The role of the construction estimator has changed dramatically over the years, particularly for those employed by general contractors (GCs) or construction managers (CMs).
It used to be that the estimator's primary responsibility was to perform a complete quantity "take-off" and price the entire project before accepting subcontractor and vendor bids. Now, particularly for large GCs and CMs, estimators are expected to do much more. Expectations now include "filling in the blanks;" defining scopes of work; assessing alternative materials, systems or methods; and managing the intent of the design team and desires of the owner.
The rapidly escalating cost of construction, lack of resources and lack of bidder interest further complicate the role of the estimator. How can contractors best adapt to these enhanced expectations and provide true preconstruction value to their clients while differentiating themselves from their competition?
Project Delivery Method Affects Role
The delivery method selected by a construction owner has tremendous impact upon the definition of the contractor's preconstruction role and whether any preconstruction services beyond estimating will be required at all. Contractors and subcontractors will typically experience one of four project delivery methods on most of their projects:
- Traditional Design-Bid-Build (lump sum bid) based on completed bid documents
- Construction Management-Agency where the trade contracts are directly with the owner
- Construction Management @ Risk with a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) based on less than 100 percent documents
- Design-Build with all design and construction responsibility combined.
Table 1 indicates the relative level of preconstruction involvement required of contractors and subcontractors for each delivery method. Each construction project is unique and owners approach the selection of their delivery method and construction partner differently, but the recent trend toward more construction management and design build project delivery demands greater estimator capability than traditionally required with Design-Bid-Build.
When owners have traditionally put their projects "out to bid," the focus of the estimating team would be limited to a very short and very intense bid period between receipt of the documents and the day of the bid. Depending on the project, this may be only a two-to-four week period of time. The objective of this bid period would be to win the project by being the lowest cost bidder. Keys to success in lump sum bidding include receiving as many bids as possible, knowing in great detail the quantities of materials required, including only what is clearly necessary and maintaining low overhead costs and fees.
In contrast to this approach, Construction Management (CM) and Design-Build project delivery methods demand the involvement of the estimator or preconstruction manager for a much longer period of time, typically months and sometimes years prior to the actual start of construction. In addition, CM and Design-Build projects are often "fast tracked" or bid in packages allowing work to begin much sooner and to proceed while other portions of the project are still being designed. The result is the preconstruction and estimating activities overlapping construction activities for months or even years on large projects. Throughout this process, multiple estimates are created, updated and frequently refined based upon new design information or alternate materials or systems for portions of the work not yet bid.
Many CM firms employ preconstruction managers, essentially preconstruction project managers, to lead the project through this period prior to the start of construction. Although many preconstruction managers possess an estimating background, more and more are field operations staff seeking a career change from onsite project management roles. Preconstruction managers in firms handling large projects may only be able to handle two or three projects at a time and may not even do any estimating themselves. Rather, they act as the manager of internal resources of the estimating department to produce progress estimates at design milestones, evaluate material and system costs, review document progress and coordination, build and maintain subcontractor and vendor relationships and serve to efficiently hand off the project to the project manager and
