Developing an Engineer's Estimate

Engineer's Estimate?

Did the other engineer not do any estimating? No BOM, no anything? what do you have?

Sounds like you want somebody on the commercial side.

That is exactly what had happen. The other engineer did not generate a BOM. This is one of the first things which I had done. I am working with an other engineer in my office, and he wants to group things into Lump Sum items. He doesn't seem to get the concept of the contractor's need for quantities for bidding.

I am looking for some type of software which could give construction costs. I have already compiled material costs for the project.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

dear sir,

Ur bulding steel structure or concrete building?! and if concrete building which type of slabs u have.

I am trying from 2 month ago to bring software calculate the cost of slabs and which one is better (cost and structural) from my doctor. also i have softwares for steel structure but its just for our sections.

GA to you Ed.

Mr. Walton,

I greatly thank you for your input. I have taken the information you provided to heart. The "lead engineer" on the project had developed an engineer's estimate. I had been approached several times in the recent past with 'questions' which made wounder the accuracy of the estimate which had been developed. I was the tasked to review the project "from a constructibility perspective." This is when I discovered that many of the pay items on the project were listed as "LS" under the UNITS column. I voiced my concerns to him. Through a discussion I stressed that when the project is let for bid, one of several things will happen: 1) He would be inundated with questions from contractors. 2) Contractors will just Mark up the project to cover "unknown quantities." 3) Some contractors would just pass on bidding the project.

Fortunately I was able to get him to 'see the light.' Now the bid item sheet still has the LS units for demolition, at least now the project plans and "estimated quantities" for the LS pay Items. (This is not ideal, but at least it's better than it was).

When I inquired as to how the Estimated Costs were derived, I was informed the state DOT average unit costs were utilized for the items which were not quoted by the 'suppliers'. This is how I ended up with the project. Now I'm trying to verify the accuracy of the estimate. The final project total may be accurate, but I can't be sure, and I don't want put my name on it until I'm certain (at least as much as possible).

I have taken your advise to heart, and will pass it on to the other Engineers in the office.

Again, Thank You.

rjyou,

Thanks for the advise. I have implemented it into the process. Please read my response to Mr. Weldon. The appreciation I expressed to Mr. Weldon, I also extend to you. The scope and drawings have been revised. But, any additions suggestions you may have will be greatly appreciated. You may also respond to me through the following email KE7WAW@hotmail.com.

Respectfully,

Doug.

As a Civil Engineer in a Water/Wastewater division of a Large corporation, I can tell you that we use Excel for our engineers estimates for the various municipalities and government agencies we serve. You should be knowledgeable of the cost, materials availability and labor circumstances in the area of the proposed facilities, and base your cost on this familiarity. It kind of sounds like you do not have the experience with such projects on which to base your estimates, but even worse the engineer you are working with sounds even less experienced and a bit lazy. Maybe your group should bring in an experienced engineering firm as a subcontractor.

Dear Guest,

Your response is appreciated. The material costs were not the problem. I was having a problem with the installation/labor cost. This is because I have only been working with this firm (in another part of the country) for about a year and a half. I'm not very familiar with construction costs here, but I'm getting there.

I must defend the other engineer. I may not have clearly explained the situation. He is not lazy, just unfamiliar with how major civil construction projects are bid. This has been a major learning process for him as well.

However, I do thank you for you input.

It sounds to me that your company doesn't have the experience to bid a job such as yours. When bidding a job(cost estimating), one has to be very familiar with all the aspects of the job, from operation to maintenance and everything in between. I was an estimator(now retired) for a major shipyard that bid on ship repair jobs. You had to know all about a ship's construction, from structure to mechanical to electrical. You had a list of the different disiplines involved and the man hours needed to perform a particular task. All this data was added together into a final bid. Based on that, you either got the job or you didn't. BTW, that was before computers.

Hi CETech,

You are now armed with the excellent inputs from Ed Weldon, rjyou & others to do your estimate. Let me add a few more tips :

1. Please develop a data bank of all the previous estimates done.

2. Analyse the results critically ( whether the Co. made profit or loss )

3. This will idicate corrective factors for your present estimate

4. you know what happened 6 months before about steel prices-it went up the roof and falling down now. In other words keep in mind the trend of major input rates.

5 Estimation is only an estimation done at a particular time & a particular person and it can vary from time to time.

6. Keep some cushion for costing errors & for negotiations

7.Follow the principle of estimation " Prepared by " , " Checked by " & " Approved By "

These types of general precautions can go on & vary from project to project.

Hope, these tips will also be useful.

Good Luck

Rangasamy.

I promised some comments on Software. There are many software packages out there, all of them good to some extent. I've worked, and set up, 2 commercial systems, and an in-house system developed under rigid protocols for risk. Most of the packages are designed around a contractors tender submission. They provide an excellent tool for those with known labour, material, crew production, as well as rates, overhead, gross margin etc. The data has to be well structured and adaptable to the software. The costs come out of the first principles of knowing your knowns, productions etc, and allow you to accurately close a tender at high speed at the 11th hour to win the job.

Most of these packages can be adapted for engineering budget work, but you really have to understand what your client wants to control cost to.

I am still on the search for good package that will allow me to suit my main client, whose plants have 300+ major pieces of equipment, and control WBS is 800+ plus items.

Spreadsheets are extremely flexible, but this is also a major impediment to historical data. The data has to be structured to be usable and repeatable. The flexibility is also a major risk to your activities if too many people have access to a file. I suggest that you research spreadsheet error and risk on the web. As an estimator it will make your hair stand on end and keep you up at night.

There are many packages that incorporate established manhour data tables as well - these are next on my list to evaluate. But they have to be able to export the data into a schedule package so that reasonable cash-flows and earned value can be tracked.

If you find any good software suggestions, I'd appreciate any input.