Equal Higher Profits And A Competitive Advantage

A+B bids, which continue to gain popularity for public works projects, are forcing contractors to re-think their estimating and bidding methodologies. In A+B bids, the contractor submits both a price (the “A” portion) and a duration (the “B” portion) as part of the bid package. The state or other government agency financing the project establishes a daily cost associated with the job, and multiplies that daily cost by the duration bid by each contractor. The contractor with the best combination of cost and duration – A+B – is awarded the work.

Because A+B bids typically include significant penalties for completing the project late, as well as bonuses for early completion, contractors must be able to effectively analyze the correlation between a project’s cost and its schedule. Even more important, contractors that can easily perform “what if?” analysis across both the estimate and the schedule have a unique advantage when it comes to A+B bids. A+B bids are driving contractors to re-evaluate the importance of scheduling during the estimating process. Hard Dollar’s dynamic, ‘oneness’ integration with Microsoft Project and Primavera gives our customers a highly compelling advantage when it comes to optimizing a project’s cost and schedule using different resource and productivity scenarios, crew sizes, shift arrangements, and more. Adding the schedule element gives sophisticated contractors an additional criteria on which to compete for business, so it’s not just low bid gets the job.

Click here to learn more about HD estimating software.