Knowing how their company’s actual costs compared with the estimates for past projects is obviously valuable information for contractors putting together bids for new work. Modern estimating software with built-in connectivity to the performance tracking application makes the previously difficult job of retrieving that data quick and easy.
Production rate actuals are what estimators are looking for. These are the rates of production that crews at their company achieved on past jobs for specific activities. Conditions and circumstances are never exactly alike, but averaging the actual rates for multiple jobs can be a great predictor of what crews will achieve in the future. Filtering these rates according to past jobs most like the one they are bidding on can further increase the accuracy of the bid. The challenge for contractors that manage estimating and performance tracking with spreadsheets and paper is that this review of historical data can be cumbersome. Estimators are often forced to find and filter performance reports from past jobs manually and one at a time. In the interest of saving time, many instead rely on memory or on data from only a few of the most recent jobs. Specialized and connected software changes the equation. Now, estimators can use an API (application programming interface) to set up what is essentially a live connection between their estimating software and the software application they use for performance tracking.
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