Page 6 - Tomlinson Times - Fall + Winter 2016

The Highs and Lows of Estimation
There aren’t many jobs where you move from utter terror to complete elation in the space of a minute. But this is something Tomlinson estimating teams deal with almost daily.
We’re talking about the ‘Public Tender Opening’ - the tense moment a er a tender is submi ed when the municipality reads out all the bids, in random order. “The goal is to be the lowest bidder, but within 3% of the next bidder, ideally 1%,” explains Ron Wood, Senior Es mator. “I’ve been in situa ons where the rst tender opened is several million dollars higher than yours. Your heart drops as you wonder, “Oh No!! What did I forget?” But then, when they keep reading out bids and the next bid is only a couple of thousand dollars higher than yours and you’re the lowest bid, you shi to complete relief.”
This winning tac c of coming within a few percentage points of the next highest bidder is known as ‘having the least amount of money le on the table’. If your winning tender is lower than your compe tor’s by 10% or more, you’ve priced yourself too low. Gauging that sweet spot is a challenge, but it’s something the es ma on team have worked hard at over the years. They have won million dollar tenders by just $100. For the 7 es mators within Tomlinson municipal, commercial and heavy civil groups who collec vely bid on 600 projects a year, Ron believes Teamwork is the key to success.
The process involves several important steps and requires team working skills at every juncture. Once an es mator has scoured the web for tenders, they choose the viable ones. Then the es mator prices up the project on a computer. At this point the es mator must consider all the tasks and factors involved in the project – the hours, sta , vehicles and materials needed, as well as ming and scheduling considera ons. There could be hundreds, o en thousands, of tasks required to complete one project and the es mator has to allow the me and money for every single one. As Derek Conway, Es mator (Heavy Civil) explains, “this takes experience of each Tomlinson division, but
most importantly, communica on with all of the opera ons divisions, be that concrete, asphalt, aggregates, sewer/ watermain or heavy civil.” Some mes the plans or drawings don’t match what is actually workable, so its takes knowledge of the di erent disciplines to accurately predict the resources, man hours and me needed.
Over the years, the es ma on team has built a system with help from the opera ons department, using sta s cs from previous jobs completed. The es ma on team also has to liaise with accoun ng to ensure their predic ons are accurate. Before submi ng the bid the es mator has to make sure Tomlinson meets all of the submission guidelines – a tedious but crucial part of the process. All this has to be gathered within the deadline for the tender, o en a two-week window. If a bid is even 1 second late it is disquali ed.
Given the complexity of es ma ng, it’s not surprising tensions runs high while wai ng for the public opening and announcement of the tender results. But the work doesn’t stop there. Once Tomlinson wins a bid the es ma on team is in constant contact with the project manager to ensure the project stays on budget. One par cular challenge is change orders – when a customer wants to alter something on the plan. When this happens, the es mator has a short window, some mes less than 24 hours, in which to re-price the job. This is when constant contact is crucial. When the project is completed the process goes full circle: the data from the project is collected by the opera ons team and shared with the es ma on team to inform future bids. It is this synergy that enables the en re es ma on team to submit accurate tenders me and me again.
Left to right: Lakmal Herath, Derek Conway, Ron Wood, Joel McIntyre, Tim Vizena, Ted Sewell, Wes Johnson, Patrick Patenaude, Mario Lalonde
6 TOMLINSON TIMES Fall/winter 2016