments spend about 40% of their timespeaking with subcontractors and suppliersasking them to submit their offers on theprojects they are about to bid. Thisinformation is usually lost after the tender issubmitted in the case of lost bids. CostOS'slatest version, 3.8, streamlines this processand allows this effort to become aknowledge base for next bids. The estimators have the ability to

automatically create emails with Requestfor Quote (RFQ) in Excel format and sendthem to subcontractors or suppliers thatare kept in their database. There is a"pending flag" next to the supplier/subcontractor on these BOQ items until thelatter's Quote is received. In that case theuser can manually award winning quotes,or do it automatically based on criteria suchas lowest quote, median, or based on thesupplier's/subcontractor's ranking. Thesequotes are also stored in the database asresources and estimators can refer to themand even create trends based on theirdata. Very large estimates with thousandsof items can be completed very easily, andmore importantly in a well organised andconsistent manner.This leads us into an unusual situation -

planners and estimators being able to sitdown together and work out the effect ofdesign changes on resources, materialsand ultimately costs, providing the toolsthat they need to make strategic decisionsand keep their project in budget. And whystop there? Clients can be invited along toplanning sessions to view the 3D model,enabling them to see at first hand what theirproposed modifications would do to thecost of the project, as well as to the timescale needed to construct it.www.nomitech.eu

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