Dumping Spreadsheets is the KEE to Success

Through their core businesses of hire, road surfacing, transport, fuel & sweeping Perth-based KEE Group has been delivering professionalism, reliability and expertise to some of the largest civil and mining companies for over 10 years.

But when it came to estimating their road surfacing contracting projects, the one thing they identified as missing – the key for KEE – was consistency! That was, until they implemented Benchmark Estimating Software.

“Before we implemented Benchmark we were using spreadsheets that we designed ourselves, and we constantly had dramas with formulae,” said Anthony Lee, Asphalt Project Manager for KEE Group.

“The compelling reason for making the investment in Benchmark was to improve consistency using a system that is easy to use for the whole team”.

 

Consistency, Control, Access

The KEE Surfacing business carries out profiling, bitumen and asphalt works throughout Perth and beyond with landmark projects including Northlink 2, Gateway WA and Mitchell Freeway extension headlining their portfolio.

The company has 75 employees, including 3 estimators, and has been using Benchmark since April 2017.

Lee had used Benchmark in a previous company and identified the benefits it would bring to the KEE Group.

“Prior to Benchmark we did not have much control of our costs,” said Lee.

“Now with Benchmark we can play with margins – this was difficult to do before. By knowing what our real costs are, we can negotiate from a position of strength, enabling us to win more jobs at the right price.”

KEE Group have their Benchmark database which allows them to go back and easily find all quotes they’ve produced since purchasing the software. This allows KEE Group to draw Items from previous jobs when pricing similar bids, and also gives them incredible visibility into their operation using the powerful Market Analysis reports.

 

Functionalities for All Sized Projects

As with many other Benchmark customers, KEE Group finds they are using the software for all their work, including their asphalt, spray sealing and profiling projects.

“These projects have a value of up to $6 million dollars, but we also use the software for smaller projects – so really, for everything,” said Lee.

Lee said the company use Item Variables to quickly adjust an Item to the parameters of a specific job, as well as Duplicates when they are working on the same or similar jobs. They also enjoy greater efficiency, leading to huge time savings, by using the Import Spreadsheet feature, then Allocate to quickly price items from either their Item Library, or from a previous job.

“We also find the Reports in Benchmark very useful,” continued Lee.

“We can choose from a range of over 150 different reports and exports which we either export to a PDF format or simply view on the screen.”

 

Keys to Productivity

KEE Group is yet another Benchmark customer realising the benefits of the software, especially in the key areas of time and cost savings.

“We have significant time savings from using the software. The difference is in the order of half the time compared to using spreadsheets,” said Lee.

Overall, Lee summarised the benefits of Benchmark Estimating Software to KEE Group as having one database to contain all of the company’s estimating knowledge, with easy access for all staff ensuring consistency across their operation. “

It’s also very easy to use and for the rare times we do need support, the great help desk team at Benchmark help us straight away,” he concluded.

 

If you relate to some of the issues experienced by KEE Group and want to find the key to solving them in your operation, our team are ready to discuss your needs and provide any information that you require. Please contact us for any assistance.