7 - July - 2010

The First Choice Integrated Solution for Effective Cost Management and Control

Causeway, the construction software people, has recently launched CATO V15, its updated Cost Consultant Suite. This is a comprehensive suite of tools, specifically developed for those involved in the construction process that need to closely manage costs, during design and construction as well as the whole life costs of the completed building.

Using the very latest technology and specialist user interface, CATO is a fast and consistently accurate system for effective cost management and control. It is closely integrated with the Building Cost Information Service's online cost data service.

CATO V15 was developed with key input from quantity surveyor professionals and includes a suite of modules underpinned by the core Project Executive. This is a single point of reference providing a summary of the project, in addition to access to all library information common to the project.

Features of the Suite include an new enhanced version of Causeway BIMMeasure. This has been redesigned to provide a simple user interface. BIMMeasure is a tool allowing direct integration with the Building Information Model containing representations of the actual components used to construct a building or asset. This can be used to support the entire building life cycle, from construction through to operational performance.

Other features of CATO V15 include a measurement scheduler, which now makes it possible to integrate established spreadsheets used for measurement scheduling within the CATO suite and generic reporting to produce a complete cost report. This can be formatted with front/back covers, tables of content and inclusion/exclusion reports, helping to save time in the preparation of reports that need to be disseminated across the business.

CATO V15 now also has the capability to obtain prices from commercially available Hutchins Price books to support cost planning. It is also now possible to transfer a cost plan created within CATO to the Whole Life Costing Module, including costs over the whole life cycle of the building. This eliminated the need to re-key all the items at this stage, thus saving time and providing more efficiency to the user.

The software's enhanced QuickEst module provides added functionality for estimating tasks, which supports benchmarking across user-defined criteria including non-financial data fields. This extends the more traditional cost based search to now include performance and other non-cost based data.

The CATO Suite also now incorporates ProjectWinner, the only commercially available expert system designed to support early cost advice, drawing on years of professional expertise. This unique tools has proven reliability in predicting accurate construction costs.

Another benefit of the newly enhanced software includes a completely rewritten Whole Life Costing module, providing more flexibility in terms of output; this module now takes advantage of benefits such as the new CATO report designer. The Taking Off and Billing module is compatible with the RICS ETendering system and can be set up with a direct exchange with Causeway's own leading Estimating software, enabling users to move away from traditional paper-based tendering processes.

Over the last two year, the Earthworks module has become increasingly popular and this has seen a complete overhaul as part of the CATO Suite too. The module now makes it easier to establish cut and fill quantities required for the ground preparation, substructure and infrastructure design elements of a project. It provides the ability to apply construction depths providing more realistic assessment criteria for those involved in the civil engineering phases.

With cost management professionals being faced with tighter deadlines to produce accurate cost information, cost tracking tools, previously used by architects and structural engineers, are proving just as vital for quantity surveyors. Causeway recognised these factors and, with CATO, has provided an integrated solution which manages the entire costing process to support pre- and post contract cost management services in addition to assisting with predicting the life cycle costs of a building or asset. CATO helps to avoid delays, and the costly penalties associated with delays, increasing efficiency while reducing time and costs.

For more information on Causeway and the full range of construction software solutions and online services visit www.causeway.com.

For further information please contact:

e: marketing@causeway.com