The Prospect of Project Estimating in the year 2011

In anticipation of contractors’ needs in the year ahead, technology providers are continuing to offer new products and integrations for the construction industry. One key area that will likely still remain a top priority in the year ahead is estimating efficiencies.

Estimating is important right now for a number of reasons. Primarily, in today’s competitive market environment, construction companies need to come in with low bids while still maintaining good margins to remain profitable. Estimating and takeoff technology can help.

In smaller firms, the roles of estimator and field superintendent are usually both done by the owner of a company. In fact, it is the ability of the accomplished tradesman to estimate that allows him to take the step from employee to owner of his own business. His success hinges completely on how good his judgement and objectivity is in estimating.

For the large firm, the estimator may be a partner or an employee -- even, one of several, on a team of estimators. The firm relies on an estimator to provide all the information to determine if a particular project is suitable to bid on.

Apart from the personal efficiency, the construction companies are looking at technology to become more efficient, technology providers continue to release new products and integrations. For example, On Center Software, www.oncenter.com, The Woodlands, Texas, and Benchmark Estimating, www.benchmarkestimating.com, Manchester, U.K., announced a new custom integration.

This means construction companies will be able to import takeoff data from On Center’s On-Screen Takeoff into Benchmark Estimating software. The integration is currently in development, but will ultimately save a significant amount of time in the takeoff process, while also increasing accuracy.

According to Angelo Castelli, director of business development, On Center Software, the integration will provide a new level of productivity and efficiency for estimators, and the flexibility of the systems will be advantageous for project managers.

Rob MacDonald, director, Benchmark, says many of its clients have been inquiring about digital takeoff solutions, and this integration will provide them with the solution they want.

This is just one example of new estimating-technology integrations for contractors in the year ahead. Keep your eyes open for new products and partnerships, as 2011 is going to be a big year for improved efficiencies in the industry

Annual World Of Concrete Show 2011

Annual World of Concrete Show is the biggest show on earth for the commercial concrete and masonry. The most comprehensive commercial concrete and masonry event will take place from 17 to 21^st January, 2011. In just five powerful days, you’ll access all the latest technologies, resources and education you need to keep your business current, competitive and rock-solid. Although this is the first year exhibiting at World Of Concrete or WOC, the organizer are excited to showcase their Job Simplicity product and participate in this premier construction event.

The strength of the industry’s first and most important annual trade show for concrete and masonry professionals can make a world of difference for all types of contractor business like estimating. WOC is the ONLY annual event for the architect, contractor and estimator – no other show has a more focused show floor. If you are in any business segment of the Concrete or Masonry industries, like designing, estimating and all that, this is your show. World of Concrete will bring you quality customers and targeted leads to keep your business running strong in 2011!

In the WOC, there will be two segments; the first is the Seminar (January 17-21) and the other part is the Exhibition (January 18-21). WOC will feature special unique events, a world-class education program with both 3-hour and 90-minutes sessions, industry-specific certifications & exams, interactive demonstrations and competitions, and an opportunity for you to meet with Interntional Exhibitors and network with your peers.

Benefits of Attending WOC:

• See it all in one place. Find everything you need to win more jobs, make more money and streamline your business.
• Get connected. Make new contacts and strengthen your industry connections.
• Work smarter. Learn how to work leaner, greener and more efficiently.
• Get hands-on. See, touch and test the latest products under real-world, jobsite conditions.
• Find new opportunities. Capitalize on the trends that will drive future markets and provide opportunities to profit.
• Get your questions answered. Attend expert-led seminars for the new skills, practical solutions and creative strategies to improve your business.

This is a grant opportunity for all the members of the AEC industry like architects, engineers, contractors, estimators, designer and everybody. This is the most cost effective way to gain multiple leads in the shortest amount of time.

