MASTER ESTIMATING SERVICE
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Exclusively Electrical

MANY ESTIMATING MISTAKES CAN BE PREVENTED.

Many estimating mistakes are caused by lack of knowledge. These mistakes can be prevented by teaching estimators the right way to estimate. Other mistakes are caused by poor methods. To put it simply, just by the way a job is estimated. These mistakes can be prevented by teaching estimators an organized way to take-off and recap a job. This is the only way to assure that what goes into a calculator or a computer will produce a good bid price.

ESTIMATING MISTAKES THAT CANNOT BE PREVENTED, CAN BE CAUGHT BEFORE THE BID.

Estimating mistakes caused by human error will cost only the time to change the numbers if they are caught and corrected before the job is bid. Multiple safety cross-checks, that are part of the estimating system, are used to catch and correct these mistakes long before the bid. In addition, a Master Estimate Check can be applied that will tell the estimator and the contractor if one or more of the five essentials of a good estimate are missing and, if so, which part of the estimate is bad.

Research studies were done through thousands of estimates to find the types of mistakes estimators made. This research resulted in the two underlying principles of the Master Estimating System, mistake-prevention and mistake-detection.

ACCURACY IS NOT A MATTER OF OPINION.

The word estimate is defined in the dictionary as an approximate computation of future job costs. Job costs are not a matter of opinion. They are based on the bill of material needed to do the job, the quantities to do the job, the material unit used to price the material, the labor unit used to labor the material, and arithmetic. To build an estimate that meets the dictionary definition of the word, estimated costs must be determined the same way actual job costs are determined.

THE ESTIMATE IS ONLY THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS A PROFITABLE JOB.

Of the total time spent in estimating, purchasing, tooling, installing, supervising, running payrolls, processing payables, and billing the job, estimating time comes to only about 4% of the total time spent. Therefore an estimate should serve first as a bidding tool, then as a job management, purchasing, tooling, cost monitoring, and billing, tool. Then it reduces total overhead time.

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Information contained in this website has been taken directly from our encyclopedia,
The Business of Electrical Contracting
Master Systems 1963-1990, 1990-2007, 2007-2024.