Pre-Construction Services | Value Engineering

highly experienced professionals

Providing Services

highly experienced professionals

Providing Services

The thrust of our pre-construction services is budgeting, conceptual and hard bid estimating, and value engineering. Other pre-construction services offered are design development assistance, zoning approvals, building permit issuance/expedition, constructability/site logistics (means and methods) reviews, procurement and bid scope packaging, CPM scheduling baselines, updates/narratives, and interim delay analysis.

Estimating

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Time Cost LLC routinely prepares conceptual/preliminary budgets and hard bid estimates for projects ranging in value up to $300M. We can provide high-accuracy, detailed estimates for all phases of heavy and building construction with emphasis/specialization on site work, dewatering systems, demolition, mass/trench rock excavation, sheeting, slide-rail shoring, cofferdams, shoring/underpinning systems, air ram/casing jacking, timber-concrete-steel piling systems, marine construction, temporary construction systems, drainage, sewer, gas, water utility work, rigging/lift analysis and design, paving, all elements of structural concrete, masonry, structural steel, mechanical, and electrical.

We rely on our long-term development and use of our master proprietary database, used in conjunction with HCSS, which utilizes over 260 (labor, equipment, material) work assemblies and 12k+ bid items to efficiently and accurately price the work. Development of quantity takeoffs, labor, equipment, and material pricing is done by work assembly. Accurate calculations of material waste are assigned through actual experience, vendor recommendations, material type, and particular work operation. The use of time studies is often employed, as required, to verify manpower productivity for self-performed estimated items. Historical data, final accounting, field experience, and time/productivity modeling/studies are then applied, as necessary, to tailored work assemblies to yield final costing.

Using a proprietary bid solicitation system, which includes a database of over 4k subcontractors and material vendors, companies are carefully selected for bidding based on nature, scope, and size of work; their location with respect to the project; and their work on hand, bonding requirements, specialty equipment requirements, past track record, references, M/WBE requirements, and size of workforce.

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As part of customary bidding practice, the following minimum functions are applied to each estimate: scope checking of bid documents against final estimate for the avoidance of errors and omissions, specification reading and summarization, job site survey/observations, attendance of pre-bid meetings, and compilation of questions/problems with bidding documents performed.

CPM schedules are created, as required, during the bid period for accurate determination of general conditions duration. When available, job costing reports and field superintendent unit cost productivity sheets are reviewed and analyzed to check the accuracy of unit pricing and update the master database as required. Estimates are provided with notes (embedded in each work assembly), explanations, and means/methods as required. All contingencies and risks are identified and noted with explanations as well. Identification of competing contractor’s strengths, weaknesses, and past bidding history along with current work on hand is done in order to set the final bid price.

Our work is facilitated by the use of our state-of-the-art computer systems. Countless hours have been invested in maintaining vast historical databases of construction cost data. We continually strive to integrate and optimize our systems in order to increase our efficiency and accuracy in all areas of estimating.