We aim to provide the best possible platform for trade contractors to create proposals and manage projects. In addition to facilitating business processes, we help our users leverage their data to better predict future performance. We do this through the application of machine learning technology to complex problems across many firms.
Best practices are defined to be commercial or professional procedures that are accepted or prescribed as being correct or most effective. Traditionally the construction industry has embraced the more effective approach because the correct approach has been indeterminate due to the lack of sufficient data. Specifically, to predict how a single variable, such as adding a new piece of equipment, might change production rates, we need to study a very large set of data because there are so many other variables which also affect project outcomes. BidUnity enables many regional firms to collaborate in building the volume of data required to determine how specific combinations of variable affect production rates, thereby reducing the risk of all participants.
Sufficient data has not been available to regional firms to justify distinction between the correct and most effective approaches. As result, construction productivity has not increased on par with that of other industries and trade contractors continue to bear a disproportionate amount of the risks associated with the construction of projects. The amount of information required for realizing meaningful conclusions is small with respect to the large number of variables influencing construction operating results.
We understand that construction businesses which have pursued the most effective approach have been the most successful. We imposed two requirements on the development of BidUnity. First, must save users a very substantial amount of their time to be considered effective. Second, it must solve complex problems to be considered correct. The following discussion explains how BidUnity supports the estimating processes of trade contractors in a manner which saves them time and makes their data available to them.
Most draw little distinction between estimates and proposals. The estimating process leads to the determination of proposals. Let's summarize the estimating process before discussing how we have approached programming it to support your business process.
This is all you. You qualify the project according to your standards. We allow you to save the plans to the project making them accessible to everyone at your firm.
We provide support with respect to how you classify types of work. This can be a little bit confusing, but consider the CSI's 50 Divisions. Our work type structure is based on this widely-recognized standard for the classification of construction work types. Don't worry, we also allow you to search the tree by using keywords. This classification scheme was intended to be further extended by trade contractors through sub-classifications. Within each broad category, you can create 99 new categories of related, but different work type classifications. Within those categories you can create new, even more closely related categories.
If unfamiliar, it may help to think of each level in terms of parents and children. Parents come first, at the highest level, their children have some but not all of the parents' attributes. Each child does not have attributes unique to other parents.
The purpose of providing work type categories is for organizing system types. System types are used to classify equal product systems (we provide a different way to classify equal parts). Equal product systems are those groups of related parts which can be, and often are, substituted for each other in practice. We understand that not every system is exactly equal which is why we have provided so many ways to classify work types and product systems.
Suppose that you have identified a type of work that you want to include on your proposal. You next create a new specification for that work type. The specification groups work elements together--or separates work elements from those of other specifications. Whenever you create a specification, you are selecting a system type and specifying the applicable finishes. The specified finishes are used to get pricing for the required parts.
We understand how much time goes into figuring out which suppliers are offering the best value which is why we get pricing from all of them together at the same time and report their itemized costs for your review.
It takes a few seconds, but APM calculates the sizes of required parts, determines how much stock material needs to be purchased to render those parts, checks to see if alternate suppliers are available for each part, looks up list prices based on the specified finishes, and then applies your company's multipliers. Before the report loads, APM considers the structural constrains which apply to the product systems, the limitations of its components, and finally which components are the best cost. The reason that it takes a few seconds is because it does this for all of your company's vendors' equal systems, those of the specified system type, at the same time.
The information is formatted in a way which lends itself to comparison between systems, but we recognized how we could improve the determination of costs more precisely. Before finalizing your proposal, we look up the applicable sales tax rates based on the project's address and your supplier's address. We are still working through some of the variation in how those rates should be applied within each jurisdiction, but we're happy to be applying the correct rates in a way which accurately determines sales tax liabilities.
More importantly if your material suppliers have integrated with BidUnity's APIs, we will automatically send your parts list to them and let their servers automatically quote your potential order. Yes, suppliers can have their own accounts within BidUnity which are different from trade contractors' accounts. Yes, they can configure their own product systems, parts, pricing, etc. to make buying from them more convenient for you, their customer. Let's all do the industry a favor and tell them this isn't 2024 anymore, right?
I almost included this with step three, but even though BidUnity figures labor for you it is important for you to understand how. Labor durations can be associated with individual parts and with individual components. For example, you might associate one minute with a specific type of screw. When sixty screws are required, sixty minutes are required. If you also associated four minutes with a component which had one of those screws, then five total minutes would be required for each instance of that component. The sum total time duration of each work type is then multiplied by the labor rate associated with the applicable system type. We decided to make that association with system types rather than with companies because some kinds of work require more skill than others.
Maybe you prefer to charge for labor based on occurences, linear footages, square footages, or volumes of work? Don't worry, we support those approaches as well. Record this preference at your company level to affect how costs are reported when the proposal review initially loads.
Whether or not you have any idea how much time to associate with specific parts or components, you need to do it. You do not need to do it right away, you can create labor estimates based on size/quantity, but you need to do it to get the benefits provided by machine learning. You need to create expense accounts for each distinct work activity and use your best guesses to associate some level of duration with part and components of each system.
BidUnity's labor budgets are established based on your selection of how labor should be calculated, but scheduled durations are established based on labor durations. Every proposal will require a precise time to complete. We are developing an Android and iOS app which will enable daily reporting of progress from job sites and of course the time and duration to achieve. You get the idea, you create a proposal which establishes durations based on what is required and it takes a certain amount of time to perform. BidUnity's machine learning capability will redetermine the correct rates of production according to each of the activity types that you associate with the work.
Try out the proposal review page, many of the features are beyond the scope of this discussion.
After consideration of materials and labor, you look at including additional expenses which are indirectly related to the project. You can add multiple additional expenses such as equipment, travel, or expenses to account for cost items which were not picked up by the parts and materials required by the selected system. Associate added cost items with types of work or with the project generally. Each added item allows you to create an additional line item on the proposal.
Finally, after about five minutes of review, you are ready to finalize your proposal. This is another area where BidUnity shines. Up until this point, you have been working with your costs. You now have the opportunity to assign a margin to the project. Each company's administrator maintains that company's margin schedule. Companies set a floor for the minimum margin that estimators can charge and establish a schedule for how much margin should be applied to types of work based on the total value of cost. This is another example of how BidUnity saves time. Users do not continue to revisit the question of how much to charge because our data structure maintains that information for your firm.