Residential Estimating

Residential estimating can help building professional to get quick access to the details of material and labor breakdowns.
With residential estimating service the building professionals can also update cost according to the increase or decrease of the labor & material price. The building professional can easily control it’s budget, waste, jobsite theft, jobsite damage and trade misuse.
Residential estimating includes estimation of concrete, foundation steel, makeup materials, doors and windows, sheetrock, interior trim, flooring, counters etc.
With the help of residential estimating the building professional can convert their plans, blue print, elevations, sections etc. from 2D drawing into 3D model based on the information to generate realistic dimension to the cost of construction of a building in a timely manner through the use of the most commonly used construction estimating programs including Microsoft Excel.

Posted by
Rajib Dey
Business Development
The construction estimating service

The Industrial risk of Cost Estimation in the Bidding Process

Project cost estimation in the bidding process is a critical concern for the competitiveness and profitability of an engineering and contracting company. Estimates which diverge as little as possible from actual costs have to be made on the basis of relatively limited information. Of the macro-items contributing to the overall cost of a plant project, those
linked to engineering activities have been growing continuously in percentage terms for a number of years and have thus become the object of considerable interest. Moreover, since these items are difficult to standardize, estimation is particularly difficult. A method able to produce reliable estimates for these activities could certainly be usefully transferred to other project stages. The methodology proposed to formulate a bid estimate for a HAZOP study envisages the joint use of three tools to produce more accurate estimates and improve the quality of decisions through explicit assessment of the risk of over-estimating (or under-estimating) the cost.

First, an analytical estimation model based on improved structuring of available information provides more accurate estimates and facilitates the use of IT applications. Second, company knowledge gained in previous projects is structured and maintained in order to ensure continuous improvement in estimation. This information can be used to improve over time the understanding of the determinant values in the model itself, so obtaining increasingly accurate estimates and probability distributions which take account of historical errors. Finally, a simulation technique provides the probability distribution of the overall cost and thus the confidence interval of the estimates.

Project cost estimation in the bidding process is a critical concern for the competitiveness and profitability of an engineering and contracting company as it involves considerable risk. Indeed, with only the limited information available in the tender documents and the partial results of the basic engineering, an estimate must be drawn up which varies as little as possible from the effectively sustained costs. The reason for this is that the industrial goods market is becoming increasingly competitive and the typical contract is now the lump-sum, in which the contractor agrees to supply at a pre-determined price. Since the starting point for this price is the estimate prepared during the bidding, it is evident that this cost estimate is crucial to the competitiveness and profitability of engineering and contracting companies.

That’s why project cost estimation is always a critical process on the part of the engineers. The estimator must have to take great care in the estimating process to deliver an accurate calculation.

Revit Architecture Extension now available

If you have not seen it yet, log into your Autodesk subscription site and there is a new extension available for Revit Architecture - "The Roombook Extension".

The Roombook Extension for Autodesk® Revit® Architecture 2011 software helps calculate the surface area of walls, floors and ceiling elements, room circumferences and the total number of furnishing elements within a project.

In addition to the automated detection of room areas and surfaces, this extension helps users configure these elements manually to local requirements, as well as achieve more accurate model take-offs. Quantified results can be exported to Microsoft® Excel® software and Autodesk® Quantity Takeoff (QTO) 2010 software.

Currently it is available in English and German, and includes the International Project Standard and the German VOB Standard measurement systems. There's a pretty good ReadMe PDF available - let us know if your subscription is up to date and you can't seem to find the extension.

Tips for a perfect estimation

Always just before to start a project some questions crawling in the minds of every member of the Architects, Engineers and Construction industry. How much will it cost? How many days will it take to finish? What will be the profit margin of the project? To get answers of all these questions you should seek the help of project estimation.

Any construction projects typically involve many dynamic aspects, yet they're often constrained by finite conditions. These contradictory forces make it very difficult to determine with pinpoint accuracy the time and effort required. By using a set of proactive estimating techniques to scope, plan, and constrain your project conditions, you can dramatically improve your estimating practices, reduce and mitigate risks, and increase your project success rate.

