Case Study: University of California, San Diego achieves improved budget visibility and cost control with Trimble’s e-Builder

University of California, San Diego Controls Capital Project Costs and Risks

The University of California, San Diego (UCSD), a top-ranked public research university serving ~30,000 students, manages a large capital program that spends over $1.6 billion annually on renovations and new construction. UCSD struggled with a contractor-focused PMIS that made funding sources and payouts hard to trace, relied on manual checks and reconciliations that delayed payments, and lacked the financial insight to track costs, contingencies and schedules against budgets.

To address this, UCSD implemented e-Builder to track project costs and contingency use, generate cost summaries, and enforce a “ball‑in‑court” workflow that notifies stakeholders when approvals are needed. The platform delivered day‑to‑day visibility into the capital program, improved risk management, organized expenses by budget code for easier reporting and compliance, tightened cost controls, and enabled faster action on anomalies — capabilities UCSD is extending across its campus projects.

University of California, San Diego

Joel King

Assistant Vice Chancellor/Campus Architect within the Facilities Design & Construction Department