A huge volume of estimating
About a thousand quotes a year, of which only a small share is won. Every one still has to be calculated.
An anonymised case study of a road-infrastructure contractor. No names and no prices, only the market, its quoting problem and how it could work better.
This study is based on a real conversation with someone in the market. All data is anonymised.
Road-infrastructure contractors fit out finished roads: barriers, fences, signals and road signs, horizontal and vertical marking, traffic lights and street lighting. Most of the work is as a subcontractor under a general contractor that has won a large public tender, where their part is just one stretch out of many. Every project is priced individually: there is no fixed per-square-metre or per-unit price, the technical specifications differ, and the final price depends heavily on the distance to the site and the size of that part.
When a project comes in, a person reads the drawings and specifications, pulls together the material for their part and assembles a table by hand: what matches, what does not and what the quantities are. Only then does an experienced person model the final quote. About a thousand such quotes are submitted a year, one client alone can bring around a hundred enquiries, and only a small share is won. None can be skipped, because there is no telling in advance which one will land.
The bill of quantities often does not match the drawings, one way or the other, and the mismatches have to be found by sitting and counting by hand. On top of that come material certificates and declarations, so suppliers who handle those themselves are worth a little more.
About a thousand quotes a year, of which only a small share is won. Every one still has to be calculated.
Every quote starts with a person reading the project and assembling the quantities and mismatches by hand.
Differences either way are found only by sitting and checking by hand, which takes a lot of time.
The same part costs completely differently near and far, so logistics and volume have to be assessed every time.
While waiting for price answers, the bid deadline is short, so submissions are sometimes late by as much as a week.
Imagine a tool where you upload the project and it separates out the segments and quantities on its own, and flags whatever is unclear.
It separates the segments out of the PDF, marking, signs, barriers, lighting, with quantities, units and distances.
It cross-checks the bill of quantities against the drawings and flags mismatches and anything it could not read, with a link to the place in the project.
From historical prices it gives an overview of whether a project is worth taking, before any detailed calculation begins.
The result: the person no longer loses time gathering data, can assess more enquiries and decides faster whether it is worth taking on.
The system gathers the data from the project, and the person is left with the decisions and the price.
Faster preparation makes it possible to review more enquiries in the same time.
The cross-check surfaces differences between the bill of quantities and the drawings before the quote is submitted.
A preliminary estimate makes it quick to decide whether to dig in or focus the effort elsewhere.
About a thousand quotes are produced a year, and every one starts with a person reading a PDF project by hand.
Only a small share is won, so most of the estimating time goes into quotes that will not be won. What matters is not accuracy to the cent but how fast you can reject the wrong enquiry.
The project is read automatically, the bill of quantities is checked against the drawings, and unclear places are flagged so a person only reviews those.
The estimator models the price instead of collecting data, so far more enquiries are assessed in the same time.
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If every quote also starts with reading the project by hand for you, let's talk. Together we will look at how this could work in your company.