Esimating by Points

[schole]

Can anyone explain the practice of estimating control wiring by points? It seems to be known as a conmmon practice amongst some control and building automation firms we come across. We are being asked to quote point connections for valves and sensors back to a PLC cabinet. Possibly 100 connections. Do you build assemblies and treat them as typicals?

 

[cdslotz]

I used to work for a company that did a lot of control wiring for Honeywell, etc.
They did a ton of small cable jobs, some with conduit, and they used "point" pricing.
That was the only way to estimate all of the jobs thrown at them to bid. The point pricing was based on an average, so probably 2 out 10 jobs they got, they lost money. At the end of the year they made good money.
I wouldn't do point pricing for just 1 or 2 jobs.
I have given budgets for control wiring using say, $110/point

 

[satcom]

I used to work for a company that did a lot of control wiring for Honeywell, etc.
They did a ton of small cable jobs, some with conduit, and they used "point" pricing.
That was the only way to estimate all of the jobs thrown at them to bid. The point pricing was based on an average, so probably 2 out 10 jobs they got, they lost money. At the end of the year they made good money.
I wouldn't do point pricing for just 1 or 2 jobs.
I have given budgets for control wiring using say, $110/point

At one time control wiring in the field was out bread and butter, the problem with pricing by the point was it had flaws, we always had after completion job meetings to review what went right and what was wrong, and what we found was not bad time and motion on points, but rather lost time on set-up and motion moving from point to point or in many cases moves clear across an active process area, we discovered early on to study the tasks and assign a value for the point connections, and then add all the additional time in set up and additional time for the movement between points.