As the real estate market in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) experiences an upturn, contractors are looking for ways to enhance their efficiency and competitiveness in the bidding process. For three Abu Dhabi-based contractors recently, Causeway Estimating was the obvious choice.

Causeway Estimating is more than just a pricing tool. It is a complete tendering solution that significantly reduces the time and cost of producing bids. This was a key factor in its selection by MACE Contractors, IMECO and Silver Coast Construction & Boring.

Paul Madeira, Causeway Chief Operating Officer, commented:

“Small to medium sized contractors can spend an average of 100 hours on each bid, yet statistics show they may only win one in eight. Causeway Estimating will not only help these companies produce accurate bids faster, it will also provide them with clearer visibility of risk, cost and it will enable them to take full advantage of value engineering opportunities.”

IMECO (International Mechanical & Electrical Co) is a mechanical and electrical contracting company that works in various fields of engineering, construction and maintenance in both the oil & gas and government sectors. As well as introducing Causeway Estimating to streamline its bid production, the company will be making use of CADMeasure for automated quantities measurement from 2D CAD and PDF drawings.

MACE (Mechanical and Civil Engineering Contractors Company LLC) provides a range of services to municipalities and oil and gas companies. Causeway Estimating will play a key role in producing accurate bids in much less time. The same is true of Silver Coast Construction & Boring LLC, a diversified civil construction company that will be using Causeway Estimating to support its six-strong estimating team bidding on projects throughout the UAE.

Find out more about Causeway Estimating and CADMeasure.

“Few things in life save time, reduce costs and are environmentally beneficial. E-Invoices truly can achieve all three,” he notes. “The past 20 years have seen a gradual process of acceptance that paper-based invoice exchange and the manual re-keying of data is simply not an efficient way to move information between different software products,” he continues.

He also points out that the adoption rate of E-Invoicing is rising at around 20-30% in the private sector (Billentis’ 2012 E-Invoicing Report), while the UK government has not moved to require such adoption within the public sector.

“Full adoption (by the UK public sector) could save around £4-6bn a year. The wider economic benefits are projected to be more like £22bn-£28bn a year – and for only modest levels of investment,” he suggests.

Tim Cole goes on to explain that e-invoicing services, such as the Tradex platform operated by Causeway, play a key role in facilitating market adoption. He also outlines the key criteria to set when selecting a service provider.

Tim Cole is Executive Vice President of Strategy at Causeway and chairman of the BASDA (Business Application Software Developers Association) eBusiness SIG.

For further information visit the Causeway Tradex site.

Follow Tim Cole on Twitter – @TimColeCauseway

Advanced Waste, Pirtek and Carter Cabin, for instance, have all adopted fully integrated connections to Tradex to allow them to send documents electronically to a customer already using Tradex. Other new users include R Bunton Limited, Encon Insulation, Van Line Limited, Grafton Merchanting GB Ltd and Saints Personnel Ltd.

A key benefit of the Tradex hub is the speed and simplicity of implementation, so that the benefits of connecting can be achieved in a matter of days. Companies that only handle small numbers of documents are able to take advantage of the free Tradex Active service initially, with the option to introduce additional modules in the future.

Tradex customers are reporting reductions in the cost of processing invoices by up to 63% in comparison with traditional methods with handling times reduced by up to 50%, resulting in a significant boost to process efficiencies.

Discover more about Causeway Tradex.

The Group will be operating within a Vinci Concessions public finance initiative to reconstruct, replace and enhance all of the road-related infrastructure on the island. This will include 804 km of rural and urban roads, 756 km of footpaths, 29 km of cycle ways, over 12,000 street lights, road traffic signs, traffic signals and CCTV.

Following an initial seven year core investment phase the company will continue to maintain and improve the road infrastructure, working in close partnership with the Isle of Wight Council.

Causeway Project Accounting (CPA) bridges the gap between the estimating and financial functions of a contracting business, integrating projects, clients and corporate IT systems into one easy to use solution. As such, it puts the user in control of project profitability by providing accurate and timely cost, value and performance data on individual projects and across the enterprise.

In selecting Causeway Project Accounting Ringway/Eurovia will be able to capture and manage key project cost information, including mobile data. The software will also enable proactive monitoring of committed, accrued and actual costs for all labour, plant, material, sub-contract and other resources.

