High Performance JOC = easy-to-use JOC Software with unparalleled support services, verifiable local market cost data, delivering the highest value to everyone. It’s that simple.
Four BT, LLC (4BT) provides a full range of products and services including:
• Construction cost data: objective, locally researched, granular, and standardized (organized using expanded CSI Masterformat and/or expanded UNIFORMAT based upon application)
• Construction Cost Estimating and Project/Program Management SaaS Technology
• Training: Multi-mode and multi-format training spanning various aspects of repair, renovation, maintenance, and new construction cost visibility and cost management.
• Support: Professional support for all 4BT products and services.
When done right, JOC becomes a platform for:
Verifiable cost control
Predictable, transparent pricing
Faster project completion
Reduced change orders and disputes
Strong, sustained owner–contractor partnerships
Collaboration, transparency, and trust drive high-performance outcomes.
#1. Drive optimal outcomes for all participants ensuring quality, timeliness, and lower costs and NEVER pay a percentage of JOC construction value!
#2. Access all cost data for your location, not just certain books!
#3. Dynamic cost data (updated quarterly, locally researched without the use of location factors, new lines added all the time)!
4BT construction costbooks are procurement-ready.
Procurement-ready cost data means:
Empirically derived from local market transactions
Trade-level, line-item granularity
Reflects prevailing wages, productivity, logistics
Auditable provenance and methodology
Suitable for binding contract pricing without index correction
4BT’s Alignment with Market Price Discovery
Primary Local Market Research
-Direct local labor, material, and equipment cost research
-Trade-level disaggregation
-Prevailing wage calibration
-No use of error intoducting location factors
(Source of below quoted information -ChatGPT – 20250703)
“🟢 1️⃣ Four BT, LLC
Best For:
- Owners and contractors seeking comprehensive, locally researched, line-item cost data (over 90,000 tasks)
- Detailed pricing that supports Job Order Contracting (JOC), Progressive Design-Build, and LEAN frameworks
How They Source Data: - Actual local market surveys of labor, materials, and equipment in each target region
- Updates quarterly
Why It’s Different: - Not just an index factor applied to a national baseline—Four BT develops custom localized cost books in partnership with owners and agencies.
- This is currently the most widely used U.S. solution for verified local cost data in the JOC space.
Where to Learn More:
👉 Four BT – www.4bt.us“
#4. Manage multiple JOC Programs or a single estimate!
#5. Simple annual subscriptione with no additional fees for data storage!
4BT is championing a future where everyone can make informed choices about the quality of the data that powers your repair, renovation, planning, and new build Planning, Procurement, and Project Delivery Processes.
To unlock the full potential of efficient lifecycle management of the built environment and achieve the economic and environmental benefits, we must all prioritize openness, reliability and set the highest standards for cost and techincal data and associated information sharing.
We must prioritize TRUST.
Current fee based (percentage of JOC construction value) requirements to use JOC software and services and/or use of national average cost data and location factoring do not maximize the benefits of either JOC Program or Integrated Project Delivery.
Traditional JOC models alsocoften produce siloed decision-making, misaligned incentives, and substantial waste in time, cost, and resources. The 4BT approach rethinks these defaults with a multi-party contract structure and a methodology centered around owner leadership, mutual respect, early and ongoing collaboration, and continuous process improvement.
Whether you need a total enterprise-level JOC solution, or bid/proposal creation, review, and approval only, 4BT has an easy-to-use, innovative solution to meet your requirements. All of our products directly address the issues with “traditional market-leading” approaches.
- Improve Processes
- Mitigate Risks
- Reduce Stakeholder Issues
- Improve the Project Schedule
- Reduce Overall Project Costs
- Reduce Operating Costs (no JOC Administration fee tied to JOC construction volume.)
- Dashboard
- Scope of Work Development and Mangemen
- Responsibility Management
- Comprensive Bid/Proposal Framework: Preparation, Automated Estimate Comparisions, Version Management, Copy/Paste, Cost Updating, Approval Processesd
- 80% reduction in proposal review time
- Up to 10x reduction in JOC Program Adminstration costs
- In use at County, State, City, and Federal levels, including DoD
DFARS, NIST SP 800-171, and CMMC Compliant – Azure Government Cloud Deployment
4BT Security Environment
Secure Collaboration Across ALL Phases of Construction Planning, Procurement, and Project Delivery
- NIST SP 800-171 G
- Plan of Action & Milestones (POA&M)
- Virtual Compliance Officer: Ongoing managed compliance programs that handle the administrative and technical upkeep required to stay audit-ready.
