12 Construction software · United States Shipped
Plan takeoff that cites every fact it reads, and flags the rest
On a live run it cited 27 of 28 facts and left the last one for a person instead of guessing.
Part of Six tools built inside a live construction-tech platform
- Before
- Quantities read off plans by eye, quotes built in spreadsheets, bids compared across emails
- After
- Takeoff that cites each fact it reads and flags what it cannot resolve, a quote builder that matches the catalogue, bids exported onto one page
- 3 to 1
- unresolved facts after the fix, as predicted
- 17,038
- catalogue items the quote builder matches against
- Plans
- Subcontractor bids
- Cited quantities
- Priced quote
- Bids on one page
01 What changed
- Quantities come with the plan fact behind them, so an estimator can check instead of trust
- A change is predicted before it ships and verified on a live run after
- Bids are compared on one page instead of across emails
The full story The problem, how we approached it, and what we built
A supplier and the builders it serves were pricing jobs from plans by hand. Inside their software platform we improved the plan takeoff so every quantity carries the fact it came from, improved the quote builder's catalogue matching, and added a bid levelling export so a builder can compare subcontractor bids on one page.
02 The problem
Every quote started with a person reading plans and typing quantities into a spreadsheet. Every bid comparison meant opening a dozen emails and lining the numbers up by hand.
The platform's own engineers were leaving. Whoever stayed had to be able to open these tools, explain them and change them.
03 The approach
We worked on the takeoff so that every quantity it produces carries the fact on the plan it came from, and anything it cannot resolve is flagged rather than guessed. A fix predicted to take unresolved facts from three to one did exactly that on the live run: 27 facts cited, one left for a person.
The quote builder's catalogue matching was reworked against a 17,038-item catalogue, and the bid levelling export was added to the builder's existing tool so bids land on one page.
04 What we built
- Plan takeoff that cites the source fact for every quantity and flags what it cannot resolve
- Catalogue matching for the bill-of-materials quote builder, 17,038 items
- Bid levelling export: subcontractor bids on one page, per trade
- Prediction-then-verify on every change: the fix is named before it ships and checked on a live run after