He gave us a quick snapshot into his 21 years at Benchmark:

1. When did you start at Benchmark?

   June 2002

2. Can you describe your career journey with the company over the past 21 years?

   I have been through so many roles from support development, development, programming, testing, customer support, agile development, programming, DevOps, infrastructure, and developing corporate process.
   

3. What role do you have now?

   Head DevOps & Infrastructure
   

4. What attracted you to working at Benchmark and why have you stayed?

   I wanted a software development role locally (I live down the south coast of NSW) and I stayed because I got to work on so many different areas of the business and being a small company initially, I was able to work on tasks not restricted to my job title.
   

5. How many employees did Benchmark have when you started?

   We had 4 when we started and have grown into a 40+ strong team now.
   

10. What have been the biggest changes you have seen at Benchmark over the past 21 years?

    Without a doubt the transition from Benchmark Estimating Software on-premises into the cloud which has been an absolute game changer for us.
    
    

11. What are some of the key factors that have contributed to your long-term success within the company?

    Commitment to problem solving and just getting the job done.

12. Are there any memorable projects or achievements you’ve been involved in that you’d like to share?

    I enjoyed working with a client one on one to extract, transform and load their data from their existing product into Benchmark. It involved gathering the requirements, programming, testing and liaison with the client. Was the complete software development dream!
    
    

13. Looking back on your career, what are you most proud of achieving here?

    Getting to terms with some of the many aspects on how Microsoft Azure and AWS Cloud Infrastructure works.
    
    

14. Can you share any standout memories or experiences that have made your time here special?

    Playing cricket in the office with a tube of cardboard and rolled up paper and bonding with workmates while the managers were away

    But also programming the Roadworks Estimator and getting into the nitty gritty calculations on what goes into road construction. I never looked at roads the same after learning about all the different schedule items used in a road’s construction.

15. What are you most looking forward to for the future of the company?

    I am most looking forward to seeing the organisation continue to grow and expand globally and continuing to improve our infrastructure to ensure our clients are provided the best possible experience when using our solutions.

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According to research by British Water, the optimal delivery model for the water sector is one that combines the expertise of both the water company and their framework delivery partners. By utilising a collaborative approach and utilising Benchmark  Estimating Software, companies can ensure that their projects are completed on time, within budget, and to the highest standard.

One of the key challenges during AMP8 will be managing inflation. As prices for materials and Labor are expected to rise, it is important for companies to have a system in place to regularly adjust their estimates accordingly. This ensures that projects are not underfunded and that budgets are not exceeded. By incorporating inflation estimates into their overall project estimates, companies can ensure that they are able to meet the challenges of AMP8 head-on.

Another important factor to consider during AMP8 is the fluctuation of costs. The cost of materials and labour can vary greatly depending on factors such as location and availability. By regularly re-evaluating estimates, companies can ensure that they are not caught off guard by unexpected changes in costs. By forecasting costs using dynamic estimating and benchmark estimating software, companies can be better prepared for any challenges that may arise during AMP8.

In addition to managing inflation and fluctuating costs, dynamic estimating will also play a crucial role in managing changing timelines during AMP8. As projects progress, it is not uncommon for timelines to shift and change. By regularly re-evaluating estimates, companies can quickly adapt to these changes and ensure that projects are completed on time and within budget.

Water utilities will also need to manage their framework delivery partners effectively to ensure that projects are delivered on time and within budget. This includes having clear communication and regular meetings, setting performance targets, and holding partners accountable for meeting these targets. By effectively managing their framework delivery partners and utilising benchmark estimating software, water utilities can ensure that they are getting the best value for money and that projects are delivered to the highest standard.

In conclusion, dynamic estimating is essential for companies in the UK water sector, particularly during AMP8. By regularly re-evaluating estimates, effectively managing framework delivery partners, and utilising benchmark estimating software, companies can ensure that their projects are completed on time, within budget, and to the highest standard. This collaborative approach, as outlined by the research from British Water, will help companies to meet the new regulatory standards, stay competitive, and ensure a sustainable future for the industry.

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Works can include cleaning, gardening, security and maintenance but as the industry has become more complex additional skill including technical and financial expertise.

To help with the increasingly complexity. Many facility management companies are looking to cost estimating solutions to streamline operations and improve profitability.

The post How A Cost Estimating Solution Can Help Facility Managers appeared first on Benchmark Estimating Software.

Streamlined Processes

A considered and well thought through workflow can ensure all steps are not only clearly defined but follow a specific method, ensuring consistency.

