Rider Levett Bucknall

Making the Change

The Building & Construction Authority of Singapore (BCA) has identified Building Information Technology (BIM) as one of the productivity tools for all built environment stakeholders to enhance their design and work delivery.

The Outcome

We are pleased with our investment in CostX made 5 years ago. We find CostX an effective tool for BIM cost management (aka BIM 5D). CostX has multiple features to extract embedded dimensions and information from BIM object properties by using BIM templates and model mapping. The enhancement in the latest CostX version 3.51 allows us to add QS-centric information into the object schedules. With that, we are able to categorise the objects according to the principles in our local standard method of measurement. The time taken to quantify the building elements is significantly reduced. With multi-sheet dwf files, we can further “dimensioneer” items from the 2D plans if a building element is not provided as a distinct BIM object or when the quantity required belongs to a group of BIM objects. As the BIM competency in the local industry matures, we anticipate the quality of the BIM models to improve significantly over the next few years.