- Supplier Performance Risk System (SPRS) scores
- Network & Perimeter Defense: Managed firewalls, web filtering, and deep packet inspection (DPI) to block malicious data and hide networked systems from attackers.
- Identity & Access Management: Implementation of multi-factor authentication (MFA), least-privilege access, and secure remote maintenance controls.
- Endpoint & Data Protection: Deployment of EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response), full-disk encryption, and secure WiFi protocols.
- Continuous Monitoring: 24/7 network oversight and logging to meet NIST 3.3.x requirements for early threat detection and incident reporting.
- Employee Awareness Training: Security hygiene training for staff to recognize phishing and manage passwords correctly, which is mandatory for CMMC Level 2.
CMMC Level 2 Certified –The Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC 2.0) is a program by the Department of Defense (DoD) that aims to enforce the requirements of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 52.204-21, NIST SP 800-171 and 172, and the Final CMMC Rule. The program has three distinct levels of certification, each with its own set of requirements. Level 2 Advanced requires organizations to establish policies around each of the CMMC domains and document that their practices implement these policies. CMMC Level 2 introduces 93 new practices aligned with NIST SP 800-171 to the 17 controls in CMMC Level 1. Organizations must undergo third-party assessments for critical national security when working with sensitive, controlled information and an annual self-assessment when dealing with Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). Plan of Action & Milestones (POA&M)
Reasons why many “traditional ” JOC programs fail
Traditional Job Order Contracting (JOC) programs often promise faster procurement, but this speed frequently comes at the expense of value.
❌Procurement speed prioritized over long-term value
❌ Overreliance on external JOC consultants instead of building owner capacity
❌ High JOC administration costs that quietly erode project budgets
❌ Generic or outdated cost data instead of objective, current, locally researched pricing
❌ Limited owner leadership, capacity, and accountability
❌ Poor JOC education across stakeholders, leading to inconsistent outcomes
4BT is advancing JOC program value by:
✅ Integrating Owner and Design/Builder teams within robust, transparent processes
✅ Enabling teams to build and retain knowledge
✅ Using verifiable current local market data, eliminating error-prone market-average databases and cost “factors” to simulate localization
The result is a JOC program that delivers both speed and defensible value from concept through closeout.
JOC Software
4BT – JOC done right.
Context
- JOC defined: Job Order Contracting is a project delivery method that allows organizations to more efficiently engage awarded JOC design/builders for numerous small, repetitive, and often undetermined projects under one long-term, competitively bid contract. It is meant to reduce the time and expense of repeated bidding for small projects and also improve overall outcomes.
- Four BT, LLC (4BT): Four BT (4bt.us) is a consultancy, local market cost data, and software provider for JOC and other collaborative project delivery methods. The company’s website contains multiple articles and FAQ pages explaining the risks of poorly managed JOC programs (4bt.us).
The fact that many “traditional” JOC implementations fall short is supported by various industry audits and analyses. Common reasons for failure include:
- Poor management and oversight: A lack of robust internal controls and proper oversight can lead to inefficiencies, cost overruns, and potential fraud.
- Misuse of the program: Some owners incorrectly use JOC to bypass standard procurement safeguards, allowing projects to be approved without proper oversight.
- Non-compliance with pricing: Some contracts fail to follow the agreed-upon pricing guidelines based on the program’s Unit Price Book (UPB). This includes relying heavily on “non-prepriced” tasks that were not part of the original competitive bid, which can inflate costs and diminish transparency.
- Flawed cost data: Inaccurate or outdated cost data is a major pitfall. Using national average cost data and generic “localization factors” instead of researching current, granular, and local market costs can lead to significant budgetary errors. Also, the use of economic factors to update cost data also introduces significant error.
- Consultant conflicts of interest: Problems can arise when third-party JOC consultants are paid based on a percentage of construction volume. This can incentivize them to inflate project costs or exploit weak oversight, resulting in higher costs for the owner.
- Inadequate training and documentation: A lack of training for staff on how to use the contract, as well as insufficient documentation and project tracking, can hinder a program’s success.
How Four BT addresses these problems
Four BT positions its own services and products as a solution to these common JOC failures by promoting a “best practices” approach based on proven Lean construction principles. Their approach includes:
- Local cost data: They provide locally researched and regularly updated cost data for labor, materials, and equipment. This replaces the inaccurate national average data used in many programs and the use of location or economic factoring.
