As if the Estimating Process Wasn’t Challenging Enough!
As if the Estimating Process Wasn’t Challenging Enough!
Accurately estimating construction projects is risky enough, now you must factor in inflation coupled with supply chain delays.
You might be receiving bids from subcontractors that look unusually high. During this time of rising material costs, those higher-than-normal bids could be completely reasonable. However, you could probably do more to confirm the validity of those higher bids by asking your subcontractors to “breakout” the material portion of their bid separate from the rest of their bid. This will provide much more transparency to the bids you’re receiving.
Supply chain issues are an additional challenge. Certain trades are more impacted by supply chain delays than other trades. It’s easier said than done, but you can help limit supply chain issues and the impact of inflation that result from those delays, by convincing owners that the materials in the most impacted trades should be procured as early as possible.
- Inflation and supply chain issues are not the only hurdles, it’s also important to minimize the risks that have traditionally challenged the process of developing accurate project estimates. Most likely, your company is experiencing one or more of the following challenges when trying to “closeout” a bid:
- You keep closing your bids in Excel because your estimating solution can’t tackle the complexities associated with selecting the right mix of subcontractors on both “negotiated” bids and “hard” bids?
- You perform “risky” last minute merges of all your “bid tabs” to get a final bid total?
- You have to manually transfer your estimating budgets into Excel in preparation for the subcontractor selection process?
- Some of your team members are still working remotely, your current “bid day” process doesn’t support a “virtual” bid room environment.
- It’s a battle to manage subcontractor bids on projects that have the added complexity of multiple alternates / options?
- It’s a struggle to manage inclusions and exclusions and bid clarifications when analyzing the completeness of subcontractor bids?
Fortunately, BidMatrix, developed by Bridgetown Software minimizes your estimating risk by providing solutions to each of the challenges mentioned above. 2023 is right around the corner, now’s a great time to think about upgrading your estimating tools, with the goal being to win more work, and get that work based on estimates you have full confidence in.