Sito is a Finnish full-service planning and consultancy company working in the field of infrastructure. Its customer base mainly consists of cities, municipalities, the Finnish Transport Agency, ELY Centres and private building firms. Rapal’s cost management system Fore is in  extensive use among the planners of Sito.

Planning Manager Mikko Seppälä tells that Fore has a substantial role in Sito’s planning work. – Planning and cost calculation go hand in hand: the planner knows both the design and its costs best. For Sito, it is essential that the cost knowledge leads to adequate and cost-efficient planning.

Sito is an active user of Hola and Rola, two applications of Fore. – We provide cost management to the client over the entire planning phase. Hola is used when we need to make a rough cost estimate of a project, and Rola is used as soon as the plan is accurate enough to calculate actual construction elements, Seppälä explains.

Seppälä prefers Rola also in the early stages of a project because of the transparent information it produces. – However, I have also tested that Hola’s rough calculations come surprisingly close to the precise calculations made with Rola.

Fore makes cost calculation easy

Sito has actively taken part in the development of Fore and has also used Fore’s predecessor, Rapal’s In-Infra.net and its Excel-based calculation forms. Sito has also made some Fore-based cost management instructions for the Finnish Transport Agency.

– Cost calculation is now easier, because planners can trust the prices listed in Fore. All calculations are saved and found in the same place now that they are centralized in one system, Seppälä compares the current system to former calculation processes.

– Our clients often demand the use of Fore or another similar system so that they can have comparable calculations and trace the cost information. If we use a client’s database in Fore, they can view the calculation anytime during the project.

As a main user, Seppälä also trains new Fore users. – They learn quickly because Fore is quite an intuitive system to use. However, new users may have problems regarding client-specific cost calculation instructions and factors as well as project-related tasks. More guidelines would be useful: for example, Fore could remind users to fill and update basic information of calculations.

Seppälä tells he is particularly pleased with Fore’s prompt help desk and support. – We have had help in all kinds of questions and we haven´t had to ponder them ourselves.

When asked if Seppälä would recommend Fore to his colleagues, he quickly responds: – I absolutely would.