Mining Estimating

Mining Solution for Visibility into Project Costs and Performance

Hard Dollar works with mining and exploration companies around the world to deliver and implement a fully integrated Project Cost Management solution. The process of mining, from discovery of an ore body through extraction of minerals, and returning the land to its natural state, consists of several distinct stages. Hard Dollar supports operators, engineers, and contractors throughout these stages with a robust set of tools to manage a project’s cost and performance during the feasibility study, construction of the mine, and reclamation of the land. Hard Dollar’s Project Cost Management system provides it’s users with an integrated environment promoting standardization - with core compentencies in detailed cost estimating, project performance tracking, remote timesheets, and cross project reporting, Hard Dollar delivers increased accuracey and visilibilty into a project costs and performance serving project personnel with the details to make better business decisions.

Increase Estimating Accuracy and Confidence

Whether creating a feasability study, cost estimate, or a bid to construct a mine, Hard Dollar Estimating helps mining engineers and contractors increase the accuracey and visibility of their cost models. Hard Dollar users minimize the risk of over runs by capturing and recognizing every detail that contributes to the cost estimate model, such as, different shift arrangements, labor overtime, labor bonuses, escalation, Drift cycle factors, and more. Detail driven cost models help answer the tough project questions and empower the project team to make better project planning and estimating decisions.

Model cost with unlimited levels of detail
Centralized database of cost resources - define unlimited Labor, Equipment, Rented Equipment, Installed, Equipment, Materials, Supplies, and Unique resources
Create multiple resource rates for each wage zone, geographic region, and/or each project without impacting master rates
Create pre-defined crews and assemblies with production factors and easily employ in an estimate
Define default shift arrangements and recognize multiple wage scales (regular, overtime, double time) for labor resources
Define current unit costs of fuel to automatically calculate the project’s fuel cost based on fuel consumption rates for each equipment resource
Apply man-hour factors to production rates to account for project-specific conditions
Escalate costs and apply contingencies using pre-built forms
Easily perform “what if?” analysis by adjusting production rates, quantities, shift arrangements, pay rules, and more
Use exsisting Excel spreadsheets to calculate mining specifc formulas (drift cycle, labor bonus) and dynamically link the values to your Hard Dollar estimate
Capture all project changes in a log to keep a running audit trail of estimate changes and quantify the impact
Present the data the way you need to see by using one of 100+ pre-built reports or customize your own reports using the user friendly filtering, grouping, and column arrangement tools
Establish production rates or utilize historic production rates in any one of fifteen ways (units per man-hour, man-hours per unit, and more)

Stay in Control with Progress Tracking

As a project begins, it is critical that project management teams receive the right information and receive it fast. Hard Dollar Progress Tracking provides project personnel with the detailed feedback on how their project is doing on a daily basis. Project teams get immediate insight into budgeted versus actual; including, man hours, equipment hours, production, timing, cost and profit. Daily reports are available from a whole project perspective or specific activities (phases, areas, etc.) revealing overall budget vs. actual, budgeted-to-date vs. actual-to-date, variances, and forecast at completion. Hard Dollar Progress Tracking provides the critical project information that can make or break a project. Identify inefficiencies in production or cost over runs and respond immediately to correct the situation and minimize or eliminate the impact on the overall project. Stay in control with detailed project information in real time.

Record quantities completed for Bill of Quantity (BOQ) at any level of the WBS
View the percent complete status for each BOQ or account, and for the entire job
Automatically calculate As-built Production and compare to Planned Production
Represent production values in multiple formats (unitsper man-hour, man-hours per unit, and more)
Forecast production for the remaining work of a BOQ or account using average production to date, most recent production, or any user-defined production rate
View graphs comparing the As-built, Most Recent, and Planned Production values for cost items or accounts
Compare estimated vs. actual vs. forecasted costs
Reports, including daily foreman reports and cost-to-budget status reports, can be as concise or as detailed as required
Create, save, and print custom views of Job Tracking data with user-defined sorting and filters
Print a variety of predefined Job Performance Tracking reports, or send report output directly to Excel, Word, RTF, or Adobe Acrobat PDF files
Share job tracking information with other users on a network, or across remote locations
Create reports using pre-built reports or customize your own reports using the user friendly filtering, grouping, and column arrangement tools
Streamline and expedite the field data collection process utilizing remote electronic timesheets
Roll-up quantities complete to pay items, contractors, and sub-contractors to automate billing and payments

Synchronize Scheduling

Scope, cost, and schedule are the critical elements that make up any project. Hard Dollar provides live integration into leading schedluing softwares (Primavera and MS Project) establishing a live relationship between the detailed cost model, work plan, and the schedule. Mining engineers and contractors now have increased visibility to answer the tough questions (what-if?) to see the cost impacts of scheudling changes, or scheduling impacts of an estimate change in real-time. Consider all of the elements and details of your project and make better work plan and scheduling decisions with confidence.

Create cost and resource-loaded schedules* in record time with a dynamic integration (no export/import).
Automatically load BOQ’s, estimated durations, resources and costs from Hard Dollar projects into the schedule.
Roll-up multiple items from the Hard Dollar project into single activities in the schedule.
Drive schedule durations from estimated durations in Hard Dollar, including productivity-based durations or from “plug” durations in Hard Dollar, allowingschedules to show different durations than the assumptions made inthe budget.
Keep the Work Plan, Budget, and Schedule In-Sync When Things Change with one-click, real-time synchronization between the Hard Dollar project and the schedule (no import/export required).
Automatically update activity IDs, descriptions, durations, resources, and costs* when changes are made to the Hard Dollar project.
Automatically update durations, start dates, and finish dates in the Hard Dollar project when changes are made to the schedule.
Control what information gets passed between Hard Dollar and the schedule on a project by project basis*.
Perform “what if” analysis to simultaneously see the cost and timing impact of changes made to either the Hard Dollar budget or the schedule.
Change production rates or crew configurations in the Hard Dollar project and instantly see the resulting impact in the schedule.
Change shift arrangements in the Hard Dollar project and instantly see the impact on the schedule.
Change quantities in the Hard Dollar project and instantly see the impact on the schedule.
Make changes to durations in the schedule and instantly determine the production rates required in the Hard Dollar project to hit the new scheduled duration.
Streamline Analysis of Cash Flow, Earned Value, and Resource Utilization
Produce detailed cash flow graphs with ability to control cost and revenue curves, finance expense, and payment timing.
Produce detailed resource utilization graphs showing resource usage and cost over time for individual resources or resource types.