This helps speed up the entire process while reducing errors and emissions.

Repetitive administrative tasks like data entry and calculations can also be automated, speeding up the process further and freeing up staff to focus on more complex areas of the cost estimate.

Better Collaboration

One of the main advantages of a cost estimating solution is the ability to collaborate, and workflows enhance this further.

Workflows ensure any changes to a cost estimate can be effectively communicated to other relevant stakeholders, reducing the chance of miscommunication and delays, ensuring everyone not only gets updates when required but they are working with the latest and up to date information.

Increased Transparency

By providing clear visibility into the broader cost estimate, workflows helps managers and stakeholders to monitor progress, identify bottlenecks, and make informed decisions.

In addition, the workflows enables an audit trail, allowing managers to track any changes.

Improved Accuracy

Workflows automate repetitive tasks, helping to reduce the chances of error, further ensuring the increased accuracy of the cost estimate.

In addition, by providing clear visibility into the cost estimating process, the software enables managers to identify and correct any inaccuracies before they become a problem.

In conclusion, a workflow in cost estimating software can greatly improve the efficiency of the cost estimating process. By streamlining processes, enabling better collaboration, increasing transparency, and improving accuracy, the software can help ensure that construction projects are completed on time, within budget, and to the highest standards. Whether you’re an estimator, a project manager, or a stakeholder, investing in cost estimating software with a robust workflow can make a significant difference to the success of your construction projects.

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Lachlan has over 25 years of experience in the technology space and most recently joins us from Telstra where he was Chapter Lead – Technology Product Ownership.

He joins us with experience in innovation and go to market of new Business Process Management (BPM) products, development of open-source Business Process Management systems, and working with customer engagement solutions for state government, health insurance and medium enterprises.

Lachlan also holds a PHD in Business Process Integration, completed in 2007.

Benchmark Estimating Software Chief Executive Officer Frank Prestipino said the entire organisation was excited at Lachlan’s appointment.

“It’s fantastic to have someone of Lachlan’s calibre leading our technology and product development teams at Benchmark Estimating Software and comes at the perfect time as we look to expand and improve our solutions.” Mr Prestipino commented.

Lachlan said he was looking forward to the challenge.

‘’It’s exciting to be at Benchmark Estimating Software which has an outstanding reputation in the industry and equally outstanding products which we want to continue make even better for our clients,” Lachlan said.

‘’Furthermore, the prospect of being able to develop new products and solutions for the market is something that particularly excites me, and I cannot wait to get stuck in.”

Lachlan’s appointment comes at an exciting time for Benchmark Estimating Software, with the recent announcement that Private Equity Firm Whiteoak has purchased a majority share in the business.

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After an extensive search, we have made the decision to partner with independent investment firm, Whiteoak who have has acquired a majority stake in the MacDonald Group of companies. The group consists of MIEngineers, Benchmark Estimating Software and sister company Benchmark Estimating Ltd in the United Kingdom.

As part of this deal, the businesses will receive a capital injection to assist with this transformation, providing our clients with even better solutions and services.

Frank Prestipino is delighted to continue as CEO of Benchmark Estimating Software in Australia, the UK and as we expand globally, and founder Rob MacDonald will be on the board.

Commenting on the news, Prestipino says the change will ultimately be beneficial to our clients.

“The Whiteoak partnership will enable us to keep what has made us successful while investing in areas to facilitate our growth into the future. We are proud of the legacy Benchmark Estimating Software has created and after a thorough due diligence process, we could not think of a better partner than Whiteoak. Their team has shown a deep understanding and respect for our history, our business and our people and we look forward to working with them over the next exciting phase of growth,” Prestipino said.

“Rest assured these changes will not impact the delivery of service or our commitment to current projects. On the contrary, over time, we will be increasing our resourcing, capabilities and efficiency of delivery which will only benefit our clients and future clients.”

The deal comes into affect immediately however it will continue to be business as usual for the Benchmark Estimating Software team.

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The new unit will provide specialised data, intelligence and insights services to Benchmark’s customers, including helping to assist with digital and data transformation, increasing automation, understanding insights and increasing and improving business intelligence. The unit unit will help customers make better sense of and utilise their cost estimating data.

Capabilities include:

• Data Migration
• Data Management
• API Integrations
• Business Insights
• Business Intelligence
• Analytics

Chief Executive Office Frank Prestipino said the new unit will provide clients with a complete end-to-end estimating capability, offering even greater value.

