Accubid Training Classes

[Hat]

Greetings all,

I am interested in attending one of the Accubid sponsored/taught training courses offered in various parts of the country. The questions are: Have any of you attended one of these courses? Did you get a good "bang for the buck" (the course I want to enroll in is $2550 for 5 days). Are they worth it?

Thank you for your time.

 

[DAWGS]

I'm not sure about accubid but I just attended Vision training, and it was money well spent. Learned the program better, and shortcuts using it. The seminar I attended was 1-day for $370 for two people.

 

[john_axelson]

Training

Training

Hat,

Not sure of your estimating background or experience. If you have done computer estimating before and know your way around a computer and a set of plans pretty well I think the 5 days might be overkill. Did a 1 day seminar in Minneapolis and it was worth the money, not sure I could have sat through another 4 days of it.

Maybe it is in some exotic location and your going to be able to do a mini-vacation while gone?

I would think with the number of contractors in the Chicago area that Accubid does quite a few 1 day training sessions in that town. My recommendation is to do the one day deal and see how you feel after that.

If you are the person responsible for building all of the assemblies, maintaining the database, you do a lot of merging of multiple estimators files, etc. then maybe the multiple day thing is more up your alley.

 

[HydeBay1]

Computer Estimating

Computer Estimating

I concur with John and would like to expand a bit.

One of my adventures in the early 1980's was to help develop and market a computerized electrical estimating system. At $50k to $100k per system at that time it was not successful.

I returned to estimating and managing for varying size firms and projects, eventually settling in to a routine of taking on troubled projects and companies.

One of the common fundamental elements I found in most of these failures was management's failure to critically evaluate the estimates of their employees. I'm certain that the industry is more sophisticated now, but I have been skeptical about the use of computerized estimating since then.

The computer, in my experience, helps apply prices and labor units, but does nothing to enhance the material survey, and understanding of contract documents and project environment that must underly any estimate.

In situations where I did similar types of projects I built my own spreadsheets to define assemblies and basic work and found myself more consistent and profitable.

If one is using a computerized estimating system it certainly would be of value to learn what makes that system tick. And most modern estimating systems give some structure to the overall cost of a project.

However, In my opinion it is much more valuable to develop ones own consistent discipline in analyzing and quantifying the needs and costs of projects one is likely to estimate and/or manage.

Dick

 

[831]

Depends on how curious you are. I'm pretty good w/ the 'ole puter and can find my way around any software pretty well. Having said that, there are parts/piecs of Accubid that having a trained trainer would be helpful. 5 days, uhhhh... don't have time for that. 1, maybe 2 is/was plenty for me.