Discover more about Causeway Project Accounting.

Speakers included Jonathan Saunders from Enterprise Mouchel, who spoke about how Causeway products have integrated across the organisation.

“The products speak for themselves – tried, tested & implemented. We are proud of what has been achieved,” he enthused.

Simon Innis of Powerteam also addressed the audience, and explained how Causeway products have added value to their organisation.

“Causeway has made my life a lot easier,” he noted.

In addition to the formal presentations, a number of breakout sessions gave delegates an opportunity to focus on product areas that were of particular interest. These included highways & infrastructure maintenance, cost planning & estimating, facilities management, building services & property maintenance and supply chain management. The day was rounded off by a guided tour of the stadiums.

Both events were extremely well-received, as evidenced by just some of the feedback we received:

“A very useful morning. The Service Integration Platform (SIP) would be extremely useful for enabling us to transfer data between our customer applications, without duplication of effort.”

“Using customers to provide non-biased feedback on their personal experiences helps to build confidence & provides some good learning. Really good to have a sneak preview of the new systems & technology. Lots of ideas!”

“Thoroughly enjoyed the presentations – Causeway have added a lot of useful functionality to their products”

“Good to see progress on mobile app(s) & Android is a good decision. LiveStax a pleasant surprise”

“Really useful as an existing customer to see future innovations”

Ward & Burke was established in the Republic of Ireland in 2001 and now also has offices in the UK and Canada. The company delivers a wide range of civil engineering services including temporary works design and installation, pre-cast concrete construction, pipe jacking. micro-tunnelling and shaft sinking.

Causeway ECM will help the company to automate key information and workflow processes, ensuring that everyone using the system follows the same processes so that key company information is consistent throughout. To that end, Causeway is working with Ward & Burke to configure a number of processes in the system.

A further business benefit of implementing ECM is that it improves visibility of information and provides complete auditability.

Discover more about Causeway ECM.

Based in Chelmsford, Essex, Gypline is a leading specialist sub-contractor within the drylining industry, offering a complete package including wall linings, metal stud partitioning, metal furring and suspended ceilings. The company therefore deals with a wide range of materials prices in producing its estimates and is able to make use of the tools within Causeway Estimating that particularly suit specialist sub-contractors.

Gypline will also be taking advantage of the productivity benefits provided by Causeway CADMeasure, which has been shown to reduce the time spent on measuring initial drawings by a third and measuring revisions by 50%. It enables extreme accuracy when measuring from digital CAD drawings, DWF & PDF files, digital photo images and fax copies saved in digital format. When combined with a digitising tablet it can also be used to measure from paper copies.

CADMeasure provides extensive measurement functions ranging from areas, volumes and lengths to calculating 3D services runs (e.g. pipe, cable) from 2D drawings and the sloping area of a pitched roof from a 2D plan.

Discover more about Causeway Estimating and CADMeasure.

Based in Grays, Essex, Davro Site Services is one of the largest independent suppliers of portable sanitation and other services to construction sites and events. The company has an extensive customer base, generating high volumes of invoices.

Making use of the features in Tradex, Davro has now automated the issue of invoices to other Tradex users and users of another eTrading hub. Where customers are not connected to a hub the system also enables PDFs to be created automatically and sent by email. All of the invoicing is managed through a central platform.

In addition, Davro has full ‘track and trace’ functionality of when invoices have been received and processed, irrespective of which distribution method has been used.

Discover more about Causeway Tradex.

Based in Sutton Coldfield, CCE is an independent civil and structural engineering consultancy offering all aspects of planning, feasibility, design and supervision within the industry. The company has grown steadily since it was established in 1986 and, for many years, Causeway PDS has been at the heart of its highways and infrastructure design activities.

Before selecting the PDS modules the company evaluated a number of other packages and was particularly impressed with the functionality of the Causeway modules, as well as the seamless integration with their existing design software.

PDS Line is powerful yet easy to use software for the creation and automatic annotation of road markings, constructed from AutoCAD objects for quick and easy editing. The module also includes an object enabler to facilitate viewing by other members of the project team.

