It all begins with Estimating

Do you know your costs?

Most estimators don't have much time to submit bids let alone do re-pricing. Despite that fact we still need to know what projects cost. Waiting for job costs reports to arrive is too late. You need to know real costs prior to bidding to make informed decisions.

Do your bids go over budget?

Many projects now need to be re-priced because bids are over budgets. With little time to submit a new bid, these are often pro-rated in an effort to simply "get the job" . More than ever actual costs need to be known at bid time to help in re-pricing . Better yet you need to know if the job is still profitable prior to submitting your bid.

Do you know where you are making the most money?

Manufacturing plants are realizing that they can't specialize in all aspects of bid scopes when some machines are only used for special projects or 5% of the time. You need to understand which parts of your business are the most profitable and focus on those. This basically leads to knowing your costs.

Can you bid consistently?

If you have more than 1 estimator, how consistent are their bid practices. Do you have standards in place to assist them to do so?

Can you quickly bring new employees onboard?

Do you have any system in place to allow new estimators to learn your bidding practices or is this knowledge still retained by a key employee. Much of estimating is mechanical and can be made part of a system and allow estimators to focus on negotiating not pricing.