ForConstructionPros.com

Last year when Western Paving bid the site work at Forum at Gilbert Ranch, a mixed-use development in Gilbert, AZ, its bid was almost exactly what the general contractor, Renaissance Co., had allocated for the work. A pretty nifty feat considering the 15-acre parcel included 10 separate building pads, an underground parking garage, and a considerable amount of parking lot space meandering through the development.

"Our numbers hit right on the money they had allotted for the work," says Western Paving owner Chuck Cassise. "Then, after we'd finished the job, we realized we'd hit pretty much right on the money with our quantities and our profit."

Contractors looking to improve the quality and efficiency of their operations often turn to new technology in the form of equipment improvements or equipment upgrades. Contractors involved in grading and site preparation are no different, but the improvements in their earthmoving operation can come from something other than their scrapers and motor graders.

Where Western Paving had performed all its take-off and estimating work in the traditional manner - through a slow, painstaking, and potentially error-prone process by hand - current technology is available to not only speed this work but improve the accuracy of the final estimate and ease the work at the jobsite, too. And Western Paving used it.

"On the Forum job we did the take-off in four hours, and it would have taken us a day and a half doing it by hand," Cassise says. "What we used made it quicker and it was more accurate."