- Owner-managed approach: Four BT advocates for programs managed directly by the owner, supported by software and training, rather than relying on conflicted consultants paid per volume.
- Process and technology: They provide robust software for cost estimating and project management to ensure transparency, organization, and adherence to process.
- Cost transparency: The emphasis on local, detailed, and verifiable cost data aims to increase cost visibility and reduce financial risk for the owner or design/builder.
The OpenJOCTM Framework is a robust governance tool spanning talent, process, information, and technology.
Manage single or multiple JOC Projects with different Contracts, Contractors, Subs, Proposals, Projects, and Work Orders, as well as maintain structured workflows, project documents, and approvals.
- Generate comprehensive status and performance information that deliver actionable insights.
- Enable internal and external planning, procurement, and project delivery teams to focus upon driving progress on-site.
- Designed to enable real property owners and design-builders capture and retain knowledge, the 4BT-PEP JOC Solution tells you precisely what your project status is, how much progress teams are making, and what issues require attention.
- Automatically identify installations that do not conform to design drawings, that may require rework or cause schedule delays.
- Leverage over 90,000+ dyanamic line-item local market construction tasks updated quarterly without any need for location or economic factoring.
- Validate contractor and subcontractor costs and requirements in a fraction of the time.
- Intuitive to use for anyone familiar with dashboards and spreadsheets.
- Full reporting capabilities include the ability to download ALL your information at any time.
- Keep project teams focused on driving progress while keeping stakeholders fully informed.
- Full training and support services are provided to ensure maximum success for the 4BT JOC Solution.
- A fraction of the cost of “industry leading” JOC providers.
Four BT exclusively provides a dynamic unit price book. We consistently review and update our locally researched Unit Price Book cost data quarterly to mitigate obsolete or unnecessary line items. Unlike others, our UPB is easy-to-understand, and easy-to-use.
The ONLY Systems thinking-based OpenJOC Solution – Create an efficient and auditable flow of information lasting throughout the contract lifecycle
Improved visibility into cost, schedule, and quality for every project in your portfolio
- Work as a team, smart, efficient, and improving over time.
- Reduce unnecessary administrative work and costs through standardized processes, automation, and advanced tools.
- Better understand cost and technical requirements and clearly communicate a detailed Scope of Work.
- Improve quality management and performance through defined and fully integrated planning, procurement, and project delivery phases.
- Fully defined granular construction tasks-repair, renovation, maintenance, and new build.
- Owners and contractors are empowered to build and retain knowledge.
- Instantly accessible current, actionable information.
- Multi-level, multi-format training and support.
- Quantitative key performance indicators.
- Proven.
Share time, experience, and wisdom and to foster a culture of collaboration, openness, empowerment, and care.
Create a sole source of integrated project information and simplify your JOC Program.
Enhance decision-making, stamp out wasteful procurement practices, and reduce administrative burden.
CMMC v2 Level 2, DFARS 252.204-7012, FedRamp Moderate Equivalent.
Whether you have a current JOC Program or are planning one, 4BT solutions improve cost control and increase transparency by centralizing information and integrating planning, procurement, and project delivery teams within a single platform, providing superior cost data, and enabling mutually beneficial outcome
Key JOC Program Considerations
- Ensure knowledge and understanding of JOC Program objectives, goals, and requirements
- Optimize asset management decision-making strategy
- Enable collaborative project planning and management workflows
- Monitor resource requirements and management
- Evaluate procurement strategies
- Establish maintenance principles, techniques and processes as applicable
- Review regulatory compliance requirements
- Standardize documentation and control policies and procedures
- Engage in performance monitoring and improvement
- Require initial and ongoing training for all participants
4BT JOC Software exclusively provides the following capabilities to enable owner and contractor teams to consistently achieve best value outcomes.
Consistently deliver projects on-time & on-budget
Give your planning, procurement, and project delivery managers the integrated systems then need quickly identify and resolve problem.
- Contract Management- Gain control, reduce risk, and ensure compliance by viewing all your JOCs from one central location.
- Deliver projects on time and on budget by applying best practices and standards.
- Track dollars without the need for complex spreadsheets and monitor committed, in process, and used funds.
- Real-time risk profile across all your JOC project and workorders.
- System tracking prevents errors and time loss due to lost emails or files.
- Track the actual timelines and costs versus scheduled.
