MDA Australia – RIB CostX & The Commonwealth Bank

MDA Australia has provided professional cost and project management services to clients throughout Australia and the Asia-Pacific region for over 100 years. MDA Australia’s unique strength lies in combining expertise and experience with a strong commitment to a team approach, helping to ensure the success of each and every project they work on. 

Commonwealth Bank 

Client: Commonwealth Bank 
Product used: CostX 2D, CostXL 
Project: The CBA has been relocating, refurbishing, upgrading or refreshing existing branches; approximately 70 to 100 branches annually as part of their vision for a more customer-based and sales-oriented banking environment. 
Programme: From 2003 to present. 
Value: $60m to $90m annually. 

Client’s Requirements 

Due to the large number of branches in each year’s programme, the client required a cost effective way of procuring the sites without the added administration and double handling of data. Project and element cost data is captured at each phase of the procurement cycle (budget, contract, final account) and benchmarked for future reference and project planning. 

MDA Australia’s Contributions 

MDA developed a cost model in CostX for the establishment of the ‘Concept Budget’ which forms the basis of the bank’s feasibility analysis. The concept budget is then ‘promoted’ and updated to ‘Project Budget’, upon which the bank approves the project to proceed to tender stage. CostXL is used to link the CostX templates to an Excel-based ‘Project Pack’ which is used to obtain data relating to contract pricing, variations and final accounts. The ‘Project Pack’ also compares elemental costs between all stages of the project and populates numerous client reports and forms including a Capital Expenditure Dissection Form for depreciation purposes. The ‘Project Packs’ are also linked to a payment, reporting and benchmarking system. 

Making the Difference 

The ease of obtaining quantities from the CAD drawings and the structured way that changes in design are tracked by the system provides for efficient takeoff. The flexibility on the CostX workbooks enabled the Cost Model to address numerous project variables such as differing Project Types, Construction Managers, Localities, Fee Structures and Rate Files. With the use of CostXL, data is live-linked to the ‘Project Pack’ saving on the manual handling of data.