Technology improved how you performed and recorded your estimating and takeoff, but traditional software was just enabling the process instead of improving it. Traditional estimating and takeoff software is process piled atop process, with little regard for optimisation and efficiency.
It’s not a bad system, but it’s also not a great one.
The earliest estimating was done with pen and paper, and the introduction of computers into this process still relied on having a plan laid out in front of you. The computer age enabled customers to experience for the first time estimating software and even early spreadsheet applications like Microsoft Excel. The process was improved from paper and pen, however a significant problem existed in estimating software: user input. It was obvious that a solution for taking off your quantities was necessary.
The first step in bringing takeoff into the digital age was digitizer boards. Yes they made the estimating and quantity takeoff faster… but digitizer boards were not only incredibly cumbersome, but they were so expensive that only the top tier companies could afford them.
Even in software solutions that included both your takeoff and your estimating, the process of creating a list of takeoff items, and then mapping these items into an estimate was unnatural. When you’re trying to produce an estimate, that’s what you’re trying to accomplish: an estimate for a job. Traditional software forces you to think not about your goal of generating that estimate, but how you have to extract your quantities from a plan. The simple change in mindset made estimating harder, especially for builders and sub-contractors who were performing an estimate just to be able to secure work. Even at the level of a full time estimator or Quantity Surveyor, the unnatural process was causing unnecessary complications and taking up more time than what should have been needed.
In short, the complexity of traditional software is caused from you needing to shift your thinking further away from the context of what they are estimating. To get specific, traditional estimating and takeoff software often had more difficult and convoluted interfaces, but worse still was that this software was also harder to learn, driving up ongoing training costs and being responsible for steeper learning curves.
The unnecessary addition of steps between the takeoff process and the estimating process not only hinders your speed and effectiveness in generating a quote but also increases the likelihood of errors. Even when the process in traditional estimating and takeoff software was as automated as possible, the process still required you having to input your takeoff, then validate your takeoff, then map your takeoff to your estimate, then validate your mapping, then perform further estimating and then finally to validate that estimating.
There had to be an easier, and more importantly, a better process.
The problems of traditional estimating and takeoff were incorporated into the system architecture of the software, much like a slab. In order to avoid having to rebuild the packages from the ground up with a new architecture, all companies decided to main the status quo in developing takeoff and estimating software because: “it’s good enough”. Although these flawed takeoff systems have improved many customers’ businesses, a continued development from a flawed plan was holding the industry back. Software should always be better, and always be making sure tomorrow is easier than the day before. Buildsoft had to face the fact that “Good enough” wasn’t, and that natural estimating is a better tomorrow.