Do you excel at predicting the time, funding, and resources your projects will require? Whether your company aims to develop a new product or service, update an existing system, or launch a new Web site, these undertakings will require people, schedules, funding, resources, requirements, testing, revising, implementation, evaluation, and many other elements. Sometimes we forget the hidden or unknown variables that are difficult or impossible to anticipate and sometime even more difficult to resolve.

That’s why you need to be more careful when estimating for a construction project. Here we are discussing about some important tips for perfect project estimation.

1. Maintain an ongoing "actual hours" database of the recorded time spent on each aspect of your construction projects. Use the data to help estimate future projects and identify the historically accurate buffer time needed to realistically perform the work.

2. Create and use planning documents, such as specifications and project plans.

3. Perform a detailed task analysis of the work to be performed.

4. Use a "complexity factor" as a multiplier to determine whether a pending project is more or less complex than a previous one.

5. Use more than one method to arrive at an estimate, and look for a midpoint among all of them.

6. Identify a set of caveats, constraints, and assumptions to accompany your calculations, which would bind the conditions under which your estimates would be meaningful. (Anything that occurs outside of those constraints would be considered out of scope).

7. If the proposed budget or schedule seems inadequate to do the work, propose adjusting upward or downward one or more of the four project scoping criteria: cost, schedule, quality, and features.

8. Consider simpler or more efficient ways to organize and perform the work.

9. Plan and estimate the project rollout from the very beginning so that the rollout won't become a chaotic scramble at the end. For instance, you could propose using a minimally disruptive approach, such as a pilot program or a phased implementation.

10. In really nebulous situations, consider a phase-based approach, where the first phase focuses primarily on requirements gathering and estimating.

11. Develop contingency plans by prioritizing the deliverables right from the start into "must-have" and "nice-to-have" categories.

12. Refer to your lessons-learned database for "20:20 foresight" on new projects, and incorporate your best practices into future estimates.

In conclusion, by using a set of proactive estimating techniques to scope, plan, and constrain your project conditions, you can dramatically improve your estimating practices, reduce and mitigate risks, and greatly increase your project success rate!

Importance of Project Estimation

Though Project Estimation is now has become very important part for the Architecture, Engineering and Construction or AEC industry, many of us really don’t understand the importance of Project Estimation. Many think that project estimation is a waste of budget. But the fact is that it is a very important part of any construction project. If we view the project result, we find out that around 30% of projects are cancelled befire completion just because of it run out of money.

Effective project estimation is one of the most challenging and important activities in the AEC industry. Proper project planning and control is not possible without a sound and reliable estimate. The AEC industry suffers for the wrong estimation of any project badly. Under-estimating a project leads to under- staffing it, under scoping the quality assurance effort and setting too short schedule which resulting the loss of credibility as deadlines are missed. For those who figure on avoiding this situation by generously padding the estimate, over estimating a project can be just about as bad for the organization. If you give a project more resources than it really needs without sufficient scope controls it will use them. The project is then likely to cost more than it should, take longer to deliver than necessary and delay the use of your resources on the next project.

Project estimation is one of the aspects of business that requires some degree of consideration, because the succeeding phases of the project are dependent on the accuracy and the efficiency of this process. Project estimation provides details that would go beyond the capabilities of manual processing even with an army of accountants. Construction businesses require a specialized accounting software system with streamlined estimating facilities.

According to the statistic over 66% of projects are not delivered on time, on budget or to expected quality. This negatively impacts staff productivity, product quality, customer relationships and overall credibility. Good project estimation and planning goes beyond tools, techniques and processes. It’s also about the right attitude, understanding and mutual expectation – not just from the Architect, Engineers and Contractors but also from senior management. When we understand together what can be done, what has been done, and what is being put before us, we can successfully plan projects to make them more predictable.

In this way we find out that why project estimation is important for the AEC industry. Not only to win the bid, accurate project estimation is helpful to finish the project within budget and time frame that increase credibility as well as profit of them.