E-SOL BY BLAIR Estimating Solutions by Blair ~ exploring creative electronic alternatives Richard Blair Dickens, November 2014 Together with your company input, I custom design a Master Excel template for takeoff that all of the estimators use as a standardized system for taking off scope, which means everyone is on the same page both at estimating and downstream when it is fabricated, managed and installed. For illustration purposes, this presentation uses OST as the electronic takeoff software. If you already have a different takeoff system, please call to discuss if your software will work with E-Sol. If you are shopping for an electronic system of takeoff, E-Sol can discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the systems in light of what you are estimating & how you manage the job downstream. There are a lot of great programs out there. You have to find the one right for your company. Once you have purchased the right system and done your takeoff, the electronic takeoff is captured and transferred into Excel with no typing and retyping, and. Reference: Richard has been a pioneer at our company finding new ways to solve long-standing problems with the use of technology. He has been quite visionary in coming up with the solutions he has. His solutions have added a tremendous amount of value, and we could not imagine going back to the way things were. We are very grateful for the contribution Richard has made to our company. Best Regards, Stephen Ward at the push of a few buttons reformatted, and then pasted into a pricing sheet where it is automatically priced for you if you have chosen to automate. If automation is not an option, we work with you to make the pricing entry as streamlined and accurate as possible. This is a sample pricing sheet where it is pasted. Here is where you can tweak the pricing if you need to on a line item by line item basis. The buttons allow you to compact or expand the spreadsheet to focus just on those parts you need to work on. You have an option of whether you want a custom company ribbon interface in lieu of buttons. The size of the spreadsheet is totally dependent upon company needs. Reference: In the years Richard Dickens has served our company as an estimator, he has developed our electronic takeoff process with On Screen Takeoff, built our OST databases and maintained them with no down time, built a unique interface between OST and Excel that works to transfer takeoffs into Excel instantaneously and price them in the custom spreadsheet he pioneered. We estimate more jobs, more accurately, with no loss of data and price more efficiently in less time with more confidence than with our prior system. This system also allows for a smoother transition between estimating, CAD and project management with a shorter learning curve than before and less hiccups as the job is drawn and managed. As a company, we feel these changes have made us more competitive in today's changing market. David L. Smith President /Chief Operating Officer This is a sample Excel bid info sheet where it all begins. An estimator fills out the table forms, setting up for the pricing and entering the data that will be used throughout the bid and, hopefully, the project management phases of the project. It usually, depending on the size of the project takes about ten minutes, or less, to do this, since many of the fields are drop-down options that eliminate a lot of the typing. Some companies desire a constants page where they set the pricing parameters. It can be set once and left, or tweaked from job to job as needed. This is based on your companys historical data and what you know your rates need to be. Reference: Richards knowledge of On Screen Take-off and how to customize it to meet our specific needs really brought our estimating department to a whole new level. The Excel interface he created for us gives us the ability to import our OST data directly into Excel where we can price and summarize our bids with the speed, clarity, flexibility and accuracy that we never dreamed possible! The custom pivot table summary views of our bids are simple and elegant yet extremely powerful. The ability to summarize to the highest level or drill down to the smallest detail with just a click really gives us confidence that our bids are complete and accurate. These tools really helped us simplify and standardize our bids to face increasingly complex bid requirements. We cant imagine living without it. Terry D. McCoy, CPA Chief Financial Officer A final bid form, which, once set up in Excel by the estimator, will not need to be typed by anyone. This can be converted into a PDF or Word document anded, printed for faxing, or sent however you wish to transmit it to your client. The estimator can choose what he wants to present to the customer by selecting the information in the bid. You want to show the rooms covered but dont want to show pricing per room? Only want to show the lump sum total at the bottom? Just want to show the rooms covered, or show or not show square footage? Your choice to show or not to show. So, the estimator has total control over how this form looks to the customer and can quickly change it. Dont like the way this form looks currently? It can be changed to meet your desires. Need special project management tools? With your consultation, these can be built-in to assist your employee to better prepare for the important part of managing your resources to maximize your profits and present a final quality product to your customer. The estimator/pm is taught how to quickly restructure the OST takeoff and rework the Excel spreadsheet to develop a schedule of values to manage the fabrication and installation phases more easily. What I havent shown are the back spreadsheets that house all the database pricing entered inthe vendors, distributors that supply you annual, or periodic pricing. That will need to be maintained by your employee(s), whom I will train, or, for an annual fee, I can do it on a periodic basis as needed. These are password protected so changes can only be performed by your authorized personnel. Not every company wants or needs these, but for those that do, it speeds the estimating and gives a constancy to pricing that gives a confidence your bids are accurately priced. Some companies already have a master bid database or master project management database. For them, we can prepare the Excel workbook for transfer of the data if their system allows. For those who want to add these databases to the E-Sol system, there are two other spreadsheets that interact with what we have shown you thus far, the Bid Master and Project Management Master. Both will be in their own workbook where you and your management team can review all the bids of your commercial &/or residential divisions and the jobs they manage. That way you can keep apprised of the progress all along the way. This is a quick overview of what this entails. However, the training is critical to the success along with the necessity that those trained continue to practice the solid habits they develop. Please let me know if you would like further explanations or demonstrations of what you have seen in this brief slide presentation. Sincerely, Richard Blair Dickens In Conclusion.