Here’s the fast and best value path to Job Order Contract Cost Estimating.

4BT-CE is the estimating and LEAN construction delivery component of Building in Cloud.  4BT-CE embeds integrated project delivery best management practices, including the OpenJOC^TM process, to enable higher levels of collaboration among owners, contractors, subcontractors, building users, and oversight groups.

4BT-CE provides many benefits to users and the user organizations. Below a brief outline of the many benefits, features, and capabilities provided.

Estimating Features

•  Detailed line item construction cost estimating, as well as program, project, and document management
• Supports multiple Unit Price Books and other Detailed Line Item Commercial Construction Costs Databases
• Support for multiple JOC Coefficients, multiple Locations, multiple Contractors, multiple Subcontractors, multiple JOC Programs…
• CSI Masterformat (TM) UPB format (50 Division) used for data organization
• Electronic estimating — directly access, search, and use pricing guides without physical books, paper, or PDFs.
• Full description of line items, in plain English using common industry terms, including crews, output, material, labor, and equipment costs.
• Minimal use of confusing abbreviations or acronyms
• Powerful search engine tools to find unit price line items quickly – Keyword search, Masterformat number, search, and Navigational Tree
• Ability to tag and input multiple line items into an estimate
• Easily locate any items lacking a quantity (highlighted in ‘yellow’)
• Reports calculate and detail Prepriced (sourced from current JOC UPB) and non-prepriced line items, and show associated percentages of total estimating and total dollar amounts.
• Ability to add and report notes at the line item level, estimate, or project level.

Project & Document Management Features

• Progam, Project, and Document Management tools
• Manage document templates to be used repeatedly on projects
• Organize and locate all project documents in one common place
• Document “check out/check in” assures everyone is working on the same current version
• Mutliple permission levels can be assigned relative to document viewing, editing, etc.

General Features

• Support for an unlimited number of users
• Compliant with advanced security protocols
• Pure cloud technology – Only requires an internet browser (Google Chrome recommend, though operable in all common browsers),. Excel™ and Adobe PDF™ are used for exporting, report viewing, etc.
• Report generation and export to Excel™ or Adobe PDF™
• Document version control
• Document access control
• Intuitive user interfaces
• DWG, Revit, PDF, viewers
• GPS mapping/visualization

Benefits

• Tracks and manages all projects in one program
• Enables team to share CURRENT information in REALTIME – Allows designated team members to access and/or edit assigned documents and share information/expertise
• Reduces time spent creating and managing documents
• Electronically supports contract pricing requirements
• Support and training from a team that has decades of experience LEAN consturction delivery and life-cycle facilities / infrastructure asset management.
• Monitors and helps to assure compliance with program requirements
• Properly implemented, delvers 90%+ of renovation, repair, and new construction projects on-time, on-budget, and to the satisfaction of all participants and stakeholders.

From the you home screen, click on the ”Estimating” command from the side menu bar, as shown:

 

 

Single click on “4BT-CE” drop down, and “Cost Estimating” drop down arrows as required to access the “Home”, “Pricelist”, and “Browse Estimates” commands.

 

 

4BT-CE-Home

Clicking on “Home” provides a dashboard for your “Recent Estimates” and your “Price list” (Unit Price Books/UPBs) as shown below.

 

 

• Edit an existing estimate by clicking on it.
• Create a “New” estimate in the same “Building” by clicking on the “New” button.
• See all estimates by clicking the “See all” button.
• Or Browse a price list by selecting a “Year”, and “Location”.

Browse Price List (UPB)

Click on “Browse Pricelist”, and you can search through any selected avalable price database/price book.

Browse the “Pricelist” by:

1. Masterformat Section/Number Tree
2. Keyword Search, or
3. Using the Scroll Bar.

 

Manage the Pricelist

 Manage Estimates

Click on “Manage Estimates” to view, edit, or add new estimates.

 

 

The “Manage Estimates” command provides list view of your estimates, and the ability to perform multiple actions:

• Open an estimate by clicking on the check box (also referred to at “Tagging”) and then clicking “Open”
• Create a new estimate in the same building by clicking on “New”.
• Edit an existing building estimate by clicking on the check box (Tag) and then clicking “Edit”.
• Remove a building estimate by clicking on the check box (Tag) and then clicking “Delete”.
• Double click an estimate to open the estimate and edit line items.

 

 

 

To edit the estimate name, description, or coefficient, Tag the estimate and click “Edit”.  You can then change the appropriate fields.

 

 

Security Features

• Password protected
• Encryption
• System administrator role
• All databases are secured/locked – pricing guide ORIGINAL LINE items cannot be changed or modified. The ORIGINAL LINE item can be used to create a CUSTOM LINE item.
• Multiple user/security levels (up to five)
• Full raid backup
• View only mode/capability
• Multiple data centers (up to six): Access to confidential information are only to authorized staff. Controlled access, Network Operation Center (NOC) is supervised 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  Redundancy between the NOC and two centers.
• Risk prevention – Compliance with seismic laws
• Separation of electrical system and batteries in special buildings monitored, refrigerated and protected against fire. Physical separation between the power center and the server room with two power distribution units for each rack cabinet.  Fuel storage capacity of over 48 hours for emergency power.
• Logical Security- Respect of laws in force on IT and network security, management plan of IT incidents, troubleshooting, escalation, and incident management
• Physical Security- Automatic smoke and fire detection systems fitted in the server rooms, under the raised floor, and above the false ceiling. Inert gas protection systems fitted in the sensitive areas.
• Interception and interruption systems of fuel to the generators in case of fire. Liquid detection system to guarantee promptness in case of leaks or floods.
• Certifications – ISO 9001:2008 Certification
• Design, management, developing and provisioning of Data Center services, Dedicated Servers, Virtual Servers, Housing, Hosting, Cloud Oriented Solutions in IaaS, SaaS and PaaS mode, Certified (PEC) and conventional electronic mail, digital signature and qualified signature, graphometric signature, and other technological solutions of advanced electronic signature, remote signature, Certification Authority services, Public Key (PKI) or information security related infrastructure Document Dematerialization. Backup and Disaster Recovery
• Tier 4*/Rating 4 – the data centers have been designed and built according to the Tier 4*/Rating 4 redundancy specifications (The Highest Possible Level).

Service Level Agreement

• 100% uptime on an annual basis for electricity and/or air conditioning
• 95% uptime on an annual basis and accessibility via the Internet to the virtual infrastructure created and allocated.
• Planned maintenance – Time for planned maintenance is not counted in the uptime calculation.
• Planned maintenance concerns activities regularly carried out to maintain the functionality of the
• Data Center resources by means of which the Service and the physical nodes that host the virtual infrastructure is provided both ordinary and extraordinary. The implementation of the maintenance operations will be communicated to the Customer by Aruba with at least 48 hours’ notice by email sent to the email address indicated in the order phase. Every reasonable effort to carry out the planned maintenance tasks at times with minimal impact to the Customer’s virtual infrastructure will be made.
• Detecting failures and/or faults – Any failures and/or faults of the resources of the Data Center by means of which the Service or the physical nodes that host the virtual infrastructure created and allocated by the Customer is provided, shall be reported by the Customer by opening a service ticket. Failures or faults can be reported by the Customer to the support service 24 hours a day. Any reports received will be promptly forwarded to the technical support respecting the chronological order of receipt. Monitoring of the Data Center is carried out using specific software packages that detect and indicate any failures or faults by notifying the Data Center support team, which operates 24/7, 365 days a year in real-time.