Introduction

Pioneer Road Services (PRS, Australian subsidiary of Hanson PLC) employs around 800 people and is involved in some of the largest and most complex pavement construction and maintenance projects in Australia, South East Asia, and the Pacific. Jim Carr, National Sales and Marketing Manager, gives his judgement of Benchmark’s ability to deal with the estimating challenges faced by PRS.

The Challenge PRS Faced

Jim says that consistency was essential for the implementation of company sales and marketing strategies. Segmenting tender work types and analysing where tenders were being won, by whom, and at what pricing level was necessary information for a company working on such a broad geographic base.

A Pioneer Road Services requirement of the estimating software was for it to be integrated into their contracting Performance Reporting and Efficiency Feedback System (PREFS) and, in the longer term into their JD Edwards ERP System.

The Benchmark Solution

Benchmark Estimating Software has not only provided the consistency sought by PRS, but has delivered other benefits as well.  With the standard estimating approach provided by Benchmark, and the iterative process of feeding in better performance data, operational efficiency has improved at PRS and continues to improve. 

Jim Carr says that “our ability to accurately estimate project costs has been critical in determining which projects and market segments we want to work in.” 

The customer data is now available quickly and easily, and means that pricing for future jobs can be done much more accurately to maximise profits.

“We can now readily measure the performance of field crews, geographic markets, customer segments, even estimators for that matter,” says Jim Carr.

Summary

Benchmark’s  flexibility integrates smoothly with the functionality demanded by PRS.  There has been a measurable improvement in the performance of PRS’s business in no small part due to the role played by Benchmark Estimating and its links with other business systems. 

Jim says that “At the moment we are upgrading our ERP system to the latest technology. This will include linking Benchmark’s estimating package into the system.”

Visit Pioneer's website