Electrical Contractor - September 2016

I S T O C K / S T U R T I

The material ECs have to work with has changed over the past few decades, and not for the better, said Stephen Carr, president and chief estimator at Carr Consulting Services and ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR estimating columnist.

“Electrical drawings are continuing to get worse,” he said. Electrical engineers with less time and, in some cases, fixed resources are putting drawings together with limited detail, and contractors have to do the best they can with what they get.

In addition, project contracts often come with more exclusions and qualifications, and the building information management details are frequently put into tables, which requires contractors to scroll to two places to learn what used to be apparent in a single drawing.

As a result, Carr said, “Bids are taking more time.”
In the long run, he added, reforming the standards for
engineering drawings would benefit contractors. In the mean-
time, ECs must work with the additional challenges that have
become part of the estimating and bidding playing field.

ECs seeking the best estimating software need a product that’s simple to use, flexible enough to make changes for different conditions, and valuable to project managers long after the bid is accepted. It also needs to be something the crew can access on-site, in the office or at home.

Software drives estimating changes

Estimating software significantly benefits builders and general contractors with the ability to respond to more complex bidding requirements. Since the software provides breakdowns in many ways within one estimate, expectations are higher than ever.

“The estimate is often an introduction to the company and the quality of work that you do, so don’t submit an estimate that’s sloppy, incomplete or late,” said Bill Ruffner, founder and CEO of TurboBid.

When it comes to large projects, the entire process is starting to change, said Stanley Shook, senior estimator at Rosendin Electric in San Jose, Calif. Shook, an estimator for several decades, started an estimating company in 2001 and wrote on the subject for ELECTRICAL CONTRACTOR from 2005–2012.

An increasingly popular building method, integrated project delivery (IPD), provides a collaborative alliance of the related companies that manage a project beginning with the estimate. Shook calls this the “big room concept,” bringing a team together in the earliest phase of a project, even during the bidding.

Over the past few years, Shook has seen the estimating and bidding process shift to this model. With large projects, it becomes a matter of negotiations and interviews as much as a budget estimate. These lengthy processes may take place without drawings, and the resumes of team members are just as important as the proposal.

A savvy EC looks at the companies and individuals it would be working with and assigns staff accordingly—for instance, putting a superintendent on the project who worked well with the general contractor in the past.

Of course, numbers are important. With a proposal, a budget estimate needs to be detailed.

“It’s not just a roll-of-the-dice guess,” Shook said. “A lot of
time goes into it.”
Contractors and customers look at those estimates not just
to determine what prices will be, but also whether the company
has put detailed effort into its calculations.

Often, one or more interviews follow. Shook said estimators should educate themselves before interviews to ensure they understand the project and know who will be at the meeting so that their presentation is relevant.

Estimators can field queries for tens or hundreds of different pricing breakouts, and that’s where the software is imperative.

“You have to know the specific job,” Shook said. “The bidding form has changed dramatically. Customers today can get asked for every breakout under the sun.”

Digital drawings

Software companies are improving their offerings to make estimating and project management tasks easier.

Software cuts estimating time by at least 75 percent over the pen-and-paper method, according to Paul Wheaton, vice president of sales, McCormick Systems, Chandler, Ariz. It’s also faster and more effective than the computer-based system that often required printing digital drawings, scanning documents and then transferring them to the customer’s software system.

In the past year or so, 95 percent of McCormick Systems’ estimating programs come with its On Screen digital drawing support, which enables ECs to estimate directly on a PDF file, review drawings digitally, annotate, add layers of fixtures or other quotable items, and share that drawing with project managers.