Beaverton, OR June 22, 2001 It's a huge defeat for the paper napkin sketch: Timberline, a management software provider for the construction industry, recently announced the release of its Precision Collection Extended Edition, version 6.0. The software contains a new version of Timberline's Model Estimating program, which is a pre-construction tool designed to help the estimating process for project sketches.
Typically, conceptual estimates are ballpark guesses based on square footages, or roughly calculated numbers based on past experience. The Model Estimating program attempts to improve that process with a series of interview-like questions, such as type of building use, number of stories, exterior shell type, interior fit-out specifications, and desired square footage, which are linked to hundreds of construction variables stored in Precision's pricing database.
"The whole idea of modeling is to support the parametric, or "top-down," approach to building project budgets," said Steve Watt, Timberline's vice president of estimating products. "With Model Estimating, you can answer a few, key pieces of information to generate an entire budget for the project. As you learn more about the project, you can go back to the model to add or change some of your answers, and immediately update the original estimate. This logic ability makes the software an excellent tool for value engineering."
Model Estimating can handle a variety of building uses, such as homes, warehouses, hospitals, hotels, or office buildings. Plus, the estimator can modify a model's built-in assumptions, items and assemblies to reflect changes in material, labor, design, or preferences, without having to change the underlying database.
