Technology

CBRE CostLab

CostLab is the Most Comprehensive Online Tool for Facility Benchmarking, Budgeting, and Capital Planning

Try a free 7-Day trial and test-drive every CostLab feature.

CBRE CostLab is our proprietary web-based application that easily allows you to compare operating costs for over 400+ different locations and 75+ different asset types around the world.

Data driven insights generate objective and transparent estimates based on equipment-level analysis for your buildings and locations, all from the global standard for facility costs. It contains a wide range of economic and engineering data sets, models and algorithms for estimating the lifecycle of facility costs including maintenance and repair, custodial, energy, grounds management, pest control and more.

Through a collaborative effort a definitive capital plan for our campus buildings was established. It would have been IMPOSSIBLE to create this plan internally, so we are most appreciative and grateful for what CBRE Business Analytics was able to provide us.

Ken CornwellVisa Global Corporate Real Estate

CostLab Plans

Plan	Customer Support	Cost Library	Building Wizard	Project Builder	Advanced Model Calibration	Mass Data Export	Capital Planning
Executive	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	View Executive Plan
Expert	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	View Expert Plan
Pro	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	View Pro Plan
Basic	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✗	✗	View Basic Plan
Library	✓	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗	View Library Plan

Explanation of Features

Cost Library
The Cost Library provides a dynamic view of all the data in our comprehensive database. Browse the cost profiles and library data for labor rates, utility rates, inflation rates, maintenance tasks, operations details, recapitalization assumptions, or national indexes.
Building Wizard
Building Wizard answers seven questions to quickly generate a tailored cost estimate down to the component level for your facilities. To provide further detail, answer questions about the structural and mechanical make-up of your asset, the levels of service for operations, key recapitalization assumptions and additional asset details.
Project Builder
The Project Builder provides an easy way to group maintenance and repair tasks into a project, and estimate their material, labor and equipment requirements. Easily add M&R tasks to your project by navigating to the component using a building system tree organized by uniformat, and entering the quantity next to the task.
Advanced Model Calibration
Advanced Model Calibration fully customizes your building models with the information you know by adding and editing the equipment within each asset. Calibration can also be applied to labor and utility rates, M&R tasks, operation tasks and inflation rates leading to more accurate OpEx and CapEx estimates.
Mass Data Export
Easily export large amounts of asset-level data at once including annual costs, average costs, cost by task per year, deferred costs and inventory for all of your folders and assets. Use these organized, complete and highly detailed Excel exports of your portfolio to support long term capital planning and your specific budget priorities.
Capital Planning
Aging facilities and limited budget make it difficult to decide which equipment to replace. Take a data-driven approach to prioritize capital spending to mitigate risk to your portfolio. Our Capital Planning feature can objectively tell you where to spend your money first based on your budget.

Up-to-date market information is essential to accurately measure facility costs. CBRE Business Analytics provides the most current and reliable data. We update ALL of our data to current market rates including: utility rates, labor rates and benefits, equipment material costs and building replacement values. These changes are automatically included in your cost estimates. Periodically, we also provide new features, reports and revisions to our cost algorithms to make developing your budgets quicker and more accurate.

CostLab uses careful statistical modeling to calculate the probability of failure for each piece of equipment in your inventory. We then anticipate the impact of equipment failure on the individual asset and your portfolio as a whole. Finally, CostLab automatically prioritizes critical risk equipment to be replaced first based upon your budget. CostLab’s capital planning model provides an actionable level of detail.

The Cost Library is the most comprehensive M&R and operations cost database available. Cost Library provides a dynamic view of all the data in the CBRE Business Analytics database and allows you to browse cost profiles and library data for OpEx and CapEx estimates, labor rates, utility rates, inflation rates, national indexes, and more.

CostLab provides the ability to customize facility cost models with criteria specific to your facilities including: year built, asset size, type and location. Further detail about the structural and mechanical make-up of your assets, the levels of service for operations requirements, and additional details can be incorporated. Only CostLab provides estimates for your full chart of accounts to give users the most accurate and comprehensive operating budgets and capital plans.

An accurate view of your total deferred maintenance is necessary to mitigate risk in your portfolio. CostLab itemizes deferred maintenance for individual pieces of equipment to provide actionable recommendations. A core strength of the system is that it does not require costly inspections to estimate facility condition. Deferred cost reports show deferred maintenance and FCI estimates rolled up for your entire portfolio, or for an individual asset.

The Projects page is utilized by our clients primarily for two reasons: 1) to validate contractor bids are reasonable; and 2) to estimate in-house resources required to complete projects. You can easily group maintenance and repair tasks into a single project, and estimate material, labor, and equipment requirements.

Gone are the days of outdated Excel spreadsheets to forecast facility OpEx and CapEx requirements. All members of your team can access CostLab through any web browser with your laptop, tablet or smartphone. Everyone is always working on the most current budget. Your facilities data is centralized, not scattered across various spreadsheets. CostLab security protects your information and manages appropriate user access.

CBRE CostLab

Try a free 7-Day trial and test-drive every CostLab feature.

CostLab Plans

Explanation of Features

Cost Library

Building Wizard

Project Builder

Advanced Model Calibration

Mass Data Export

Capital Planning

CostLab Features

Automatic Updates

Capital Planning

Cost Library

Customized Models

Deferred Maintenance

Maintenance and Repair Projects

Online Access

Business Analytics