Masonry Magazine February 1999 Page. 14
Aiming for a Winning Estimate
Continued from page 10
NAME, LET ALONE DELINEATE BETWEEN THE THNN AND THWN WIRE ON YOUR ELECTRICAL QUOTE! (Sorry... I got a little excited - but I'm OK now).
The point is - stay calm. Address and extinguish questions as rapidly and as efficiently as possible. The answers may not be perfect, but they'll do. The deadline is drawing closer and you need to move on. Considering the enormous amount of information being assembled, delineated, and evaluated, you'll be amazed at how well you did after you're done!
One quick note. For you spreadsheet users, make it a habit to check the formulas on your spreadsheet to insure they're calculating correctly. During the firestorm of preparing the estimate, you no-doubt added, deleted, and moved lines around. Sometimes you slip, and don't carry the formulas from one line to another, causing the line and column summaries to be inaccurate. Do I (or your boss) need to explain why the $24,500 line item that should have been $245,000 might cause some unwanted stress at the office?
Presenting the results (the Bid Form)
A bid form is commonly supplied in the bid package for use in presenting your proposal. Though often geared towards the prime contractor, the sub or supplier may (and should) also find the bid form of value as an outline for preparing their bid. There are often unit prices, alternates, and sub-contractor requirements on the bid form that may or may not be spelled out clearly on the plans and specs.
As a bidder, you're often required to fill in all of the blanks on the form or risk being disqualified. If you have nothing to put in a particular space, never leave it blank. Type in "N/A", a relevant notation, or whatever's appropriate. Also, check the addenda on the project to see if there's a new bid form. This actually happens quite a lot, and could be the difference between being accepted or rejected. The same applies to any new alternates or unit pricing that may have been added during the bid process. While your at it, check to make sure you've received all of the addenda.
Other bid form requirements may include sub-contractor listings, minority requirements, bonding & insurances, corporate resolutions, prevailing wage compliances, and much, much, more. When in doubt, check with the architect (if you're a GC) or the call the general contractor (for subs & suppliers).
Don't guess or assume anything. The last thing you want to do is put all that work into the estimate process only to have it thrown out due to a bid-form technicality. This does happen and even if the owner is lenient regarding bid form technicalities, there are plenty of competitive companies that won't be. Some will review all of the bid forms after the letting, in hopes of finding a reason for disqualification of a competitor (particularly if you're first and they're second). So be careful.
Closing
Of course, we're discussing a vast and varied subject and this information is just the tip of the iceberg. Ultimately, the best information, methods, and skills for creating your winning estimate will come through years of commitment and experience - encompassing success and failure. But keep it up. By implementing and adapting some of the ideas and advice we've discussed today, you'll soon be well on your way to competitive estimating success and with it, more building projects. Then the only problem you'll have is how you're ever going to build them all! (Well, that's another article.)
Editors Note: S.S. Saucerman is a full-time commercial construction estimator/project manager, freelance author and lecturer for the construction industry, and also teaches Building Construction Technology at Rock Valley College in Rockford, Minois.