Reduced Contractor Spend
	Rationalizing Many Estimation Units Into Output Based Work Units

Benefits of our Automated Construction Information System (ACIS) Tool

	Reduce contractor spend.
	Reduce contractor administration costs, by up to 10 to 20 percent.
	Test reasonableness of your market pricing.
	Neutralize variable pricing in the marketplace.
	Improve contractor relationships.
	Better integrate internal and external resources.
	Places productivity responsibility on the contractor.
	Improved accounting control and cash flow management for contracted constructed services.
	Clear audit trail of work performed and dollars expended in labor and materials.
	Utilization of units facilitates the work management process :
		Scheduling
		Resource forecasting and
		Workload management.

Who We Serve

Electricity, gas and water utilities with the day-to-day challenge of managing their internal and external workforces more effectively.

What We Offer

The trend towards the use of contract service providers is increasing, and quite often managing these relationships and extracting maximum value is a challenge to an organization. The need for greater use of contract service providers and the associated internal management complexities can create the following issues:

	Contractor quotes and bids are typically priced with too many unknowns, with the price and delivery risk resting with the utility.
	Large gaps often exist between work estimated and as-builts, increasing cost and creating administrative process and control challenges.
	Changed procurement and supply chain conditions such as quote to build and emergency response create additional materials delivery logistics needs, costs and accounting control issues.
	Technology improvements are needed to streamline the business processes between utilities and contractors, estimation - to work management - to payment.

These typical issues create inefficiencies in the following areas:

	Excessive budget variances.
	Managing excessive variations in market pricing.
	Utility having little input and control into contractor pricing.
	Lack of trust between contractor and utility.
	Decreases in crew productivity.
	Unrealistic work schedules and forecasts.
	Scopes of contractor work lacking definition.
	Excessive reconciliation of estimated work versus as-builts.
	Inefficient invoicing practices.
	Input based invoicing instead of results based.
	Variances in material delivered to jobsite which can translate to increases in stores inventory.

UMS Group has a proven Automated Construction Information System (ACIS). This is complemented with a proprietary market database to assist Work Units Development, and a process to place contractors (where applicable) on an output or units basis.

The features of ACIS are as follows:

	Rapid to implement (12 weeks) and provides an integrated solution.
	Work Units Development translates the scope of work and estimation units (in some instances can be many thousands of units) into output based work units (a few hundred units). Contractors need only be familiar with the relevant work units and are therefore responsible for their crew productivity.
	Work units specify the complete Operation, Install, Remove or Transfer task, and are tailored to utility environments such as crew size restrictions, crew configuration constraints, emergency response conditions and labor conditions.
	Provides a complete audit trail of work assigned, work points, unit description, field services and automatically calculates prices for invoices.
	Allows the contractor to create an invoice on-line, and authorization requirements for payment can be tailored and are managed on-line.
	Complete information on the status of any contractor invoice.
	Reporting is flexible and can utilize various tools (e.g. Access, Excel, Power Builder, etc). Examples of reporting flexibility include:
		External vs. Internal crew productivity;
		Statistics on certification of contractor invoices and approval
		Projects assigned but no invoice received
		Overdue invoices
		Average days to certify an invoice
		Work assigned to contractor; and
		Selective material usage.
	Microsoft SQL Server (2000), or Oracle database and interface with estimation, financials and HR via standard interfaces.

Our Strengths

Proprietary Work Units Database: UMS Group dramatically accelerates utility implementation of work units via our proprietary market database of work units. Our database contains 10 to 15 categories of work units:

	Overhead: primary, secondary, pole setting, street lights, overhead service
	Underground: trenching, cable pulling, terminations, pad’s and pedestals, underground services, etc.
	Civil and
	Metering, etc.

Content Intensive Advice – The professional consulting staff used in ACIS engagements have extensive works management experience in electricity, gas and water utilities. Many have had
senior roles in utility and contracting workforces.

Please click here to request more information on the Automated Construction Information System