Develop Consultant Management Estimating Tools

The New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) Consultant Management Bureau’s primary responsibilities are to negotiate staffing hours/resources with engineering design consultants, and to monitor the consultant's costs. Currently the Consultant Management Bureau uses knowledge of past and current projects as well as engineering judgment to estimate consultant costs. The proposed research will focus on several major issues: 1) the establishment of a central database that contains historic total project cost and staffing level data; 2) the development of a computer based estimating tool that employs the data from the historical database to provide more accurate and efficient estimates of consultant resources; 3) identifying major variables that affect the consultant's hours and developing predictive models, using multiple regression analysis as a method for developing the models. Only techniques that can easily be incorporated in an Excel spreadsheet will be considered; 4) the NYSDOT already employs an excel spreadsheet based estimating tool. It will be determined how to best integrate the new computer tool with the existing spreadsheet and how the developed estimating tool can exchange data with Primavera software. One meeting will be held with other interested parties in the NYSDOT to discuss the possibilities for integration; 5) training will be provided including at least three PowerPoint presentations to NYSDOT engineers. Meetings will occur in the main office, downstate, and in the Buffalo area. PowerPoint presentations produced for the meetings will be provided to NYSDOT as a deliverable and a users manual will be developed to assist Consultant Managers using the system.