Estimating Electrical Projects: Training and Resources for Estimators
Posted June 14th, 2011
The National Electrical Contractors Association, which bills itself as “the voice of the electrical construction industry,” works to advance the industry through advocacy, education, research, and standards development. As part of their educational offerings, they provide courses that will help electrical contractors estimate projects profitably.
Their catalog of courses includes:
Basic Estimating of Electrical Construction
Recommended Pre-requisite: NECA’s one-hour online course, Introduction to the NECA Manual of Labor Units, is now required for all Basic Estimating class participants before they take this course. The intro course provides clear instruction on the proper application of the NECA Manual of Labor Units when estimating electrical construction projects.
This course is for those with little or no experience in estimating and seasoned estimators looking to hone their skills. It is a must for those who find themselves frustrated by the current bid market and continue to question their efforts in compiling a “competitive” bid. The principles taught will help you eliminate careless mistakes, which can cost your company its very existence.
Materials include a textbook, reference books, sample drawings, and specification and work sheets for each student. Through this course, contractors and estimators will learn how to properly apply the labor unit data to a specific material installation. It contains helpful information about the origin of the labor units, the proper application of the data and how one can use these labor units to competitively bid electrical construction projects.
Topics covered: labor factoring for job conditions, basics of material takeoff/expanded material takeoff, labor units applied to material takeoffs, bid documents, organizing an estimate for control, and more.
Advanced Estimating of Electrical Construction
Recommended Pre-requisite: Basic Estimating of Electrical Construction or permission of instructor
This course is designed to assist the student in all phases of the estimating process, beginning with identifying desirable bid opportunities in conjunction with analyzing the company’s capabilities to insure profitable results. It covers all phases of preparing a competitive bid, including the many-times-ignored hidden costs in the bid documents.
The course material includes NECA’s Productivity Studies. These recently revised studies quantify the impact of adverse working conditions on electrical constructors and will be used during the course to solve real life case studies.
The course concludes with an overview of the estimator’s role at the pre-construction meeting. The long-term goal is to increase the estimator’s confidence and efficiency while improving the company’s profitability.
Avoid Killer Jobs-Improve Estimation Accuracy [NEW]
Recommended Pre-requisite: Basic Estimating of Electrical Construction
Estimation accuracy is vital to a contractor’s survival. One wrong estimate could lead into a major “Killer Job,” which can erode the entire company’s profits. Hit ratios and accuracy of estimation can be improved by application of unique data-mining method and statistical process control. Using the historical data from accounting, estimation and job tracking, the contractor’s owners and estimators can improve their estimation accuracy cost code by cost code and increase the predictability of their estimated labor units per job.
Participants will learn how to mine the existing database to identify the company’s overall productivity performance, then use data analysis to improve estimation accuracy. The following topics will be covered:
• Data analysis of estimation, accounting and job tracking
• Applied statistics for contractors
• Methodology for interpretation of data
The participants will be introduced to:
• Data mining technologies
• Application of statistics to estimation data
• Creation of: bar, box and run charts for analysis
• Interpretation of data graphs