“We have assembled a specialised team that is highly skilled and experienced in delivering transformative organisational,” Mr Prestipino said.

“We know businesses – both large and small – are facing a myriad of economic challenges from Covid, supply chain disruptions, potential recession and the ongoing threat of looming global conflicts – and the key to survival is having better control over your business – and this means better access to and understanding of your cost estimating data. This unit will help deliver that.” he said.

Ujjwal Kashyap who will head up the unit comments that data has no value if its not being utilised properly.

‘’Data is almost like the new oil – oil has no use if you can’t extract, refine and process it into petroleum. Data is similar – you may have been generating, accumulating, and storing data for 10 maybe 20 years but if it’s just lying there, it has no value to anyone,” Kashyap says.

‘’This new unit will help make sense of the data, how it can better be utilised and turn it into something valuable to better benefit your organisation.”

In addition to launching the new unit, Benchmark Estimating Software is also launching three brand new solutions across BIM, Analytics, and Intelligence.

Benchmark Estimating Analytics: a software solution that uses historical project data to provide a transparent and consistent method to accurately predict future project costs.

Digital Estimator: a take off application that extracts data, measurements and quantities from the BIM to easily create or update Project Items and Variables in Benchmark Estimating Software.

Benchmark Insights: Reporting and Dashboarding solution that brings all your estimating data from different projects together to give you unique insights and understanding of your business. The graphical reports are intuitive, easy to understand and are interactive to give you complete control of what data to present and how the reports are consumed.

”We are incredibly excited to be launching three brand new solutions which can compliment our clients use of our core Benchmark Estimating Software but also be used completely separately as well,” said Mr Prestipino.

You can check out the launch webinar here.

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We all use software to capture, digitise, handle and integrate vast amounts of data within a company.  This process is often driven by short-term business value, such as capturing intellectual property or meeting regulatory compliance requirements. However, for a longer-term digital transformation to drive change within a company, we need to cleanse, manage and store it as organised, structured data.

The organised data now provides a company with a substantial chance to analyse and reveal changes that may be made to drive efficiencies across the company and deliver the value extracted from the data.

Why is data necessary for my business’ future?

Data analysis helps you understand how you got to where you are today. Moreover, it lets you to know how to get to where you want to be tomorrow.

Data allows you to:

• understand where you can improve
• pinpoint your weak spots
• manage risks associated with certain activities

Having access to statistically valid data helps companies know the right questions to ask and gives them a framework for deciding what’s important. But how can companies validate the integrity of the data they are working with and feel confident that it forms a good platform when driving critical changes within the business?

Enter, Statistics

The field of statistics is concerned with collecting, analysing, interpreting, and presenting data.

Statistics is the field that can help us understand how to use this data to:

• gain a better understanding of the world around us
• make decisions
• help make predictions

Many statistical tests make assumptions about the underlying data under study. Say you’re reading the survey results or even performing your analysis. It’s essential to understand what assumptions need to be made for the results to be reliable (e.g., does this information include outliers or have they been removed).

Descriptive statistics such as summaries, charts, and tables can help us better understand existing data. For example, if we want to calculate the average cost of an item, visualise the cost distribution depending on the region, or identify the frequency of an event, descriptive statistics can help. Using descriptive statistics, we can understand the cost information much quicker than just staring at the raw data.

However, we must be aware of the caveats

Unfortunately, charts can often be misleading if you don’t understand the underlying data. They can sometimes oversimplify complex information, or even introduce bias. An awareness of this bias can help you avoid misreading these specific charts.

Another aspect of data that needs to be understood is the relationship between confounding variables (e.g., missing location data). These variables are unaccounted for and can confound the results, leading to unreliable findings.

Multicollinearity is studied in data science and is becoming a critical tool in making data-based decisions. Understanding that the variables used for your analysis are independent is essential. Due to multicollinearity, we may get different coefficients (regression coefficients are the quantities by which the variables in a regression equation are multiplied) for the same factors, leading to wrong interpretations, which could have profound effects on your results.

Another question when studying data is how likely an event will happen. A basic understanding of the probability of an event happening can also help you make informed decisions in the real world.

Statistically, valid regression models can help companies dig deep into their data mine and unearth valuable information.

Now, let’s talk about regression models and estimating

Regression models (e.g., linear regression) make predictions about future phenomena. Each model allows you to make predictions of some variable based on the value of another variable (e.g., cost vs quantity).  Regression models are often presented in chart form. However, this chart only represents the regression model equation.

