Understanding AASHTOWare Project BAMS/DSS™ Outsourcing and Cost Index Services

Infotech has been providing AASHTOWare Project BAMS/DSS™ Outsourcing services for two agencies – Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) and New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) for many years.

AASHTOWare Project BAMS/DSS Outsourcing services can be tailored to suit the agency’s needs, such as pre-award analysis reports, estimation support reports, a combination of these reports, or a customized set of reports. For estimation support reports, the reports are produced quarterly. For pre-award analysis reports, the reports would be produced shortly right after the agency’s bid letting. For customized reports, the interval of reports would be agreed upon with the agency. We could also provide market analysis support services that would be based on five or more years’ worth of data.

Coincidently, both GDOT and NJDOT chose to employ Infotech for providing AASHTOWare Project BAMS/DSS Estimation Support Outsourcing services. Infotech started providing this service for GDOT in June 2012 and for NJDOT in March 2015. Both agencies have renewed this service annually.

The BAMS/DSS Estimation Support Outsourcing services provide the following reports:

• IRANK - Item Rank Listing
• PRHIST - Historical Bid Price Listing by Region
• PRHIST - Weighted Avg Item Price by Region
• PRICES - Top 25 Items by Dollars
• PRICES - Top 25 Items by Quantity
• PRICES - Top 25 Items by Time
• PEMETH - Price vs Quantity Regression by Region
• HSTATE - Historical Statistics by Region

Additionally, the AASHTOWare Project BAMS/DSS Estimation Support Outsourcing services provide the following files:

• Item Bid Histories
• Item Historical Averages
• Item Historical Ranking

The AASHTOWare Project BAMS/DSS Estimation Support Outsourcing services include classing items and contracts into function work classes like ASPH for asphalt paving, CONC for concrete paving, ERTH for earth work contracts, etc. These results are provided to the agency for its own analysis. Analysis can be provided with a modified contract. These reports provide estimators with current pricing on item cost trends and help inform award decisions.

If we were providing AASHTOWare Project BAMS/DSS Pre-Award Outsourcing services, the following reports would be provided.

• LIPEST, LIPLOW, LIP – Line-Item Profiles based on the engineer’s estimate, the low bidder, and low bidder without the engineer’s estimate
• BEREV – Bid/Estimate Review showing where current item prices rank with historical prices based on a specified time frame
• BIDEVL – Bid Evaluation Analysis showing items of major difference from the engineer’s estimate based on a specified time frame
• HIREG – Historical Item Price Regression providing data for the BEREV model

If we were providing AASHTOWare Project BAMS/DSS Market Analysis Outsourcing services, the following reports would be provided:

• AREAS – Market Area Definition – defining market areas for a specified contract work type like ASPH for asphalt paving, CONC for concrete paving, ERTH for earth work contracts, etc.
• MSD2, MSI2, MSQ2 – Market Shares Profiles based on contract dollars, item class dollars, or item class quantity for a specified contract work type.
• VENCOM – Vendor Competition
• VENMAP – Vendor Activity Maps

The AASHTOWare Project BAMS/DSS Market Analysis Outsourcing services also include analysis work to identify vendor affiliates and market areas but would not provide analysis of the results – this would be provided to the agency for its own analysis. Analysis could be provided with a modified contract. These reports and analysis would be based on five or more years’ worth of data.

Infotech started producing the Cost Index service to NJDOT in August 2019. NJDOT has renewed this service annually since then. The cost index is based on the item subgroups shown below.

• Surfacing
• Earthwork
• Structural
• Pavement Marking
• Drainage
• Guardrail

The above subgroups include many items in these item classifications and cover a high percentage of an agencies’ program dollars. The index also includes a composite index of the above item subgroups which provide an agency with a current picture of how costs are increasing or decreasing by subgroups and the overall cost trends. These reports are useful for both estimators doing long-range estimates and for estimators doing current estimates. If you are interested in engaging Infotech for these services, please reach out to your Infotech Account Manager.