- Securely access (CMMC Level 2 Certification) information from anywhere at any time, as wll as manage budgets, commitments, notifications, and changes with enterprise cloud-based technology.
- Monitor contract notifications with a centralized auditable view of notifications across all JOC contracts, projects, proposals, and workorders.
- Achieve cost visibility and cost management capability via the integration of current, local market granular cost data.
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Instant access to full line-item descriptions, internal and contractor notes, proposals, workorders, contracts, JOC programs, linked documents, budget and project status, and more!
JOC Enterprise Management Solution
JOC SOFTWARE OVERVIEW – 4BT-PEP – PROCUREMENT EDITION FOR OWNERS
Proven Cost Control & Management Solution
- Activity Dashboard
- Approval and Verification Process
- Asset/Component Management
- Audit trail capture (state transitions log, WIP versions, issuing and transmittals)
- Automated Estimate Comparison
Best Value JOC Software Solution - Bid Management
- BIM Model Integration, Information Viewing/Access
- Building/Site/Location Management
- Budget and Estimate versus Actual and Committed Budget Tracking
- Change Order Management
- Check-in check-out System
- Collaboration Tools
- Contract Management
- Contractor Management
- Contractor Certifications Management
- Contractor MBE/WBE Management and Tracking
- Contractor Proposal/Bid Management
- Credentials/License Management
- Data Input Rules
- Data Export & Reporting – CSV, PDF, Full Data Dumps, Summary and Detailed Proposal Reports
- Document Management – Full check-in/check-out and changes management
- Estimating – Rapidly Search, Access, Select Unit Price Book Line Items, Build Estimates, Copy/Paste Estimates
- Forms Integration and Approval Workflow Tracking
- Information Archival
- Internal Messaging and System Notifications
- Issues Management
- MBE/WBE Tracking and Management
- Mobile Access
- Notifications and Alerts
- Non-Prepriced (NPP) Line Item and NPP Cost Management (Owner only and shared)
- Notes @ Line-Item Level and Higher Levels
- On-line Collaborative Proposal Review
- Password Rules
- Permissions Management
- Program Management
- Project Management
- Project Tracking
- Proposals/Quotes/Estimates
- Reduced Risk with Program/Portfolio Control of Contracts, Bids/Proposals, Projects, Workorders, and Documentation
- Reporting & Statistics
- Space Management
- Stage and Status Tracking – Dates, Durations, # of Proposal Iterations, etc.
- Subcontractor Management
- Task Management
- Team Management
- Unit Price Book Management
- Version Control System
- Workflows
- Work Order Management
CONFIGURABLE, FLEXIBLE, EXTENSIBLE
4BT software is the most powerful available, and just ridiculously easy for construction teams to use!
We needed extraordinarily little training to be up and running.
– Public Sector Facilities Owner
You don’t need costly consultants to run a JOC Program with 4BT’s solution.
– County Public Works Organization
Benefits
- Cost reductions
- Improved schedule performance, milestones achieved, time saved
- Improved Client Satisfaction
- Reduced rework
- Improved use of available funds
- Better quality of life for participants
Making complex contracts easy to manage.
Why select the 4BT Knowledge-based JOC Solution?
- Easy to manage permissions to keep their confidential information private.
- Consistently assure a detailed scopes of work
- Easily create and review proposals
- Manage the full program and project life cycle from initial need through warranty
- Leverage locally researched line-item repair, renovation, maintenance, and new construction cost data
- Assure all internal and internal teams access the same current information
- Manage contractors and subcontractors
- Track timelines and costs at all phases
- Fully compliant and auditable
Our enterprise technology supports a culture that drives internal and external participants to focus upon clearly defined, mutually beneficial outcomes.
Our solution goes beyond buildings to include horizontal infrastructure and open spaces. The integration of program management, contract management, and work order management saves you time and money, enabling you to act on needs more efficiently.
And you can now implement your JOC Program for a fraction of the cost of “percentage fee-based” solutions.
It’s about time, right!
View Status of Programs, Contracts, Projects, and Work Orders at a Glance
Store, browse, and maintaine multikple unit price books and coefficients.
Create and Manage Multiple JOC Programs
Create, Review, and Approve Detailed Line Item Estimates and Notes
- Cloud based SaaS – Software as a Service
- Collaborative
- Secure- CMMC Level 2 Compliance
- Transparent
- Fast
- Easy to Use
- Compliant
- Best Value
- Rapid Access to Current Unit Price Book – UPB
The Role of Technology
Technology should support your organization and, more specifically, help to assure that proven processes are deployed consistently, made more efficient, and properly monitored.
