Join, the collaborative project delivery platform for the built environment, announces the integration of Gordian’s RSMeans Construction Cost Indexes into Join Forecasting, a suite of tools that leverage historical project data for project comparisons and conceptual estimates. This is part of an ongoing effort to allow Join customers to leverage their existing project data to provide insights into new and future projects. 

With Join Forecasting’s project comparison feature, contractors and their teams collect historical estimates and other current project data in one location. Adding Gordian’s RSMeans Construction Cost Indexes now allows them to automatically bring past project costs forward to today’s dollars while also adjusting for geographical differences between these projects.

“Using Gordian’s RSMeans Construction Cost Indexes helps our customers more easily use Join Forecasting to allow the past to explain the future,” said Andrew Zukoski, co-founder and CEO of Join. “Early in project lifecycles, design, and construction teams need to align with owners on cost and scope and historical data can accelerate this. However, adjusting for differences in costs from when and where those projects were initially built into today’s volatile market is very difficult. By integrating Gordian’s RSMeans Construction Cost Indexes into Join Forecasting, our customers can perform dynamic what-if scenario planning in seconds instead of hours, enhancing the unified, cloud-hosted and collaborative experience that Join already provides.”

With Gordian’s RSMeans Construction Cost Index integration with Join Forecasting, Join customers can:

• Continue to leverage their historical project data in project comparisons with or without any time or location escalation factors.
• Automatically apply Gordian’s RSMeans City Cost Index data to one or all of their historical projects from any location in a project comparison scenario. If there is not an exact city match, Join will automatically suggest the closest city to the new project location.
• Automatically apply Gordian’s RSMeans Historical Cost Index data to one or all of their historical projects dating back to 2008 and bring them up to the most recent quarter’s dollars in a project comparison scenario.
• Manually override either Gordian’s RSMeans City or Historical Cost Indexes data to reflect any project-specific needs. 
• Create professional, polished comparison and estimate reports and presentations.
• Share the data behind the new estimate to provide confidence in the project team’s experience and have assurance that projections are realistic.  

“During this time of cost inflation and cost uncertainty, building out construction budgets by project has become more complex and introduces future cost risk. It is critical that budgets are analyzed and compared to ensure they are as accurate as possible, mitigating future risk,” said Chris Gaudreau, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Product Officer at Gordian. “We, at Gordian, are extremely excited that Join customers will have the opportunity to leverage Gordian’s RSMeans Construction Cost Indexes with Join Forecasting, providing much-needed budget comparison tools. These tools will help Join customers build more accurate budgets and pivot as market changes occur.”

“The Project Comparison tool of Join Forecasting leverages your historical benchmarking cost information by allowing your preconstruction teams to automatically calculate and display the averages of your proven cost data,” said Tony McDaniel, Preconstruction Director for Messer Construction. “This sets meaningful targets that your owners, design teams and estimators can rely on.” 

For more information, visit join.build