Are you a ‘Smart’ QS? - Take the Test
Things are getting ‘smarter’ these days, but are you?
Our cars are smarter, we have ‘smart’ houses – our devices – say no more.
Whilst sitting on a train, I can turn my central heating off with my ‘smart’ phone! My car will now do many more miles to the gallon than the same model did five years ago – I could even plug it into the mains should I opt for an ‘icar’! How are these smart technologies helping me? Simple, they are saving me money.
Now over to the Quantity Surveyor, known to many as the ‘accountants’ of the construction industry, the QS puts huge efforts into ‘saving their clients’ money’. But, the big question now arises, are you saving yourselves money – are you practicing what you preach? Are you ‘smart’?
There is a rogue NRM2 description that little of you print on your bills, but it is always there – ‘Disposal; Ones Hard Earned Cash; to drains… The unit of measure for this bill entry – POUNDS (Thousands!)
So let us now look at the ‘Smart Test’. If you agree with, or even raise a coy smile at any of the below phrases, you need to talk to me:-
- “I am still using a scale ruler for measuring from hard copy drawings”
- “I am printing out my drawings on a plotter, in order to measure from them”
- “I am using an on-screen measurement tool but it does not integrate with my BQ or Cost Plan production method (Excel?)”
- “I find myself spending time making double entries for quantity take off (From the dim pad to the cut & shuffle to the bill – triple entry!)”
- “My cost plan reports are never consistent, each QS in the team has his/her own way of presenting it”
- “One of my team spent hours of time costing my hundreds and hundreds of pounds looking for an error in an Excel cost plan”
- “My team spend hours ‘topping & tailing’ Excel books to formulate a professional looking report”
- “I have no true audit trail of historic cost plan changes”
- "BIM will just be a fad - and it WILL go away if I bury my head far enough in the sand"
- “My historic cost data is in a dusty box in the annex”
I could go on.
If you would like to:-
- Save ￡15,000+ per annum (based on 3 QS’s measuring 8 hours per week)
- Have a professional standardised cost plan/BQ report
- Have a single database of all historic rates for benchmarking
- Streamline your internal processes
Then please click the link below to contact me.
SPV Director, Project Origination & Business Development- Decarbonisation & Utility scale renewable energy generation, Consultant- McKinsey & Co.., Science & Philosophy Author, MBA Leadership Lecturer & Examiner, Athlete
9 年Tim, nice article. Good marketing. I would be interested in speaking to you about your portal service. I believe their could be some synergy with what I am pursuing at the moment for tendering and verification of work purposes. I will send you an invite to Link up on LinkedIn. Thanks Mark
Great article Tim, and I think if people take the test and are honest there is every reason companies can become "smart" and also save money
Painting Surveyor-Estimator working for Painting Contractors/Decorators all over the UK.
9 年With BidScreen XL your measuring your electronic drawings, directly in MS Excel or your own MS Excel spreadsheet no other on screen takeoff software offer this flexibility. BidScreen offers Working in pdf, DWG, tiff and many more file systems Full tracability 40% in time and effort in your takeoff And many more key features.