Instructor: Phil Perry

The ability to produce cost estimates efficiently and accurately is a critical step in many construction career paths, and a high-demand skill throughout the construction industry.  Computer software has become a popular tool for estimating, and Microsoft Excel is the most widely-used option. In this one-day course, learn how to produce your estimates more quickly and accurately by harnessing the power of Microsoft Excel.

Who should attend:  This course is for any estimator who uses (or is considering using) Microsoft Excel for Construction Estimating. Whether you’re a novice or experienced Excel user, you’ll get practice using basic and extended features of Excel for a variety of typical estimating tasks.

Course Objectives: 

Upon successful completion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Use Excel formulas for typical construction estimating tasks
• Create takeoff sheets for use as templates
• Learn handy shortcuts to streamline estimating
• Link information in worksheets and workbooks
• Accurately calculate profit, overhead, markups, and taxes
• Generate graphs to visually display work product
• Use features such as VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP to access an MS EXCEL Database
• Print work product to PDF

Instructor: Kevin Dougherty

Are you tired of estimating jobs and not getting them? Do you wish the jobs you do get would be more profitable? If you answered yes to any of these questions then the advanced estimating program may be for you.   This program will help estimators to think differently about the estimating process, and how to approach each opportunity realistically. We will help estimators to not just look at the estimate as a number, but more as a process from job inception to job completion.

This program will also help attendees to think more as a business person, and to take more of a big picture approach to the estimation process rather than just doing takeoffs and providing numbers.

Instructor: Tim Williams

Participants will learn skills and knowledge to estimate construction projects and prepare a successful bid. At the end of the course participants will be able to: Analyze projects and decide on which ones to bid, Understand risk analysis and how to price this into a bid, Do competitor analysis and understand how this impacts the bid, Do client risk analysis and how to price this into bids, Record material and other prices and maintain contact lists, Formulate a bid strategy, Understand how to prepare an estimate and the estimating process, Use Construction Division Codes, Understand how to present a bid, Be familiar with how to use the bid depository, Understand the requirements for bonding and insurance, Understand the post-bidding process, Work with project managers to pass on knowledge of the bid.

Instructor: Richard Worr

This course will cover aspects of both estimating and business practices for contractors as we look at the risk factors associated with different project types. Topics include: establishing estimating goals; organizing the take-off for future project use; identifying common mistakes; re-checking the estimate; ensuring overhead & profit; cost recovery and risk analysis as well as, project start up, business failures, cost control, work breakdown structure, labour reporting, change orders and earned value analysis.

Instructor: Dr. Awad Hanna

This seminar will provide a practical knowledge of cost estimating, cost management and conceptual estimating principals. Learn how to develop project costs and how to organize construction cost information. Understand how contractors, engineers, architects and owners work though project costs to prepare meaningful estimates.

Instructor: Jack Wilhelmi

The Project Acquisition (PA) process creates an orderly and repetitive process for marketing and estimating. The PA Process creates and defines the relationship between operations and estimating and the often missing link within the estimating process for feedback and validation of labour units. It places the preparation of the proposal at the beginning of the process rather than at the end. The Proposal is the MOST important part of the estimate, differentiates your firm, sells your firm, defines the risk you are willing to assume and is a great marketing tool. Thus, each estimate is not an original work of art but rather a systematic repeatable process. Individual topics include when to say “no”, how to evaluate opportunities, how to differentiate your firm, proposals, final summaries, timing, organization “do’s and don’ts”, error prevention/checklists, preconstruction conference; timing, agenda and attendees, what is modular estimating to name a few.