PDS Sign introduces new levels of flexibility, guidance, accuracy and speed of design to the preparation of traffic sign drawings, all in accordance with the latest TSRGD. A complete library of TSRGD sign symbols, arrows and fonts is included and stored by number, for ease of recognition.

Discover more about Causeway Professional Design Suite (PDS).

The launch was chaired by Tim Cole, Executive Vice President of Strategy at Causeway and Chair of the BASDA e-Business Special Interest Group (below, left). He commented:

“Interoperability is a key issue and one where application developers can support process improvement and economic growth.

“At a time when efficiency and growth are of such critical importance to our economy, support for this Charter offers a simple but highly effective means of engaging with key interest groups in both the public and private sectors. Causeway was amongst the first companies to sign-up up to this Charter to demonstrate its commitment to delivering an integrated economy”.

The Charter launch was hosted by Cheryl Gillan MP and attended by Stephen McPartland MP (above, right) and Stephen Mosley MP.

Discover more about the Interoperability Charter.

The event, held at The Building Centre in London, was also supported by Chloe Smith MP, the Minister at the Cabinet Office with responsibility for the government’s Construction Strategy. She explained how digital technologies can be of benefit to SMEs in the construction industry at many different levels. She also presented the case for BIM as a key element in the Construction Strategy, citing BIM as being “squarely at the heart of the shift to reform the industry and deliver greater efficiencies”.

A lively Q&A session followed the presentations, with a panel made up of Chloe Smith, David Philp (also from the Cabinet Office) and Peter Hansford (Chief Construction Advisor).

BIM4SME is a working group made up of individuals from SME organisations who have a passion for BIM and a desire to help SMEs (in all areas of construction- be they consultants, contractors, specialists, suppliers or manufacturers) to understand and engage with the BIM process. It is supported by the Construction Industry Council (CIC), in partnership with the Government’s Building Information Modelling (BIM) Task Group.

The easy to use app provides a host of functions covering all types of reactive and planned tasks, including travel time, job status, alerts, check lists and the ability to schedule follow-up jobs. An off-line data review and entry functionality enables data to be entered when no connection is available, with automatic synchronisation when a connection is restored.

The Causeway Mobile Workforce app offers options to integrate with Computer Aided Facilities Management (CAFM), asset management, help desk, service & maintenance planning, vehicle tracking, automated scheduling, and full costing, procurement, payroll & accounts.

More detailed information can be found at Google Play.

Inside Out Group comprises Inside Out Developments, which undertakes a wide range of construction, electrical and plumbing projects; and Inside Out Interiors, specialists in fitted kitchens and bathrooms. As a result, the Group has a fleet of vehicles supporting its mobile workforce and was looking for ways to make its fleet management and job allocation processes more efficient.

Causeway Telematics vehicle tracking is ideal for any business with a field-based operation, providing clear, on-screen mapping of real-time driver locations and job status. As such, it enables work to be allocated to the best-located and first-available operatives, depending on appropriate skills etc. It can also be used to verify timesheet information, reduce fleet mileage and report on comparisons of business and private mileage.

Discover more about Causeway Telematics.

PDS Vehicle Path Analysis is a simple to use package that integrates with the core design functions of PDS to enable testing vehicle movements. The module includes vehicle turn and swept path analysis software for evaluating standard designs or specialised vehicle manoeuvres. It is supplied with a library of standard vehicle types that can be amended or added to as required.

Discover more about Causeway Professional Design Suite.

With offices in Hertfordshire and Manchester, Maxwell Stewart delivers a wide range of mechanical and electrical maintenance services to a host of corporate and commercial clients through a team of directly employed engineers. The company has a strong commitment to continual development and enhancement of its systems and the introduction of Vixen PPM Planner is one element of this.

PPM Planner facilitates the planning of PPM and reactive jobs alongside each other, enabling the company to maximise the productivity of its field-based operatives. It calculates optimum scheduling, based on a number of key criteria, with integration to Vixen Engineer’s Diary.

Maxwell Stewart is also taking advantage of a recent asset management enhancement to the Vixen system, which enables servicing information to be broken down into components, rather than the whole item of plant. This reflects the fact that the components within many items of building services plant have different maintenance requirements.

Discover more about Causeway Vixen.