Residential Estimating - Tracking What's Used

T

Travisb6989

Member
Location
FL
Occupation
Electrician
I have owned a high end automation company for 15 years and about 3 years we started doing high voltage for the custom homes we are already in doing all the LV and AV. Unlike LV where things are more predictable what BOM is needed, electrical has thousands of parts and nearly impossible to predict or estimate what a job will need. From conduit fittings, mud rings, straps, plates, etc. I am struggling how to track all of that. Maybe I am being to detailed with tracking every piece?

I have an idea of parking a stocked trailer on jobs to increase efficiency and stop all the supply house trips, but I also don't want guys just grabbing stuff they need with no way to track any of it.

Again, maybe I am overthinking this. Its just a different animal with LV where things are refined and specific.

If you don't have anything positive say, just keep scrolling...
 
hbiss said:
And you really think you are going to get an answer with that attitude?

-Hal
Click to expand...
Didn’t mean to have “attitude”. I have just been on a lot forums were the replies become, if you don’t know this answer you shouldn’t be in charge, get a job learn from someone else, etc. So that was my attempt to keep negative keyboard warriors away.
 
I don't think your idea of parking a stocked trailer on the job site needs to also mean you can't track any of the parts. Maybe start with a known qty of each fitting, receptacle, etc and come up with a way to have every electrician log every part removed, and update the running stock. As long as they do it, you should know by looking at the log the qty remaining and where things went, and learn when you need to restock items before they run out.
 
solarken said:
I don't think your idea of parking a stocked trailer on the job site needs to also mean you can't track any of the parts. Maybe start with a known qty of each fitting, receptacle, etc and come up with a way to have every electrician log every part removed, and update the running stock. As long as they do it, you should know by looking at the log the qty remaining and where things went, and learn when you need to restock items before they run out.
Click to expand...
I had a similar thought. Almost like catalog or something and they just tic off how many and what they took.

Was also curious how other companies handle this?
 
For Time and Materials projects (100% of our work for the last several years) we simply have the lead electrician do a materials sheet quantifying everything used. For smaller projects this is just counted at the end of the job. For larger projects stuff will get counted as it goes into the job and tracked as the project progresses. This is then compared with orders from the supply house to catch stuff that might have been missed. We weigh all our wire and convert the weight to footage used (I have a spreadsheet with multipliers). We don't individually count small stuff like staples, wire nuts, screws, NM connectors, etc. and just use an approximation for that.

We are a small 4 person residential shop. Primarily single family remodel.

Rob G
Seattle
 
Some supply houses will do inventory restock for you. If hou know what you start with then it’s a matter of seeing what’s left. Staples wirenutts etc would be shop supplies, an amount to be added based on job square footage. Weighing the wire is clever
 
marmathsen said:
For Time and Materials projects (100% of our work for the last several years) we simply have the lead electrician do a materials sheet quantifying everything used. For smaller projects this is just counted at the end of the job. For larger projects stuff will get counted as it goes into the job and tracked as the project progresses. This is then compared with orders from the supply house to catch stuff that might have been missed. We weigh all our wire and convert the weight to footage used (I have a spreadsheet with multipliers). We don't individually count small stuff like staples, wire nuts, screws, NM connectors, etc. and just use an approximation for that.

We are a small 4 person residential shop. Primarily single family remodel.

Rob G
Seattle
Click to expand...
Similar approach to having a trailer and some kind of catalog check-out system or something. But mainly what I am gathering is that most of us do want to track specific counts for most items unlike say plumbers who just show up with buckets of fittings. But yes I agree, no way to track things like staples, screws, wire nuts, zip ties, etc. It would just take to much time to account for those kinds of things.

Weighing wire is an interesting and smart idea.

Thanks!
 
Travisb6989 said:
Similar approach to having a trailer and some kind of catalog check-out system or something. But mainly what I am gathering is that most of us do want to track specific counts for most items unlike say plumbers who just show up with buckets of fittings. But yes I agree, no way to track things like staples, screws, wire nuts, zip ties, etc. It would just take to much time to account for those kinds of things.

Weighing wire is an interesting and smart idea.

Thanks!
Click to expand...
The plumbers I know do actually track individual components and parts. They just list it out when they're done. Similar to how we do it.

Rob G
Seattle
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top