Companies can use regression models when doing top-down estimates. Top-down estimating is practical for the initial stage of strategic decision-making. Additionally, it is used when the information required to develop accurate duration and cost estimates is unavailable in the project’s initial phase. This is where using regression models to help predict a project cost can be convenient as the underlying data used to create the model had been built with statistically validated data and can provide reliable predictive project costs.

The benefits of Regression models

Using regression models, companies can quickly create ballpark project costs of different options and then use first principles to detail a feasible option.

Regression models can predict the asset value of company infrastructure installed around the country. Asset valuations often form part of the company’s annual letter to shareholders or for specific government regulatory requirements.

Regression models can:

• predict the cost of items that form part of a project without requiring supplier quotes
• predict the cost of all estimated projects compared to actual project costs and identify irregularities
• help fine-tune project costs and increase cost efficiency within your business without compromising quality
• aid in determining the outliers in your cost estimates and minimise risks associated with different interpretations of estimating data
• assess the effect of inflation within a project when forecasting a future cost with or without inflation impact applied
• perform regionalised cost analysis for a specific project item

Furthermore, as we capture all the underlying information as part of generating a regression model, it is fully transparent to satisfy regulatory and auditability requirements.

So, how do Regression models work?

Building a regression model requires multiple phases. We first must capture and cleanse the data. The analysis applied to this data is then validated by a set of statistics that guide the cost modeller when choosing the correct information to use as part of the data set that will be used for a regression model.

Once we generate a model, we must manage the entire life cycle. By this, we mean developing, updating, and archiving. When you are accessing years of estimated project data for analysis that does not require any re-keying of data when using the statistical application, Benchmark Estimating Analytics (BEA), it can unlock the intellectual property already contained within the data. This helps drive cost efficiencies within your business and future projects while providing your company with new insights.

We’re here to help make all this easy

Benchmark’s Data and Intelligence team can assist companies in data management. We help companies with information migration and management and access software tools to help develop project cost estimates using bottom-up and top-down methods. We can build dashboard summary views of critical intelligence in your business while maintaining data integrity.

It is our assumptions that give voice to the data, and the quality of these assumptions dramatically influences the quality of insights.

Much like William Edwards Deming (engineer, statistician, professor) quotes, “Without data, you’re just another person with an opinion.”

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Therefore, with Benchmark Estimating Software’s latest project and innovation, Version 8, the concept of automation has been harnessed to dodge the common pitfalls of remote working arrangements; those being time wasted on chasing up details and status, ill informed teams, and general frustration.

The History of the Project

Benchmark Estimating Software were approached by a large client from Europe, and they had significant issues and challenges being derived from a lack of management control over estimators, a lack of traceability, a lack of a way to record and analyse KPIs, and a general lack of visibility.

The brief was to solve their issues, but also to automate their estimating process.

Thus, we developed three new features for Version 8 – Project Tasks, Workbank and Workflows – each operating as an independent feature to boost the efficiency of a project’s team. But, when used in conjunction, these features can work together as an integrated solution – and that’s where the power of automation really comes through for your business.

A Deeper Dive into these new features:

•  Project Tasks

Tasks are the to-do lists for each individual involved in the estimate. It allows you to manage your daily tasks and set work-related goals.

• Workbank

Workbank is essentially a customisable dashboard for the entire project. For example, when an estimator comes into work they can get a quick, dynamic view of all open project tasks and statuses, and action them instantly.

Both tasks and Workbank are for the end user of the estimate, whereas the following feature – WorkFlow, is for Administrators.

• Workflow
  

Workflow allows for the routine business processes in your organisation to be automated in just a few clicks. It can be set up in the background of the Benchmark infrastructure to send emails, generate tasks, and do all manner of things to help the team focus on what’s important.

The benefits of automation

Teams who effectively utilise these three new features in conjunction with each other will be able to capitalise upon a host of benefits throughout the estimating process. These primarily being:

• Greater transparency across the team and organisation
• The elimination of the manual need to ring, email or message people regarding project statuses or updates
• The fact that everyone will know exactly what they have to do and by when
• Improved efficiency and effectiveness of estimating teams
• Increased Morale and Team Satisfaction

In Summary, Benchmark Estimating Software Version 8 gives organisations improved cost controls, more competitive estimates, and more accurate budgets through automation. Essentially, this means greater power to schedule, process, and deliver estimates of an extremely high calibre.

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