Building services estimating is the process of creating construction cost estimates for a project. It involves a thorough understanding of all aspects of construction, from materials to labor and equipment.
It is critical that construction estimators produce accurate estimates on a regular basis. Otherwise, the resulting cost overruns will damage their reputation and hurt working relationships.
Cost Analysis
Cost analysis is a critical element of building services estimating. It enables you to determine a project’s financial feasibility and scope, allocate budgets, and avoid overpaying for construction services. It also helps you determine whether a project will bring in enough income to make the investment worth it.
You can perform cost analysis using spreadsheets, accounting software, or dedicated document frameworks that automatically format and share professional reports. The key is to choose a method that suits your needs and the type of business you are running.
In most cases, your costs will need to be sorted or segmented before you can even begin to analyse them. This is why it is a good idea to use a project delivery costing system that can automatically aggregate and organise this data for you, as well as display it in consolidated dashboards and graphs.
When you’re doing your analysis, you’ll want to take into account your overhead costs and profit margins, as well as the project delivery costs of labour, materials, and plant. By doing this, you can ensure that your costs analysis is as accurate as possible – and that the results can be used to guide your business decisions.
Another important aspect of cost analysis is calculating the project’s potential benefits and comparing them to its costs. This can help you determine whether the project is worthwhile and profitable, or whether it should be changed to reduce its expenses.
Depending on the project, you may also need to include costs related to change orders and other contingencies. These can range from a small amount to a significant percentage of the total cost, and can affect your overall project estimate.
You can calculate your cost analysis ratio by dividing the total cost of your project by its estimated benefits. This will show you how much profit you can expect from a project, which is a crucial factor for any business.
You can find cost indices and prices for many construction items online or in publications. These can be compiled from historical databases or from on-going price quotations from suppliers. However, it is important to ensure that you are using a pricing methodology that adjusts for the specific details of your project, including site conditions and hour restrictions.
Budgeting
Construction budgeting is a vital component of any building project. The best way to save money and time is to create a realistic budget that incorporates the actual cost of all tasks in your project, as well as the amount of manpower required to perform them. Having an accurate budget in place also ensures that you aren’t paying for things you don’t need.
Having a construction budget in mind is the most effective way to track and measure progress during the construction phase of your project. This can include a series of daily reports detailing your equipment usage, materials used, and manpower spent on each task. You can use these reports to adjust your costs in real-time, ensuring that your projects are on track and within budget.
A good construction cost estimator can help you determine the best way to budget for your project. They will also provide recommendations on the best and most efficient ways to save you both time and money in the long run. A construction estimator should also be able to recommend the most economical ways to obtain construction financing for your project. The most impressive thing about a top notch estimator is that they will be there for you every step of the way. Whether it is your first or twentieth, they will be there to guide you in the right direction.
Schedule Analysis
Schedule analysis is a vital tool for building services estimating because it allows you to spot variations of the planned schedule and translate them into cost overruns or risks. In addition, it gives you an opportunity to look at historical delay and inefficiencies, which can help you develop a risk mitigation strategy for the project.
Schedules can vary significantly throughout the life of a project due to a variety of factors. This is why it is important to keep them up-to-date with real data as the project progresses. By doing this, you can ensure that your schedule depicts realistic deadlines.
Generally, the information necessary to develop a schedule includes activities, durations, required resources and predecessor activities. The actual input of this data to a computer program can be accomplished through a variety of methods, including filling in blanks on a screen menu, reading an existing data file or typing directly into the schedule program with identifiers for the type of information being provided.
A graphical network representation of the project schedule is often preferred to a list of activities and their associated durations, as this provides a more intuitive understanding of the plan. The resulting graph can give a project manager an idea of how well the schedule is utilizing available resources and if there are any areas of resource competition or shortages that might require further scheduling analysis.
Another valuable indicator of resource usage is the time versus completion graph, which can be prepared by summing the requirements for each activity at each time period. This can indicate when the demand for a specific resource is high and when it might be necessary to use resource constrained scheduling techniques to accommodate this demand.
In addition, this method can be used to identify activities that are on the critical path and those that are not. This allows the team to make better decisions about how to allocate resources, mitigate risks and avoid delays during construction.
PERT is a schedule calculation technique that is used by many teams in construction to help them analyze the duration and dependency of tasks. This allows team members to identify key tasks that need to be completed on time to keep the project on track.
Project Management
Project management is a key aspect of building services estimating. It involves the process of scheduling and managing all aspects of a construction project. It can include a variety of tools that help track progress and costs.
Several different types of building projects may require project management. These can include residential, commercial, and industrial projects.
The main project manager should be responsible for tracking progress and coordinating the various team members involved in the construction process. They will also be in charge of ensuring that all work is done according to schedule and budget.
Some project managers will use a Gantt chart to visualize their progress. Others may prefer a simple calendar view of the project.
Another way that project managers can manage a construction project is to use task lists. This is a basic feature in almost all project management software platforms.
Many construction-specific products have specialized task lists that are designed for a specific type of construction project. This allows project managers to create a list of tasks that need to be completed, then link those items to related files or correspondence.
Aside from this functionality, a good project management solution will also offer built-in templates and reports to assist with specific tasks. This includes a number of templates specifically for construction-specific processes like estimating and punch lists.
This is helpful because it can help teams prioritize tasks and make decisions based on the information they have. Some solutions may even allow users to create their own templates that can be used for future projects.
In addition to allowing teams to create and edit task lists, most construction-specific solutions also have features that make it easy for teams to capture issues in real time. This can be especially useful when it comes to tracking equipment or materials.
These can be difficult to track without some form of documentation. The best construction-specific project management software will provide a wide range of document storage options, including cloud-based or onsite.
For example, CoConstruct is a well-regarded construction project management tool that offers a wide range of tools to handle all aspects of the construction process. These include core functionality for estimating, CRM, bidding, accounting, and more, as well as specific project management features that support scheduling, resource planning, to-do lists, and more. The company also has a strong focus on client communication and self-service customer portals that allow customers to track their projects.