You are correct - my background is in accounting, and I have never worked as an estimator in the real world. I have implemented SMB Basic Estimating for about a dozen companies. I do have a thorough understanding of SMB Basic Estimating, having been "certified" in Estimating, as well as Service Receivables, Project Management and Report Writing, for over 7 years. I teach estimators how to use the program, not how to estimate.
I do have strong feelings about Estimating with SMB:
- SMB is a terrific estimating tool for an experienced estimator.
- It does not replace an experienced estimator, but makes the estimator more productive, and the estimating process more transferable to other estimators in your company.
- SMB Estimating implementations will fail unless the company designates a responsible estimating employee empowered and enabled by management to spend the time and effort to ensure that the estimating implementation is done in a fashion consistent with existing estimating assumptions and practices. This is a working position, not supervisory.
- In my opinion, there are no useable prebuilt databases for SMB. I have little confidence that any prebuilt estimating database has the materials that your company buys, at the prices that are available to your company. The production rates for labor in a prebuilt database are similarly a mystery - do they really reflect the production capabilities of your company? Finally, prebuilt assemblies are not necessarily reflective of how your production staff will approach a project.
- I think that using the same database as all of your competitors (like RS Means) for anything other than a "rule of thumb" test of your own estimate, is likely to leave a contractor in the middle of the pack on bid opening day.
- I am a firm believer in a company taking full charge and responsibility for the most important task that they can do - estimating and bidding their work. If they cannot take the time to build an estimating parts database, assemblies and templates that reflect their typical materials, the prices they receive from their suppliers, the production rates that reflect their crews' talents and shortcomings, the assemblies that make sense to their estimators and project managers, and the templates for the types of projects for which they typically compete, then they should not attempt to use SMB Basic Estimating.
This is the point where some will say "this accountant is full of manure," but like I said, I have some strong feelings (and real affection) for SMB Basic Estimating.
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