RLB Malaysia is a respected global construction company which once aspired to achieve BIM. Initially, their team would prepare several bills of quantities in short timeframes. To better serve their clients, this meant working overtime. Being a brand with high aspirations and goals, they were ready to try something new, which would bring out the best in their team.
Martin Lai is a Cost Consultant with RLB Malaysia. Martin Lai’s career has spanned over 5 years, where he started in Malaysia and later spent time in the UK studying as well as perfecting his project management and QS skillset. He has been a CubiCost user for two years and is currently working towards digitising the process of take-off at his company.
Prior to implementing the software platform, the team’s greatest challenge was the lack of efficiency in completing crucial tasks.
“Preparing bills of quantities always takes a lot of time. Clients would give us tight schedules and to produce output, we would stay at the office overtime.”
According to Martin, the team’s main priorities were to gain efficiency and to adopt BIM.
“About 5 years ago, while I was completing my masters in project management at Redding, I noticed that BIM was all over the country. Our program would take us to different construction companies to see how they performed BIM. I even did my thesis in BIM because I believe it’s a very good approach and a way forward for our industry.”
A few years later, Martin began working at RLB Malaysia and shared his BIM beliefs with the management team.
“I told them that we need to catch up to the other companies already using BIM. I expressed the urgency about RLB Malaysia proceeding further, making processes faster, and making methods more efficient.”
Following that discussion, the management team was inspired and ready for change. They were ready to onboard BIM measurement.
Initially the team started their BIM journey with another software. However, they quickly realised it did not offer the most user friendly experience. This led the team to take a step back and resort to traditional methods - drawings and Excel.
Then one day, the team at Cubicost approached Martin.
“I remember thinking, if RLB Hong Kong is using CubiCost and if they love it, why doesn’t our team give it a try as well? I spoke to management who also approved the decision.”And that is exactly how RLB Malaysia adopted CubiCost.
Currently, more than half of their office actively uses three different software platforms from Glodon: TAS, TRB, and TBQ.
Martin expressed the importance of the after sales service has once a product is sold.
“So far, that after sales service hasn’t disappointed us. We love the software and we are quite happy to see the results.”
One difference that the platform has made is by reducing the number of people involved on a project as well as shortening the project timeline.
“Prior to CubiCost, we needed 10 people working on the project for one week. Now, with CubiCost, we only need half the people, and half the time, that’s just how good it is.”The team has also been able to complete more tenders with greater attention to detail.
When asked about the biggest difference between before versus after using the platform, Martin responded with, “Efficiency. With the software, I save 20% of my time. For example, what used to take 5 days now takes 4.5 days.”
Martin is also able to take on more projects and complete them in a shorter time span because of the 3D feature.
“Being able to visualise the building in 3D is another advantage of using CubiCost.”
Martin continued to expand on his statement by including accuracy as another key benefit.
With the software, his team is more confident about results.
“After CubiCost, I can not go back to the traditional pen and paper method!”
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