In the high-stakes world of commercial electrical contracting, precision and speed are critical. Jamerson & Bauwens Electrical Contractors, Inc., a commercial electrical contractor based in the greater Chicago area, knows this balancing act all too well.
Working in healthcare and high end residential construction, customers are frequently making revisions to drawings and project plans. As a result, the team at Jamerson & Bauwens is constantly needing to make updates and changes from an estimating standpoint.
Consolidating estimation tools
When it came to creating estimates for projects, estimators at Jamerson & Bauwens used a wide array of tools— Accubid Classic, Change Order Pro, Bluebeam, and of course, pen and paper (sound familiar?).
This fragmented approach to estimation worked for a while, but coordinating estimations for large-scale projects was tedious and often required manual merging of individual estimates, which took a lot of time and was prone to mistakes and discrepancies.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, the team transitioned to remote work, making their processes even more inefficient. “One of the biggest difficulties was operating on a server based environment. We had to make sure everybody had access to the server through a VPN,” explained Alex Savadka, Estimator at Jamerson & Bauwens.
“We were physically driving sets of paper drawings to people's houses, in the early days of the pandemic,” he says.
And when the team got to the point of putting the estimate together?
“Some of the material items didn't line up between the different estimates. We had a lot of repeats of similar types of products in our bill of material, which didn't help with getting pricing from our suppliers.”
Making the leap to real-time digital workflows
To solve these time consuming problems and processes, Jamerson & Bauwens decided to adopt MEP’s Accubid Anywhere. With Accubid Anywhere, the estimating team now has the ability to collaborate and work in real-time. With high reliability and uptime, estimators can now put together an entire submittals package in about a dozen clicks.
The team also utilizes Supplier Xchange to manage submittals and access real-time material pricing. The company is able to compare who has the best packages and prices to ensure the bottom line is being met. Especially when it comes to big competitive bids, like public bid openings, Jamerson & Bauwens can confidently submit their bid knowing the material pricing is accurate.
An award-winning competitive edge
Since adopting Accubid Anywhere, Jamerson & Bauwens has won several public bid openings over the past year, which they didn’t previously go after.
“That just reinforces the fact that our material pricing is accurate. We're not sandbagging the material just to cover ourselves. We actually have a real price that we're confident in.”
Minimizing the time it takes to gather material quotes while also operating in a system that allows multiple users to work in the same estimate at the same time, Sabatka estimates the company’s takeoff to estimate timeline has decreased by about 50%!
For that reason, Jamerson & Bauwens Electrical Contractors, Inc., was awarded the 2023 Construction Award for Best Estimating Success Story.
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