In many ways, JOC Software technology should be “hidden”, simply a tool to enable collaboration, transparency, improved productivity, and continuous improvement.
JOC Consultant
What is LEAN Job Order Contracting?
- A Practical, not a theoretical Solution
- Single Project/Work Order Amount – Guaranteed, Fully Visible, Transparent and Verifiable Costs
- Shared Risk/Reward
- Team Focus upon Outcomes
- Financial and Technical Alignment of Planning, Design, Procurement, and Construction / Project Delivery
- Removal of Traditional Silos
- Team-based – The right people are developed and maintained for the right projects
- Mandatory third-party, independent audits of every contractor proposal
- Knowledge retention and skill building
- Better leverage of local contractors
- Implementation of Lean Concepts, Practices and Tools into traditional JOC framework
- Creation and Support of a Collaborative Culture
- Adaptive management
- Mandatory Initial and Ongoing Training for ALL Participants & Stakeholders
- Owner engagement, support, and leadership (Owner is always aware of project status and progress)
- Program Centric versus Project Centric (A Program is a portfolio of projects, each of which follows fundamental guidelines)
- Robust process embedded into enabling technology
- Twenty percent to forty percent more efficient than traditional methods
- A deliberate strategy supported by a written execution guide, common data environment, and continuous improvement
Improve Outcomes. Any asset. Any time. Anywhere.
Owners need to meet obligations, keep promises, and make decisions based on the timing and needs of internal and external teams.
- Optimize Outcomes. Empower teams to leverage efficient best practices and proven workflows to consistently drive quality and performance.
- Mitigate Risk. Protect against errors, omissions, delays, and disputes with detailed locally researched unit price cost data, compliance records, and accurate historical information.
Sixty-two percent of construction professionals STILL transfer field data manually or via spreadsheets. Don’t be one of them for your active projects.
Supported by experienced program managers, cost estimators, and industry thought leaders
Our team has decades of experience supporting and life cycle costing all sizes of facilities portfolios, programs, and projects. We speak your language, however, add to your knowledge and capabilities on an ongoing basis.
Built on industry best practices
Our solutions deploy robust, proven best management practices and industry standards. LEAN processes are embedded in everything we do. We also are partners with CSI and leverage, and expand upon, the CSI MasterFormat data architecture to assure all estimates are built and communicated to assure best current and future value.
Better quality in less time
By using 4BT’s solution set you develop more detailed, clearer, and reliable scopes of work and dependable cost estimates in a fraction of the time. A reliable estimate is based upon locally researched granular line-item construction cost data and your expertise and is fully transparent throughout the project life cycle.
Reliable Cost Data
A dependable cost estimate can only be achieved by using locally researched detailed line-item construction cost data. Our cost databases are second to none in this area.
If you can find another partner that can support your organization’s JOC Program in all the below areas…. call them… otherwise we would love to learn more about your requirements.
- Version Control
- Detailed and Dashboard Reporting
- Meeting Scheduling, Tracking
- Project Directory
- Documents and Forms Templates
- Policy Documentation
- Workflow Creation and Management
- Task and Issues Management
- Version Control and Full Document Management
- Contractor/Subcontractor Mangement
- MBW/WBE Management
- Project Progress Tracking
- Budget Tracking
- Project Approvals and Close Out
- PDF, Video, and On-Screen Tutorials
- Local Market Cost Data Updated Quarterly
- Project Management Team Role Descriptions
- Discrepancy Reporting
- Document/Data Access and Revision Recommendation Log
- Building Information
- CMMC Level 2 Compliance
- Project Budget
- Contract Budget
- Request for Proposal
- Estimate Creation, Review, Revision Tracking
- Decision Log
- Project Task Log
- Change Order Monitoring and Tracking
- Status Reporting
- Line Item and Project Level Notes
- Project Acceptance Form
- Project Closure Report
- Direct access to BIM/Drawings
- Schedule of Deliverables
- Scope of Services – Detailed and Overview
- Communication Strategy
- Labor, Materials Quantities
- Project Checklist
- Preventive Maintenance Checklists
- Preventive Maintenance Frequencies
- PM Costs
- Statement of Work
- Project Scope
- Project Proposal
- Communications Requirements Analysis
- Cost Change Tracking