You would think that construction companies would study the actual costs of the process of estimating construction costs but they rarely do. Think about it. When was the last time someone in your company asked how the estimating process could be made more efficient? But there are real costs and inefficiencies that affect the bottom line of every construction company.  I made a simple spreadsheet that can be a tool to show first the cost of inefficiency and then a section to total up proposed costs to improve the efficiency of the estimating team. Your company will achieve a much better return with the investment than anything else! I also made a YouTube video that goes over the spreadsheet. You can download the spreadsheet here. LINK

The typical inefficiencies I see are the following
1. No Activity Codebook or a poor one
2. No Material Codebook
3. No Biditem Codebook
4. Wrong version of HeavyBid (usually Basic version when they should have the Advanced)
5. Poor response time in HeavyBid
6. Poor HeavyBid skills due to no or little training.

I hope this tool can assist you in improving your efficiency of the estimating team.