With members of the team having spent many years working directly for Groundwork and Civil Engineering contractors this is an area in which Onyx Construction Consultants does excel and provide a wealth of knowledge and expertise.
Services
Estimating
- Site visits and checking tender documentation, surveys, soil investigation reports etc.
- Take off from drawings and specification
- Producing Bills of Quantities
- Pricing of Bills of Quantities
- Material price procurement
- Producing price and tender letters for submission
- Attending Pre-order / Pre-start meetings with clients
Surveying
- On site measurement and valuation
- Take off and measurement of drawing variations
- Compiling and pricing site instructions and daywork sheets
- Submission of Valuations to Clients
- Procurement and valuation of specialist subcontractors
Buying
- Take off and schedule materials
- Preparation of material enquiries
- Material price analysis
Establishing or Updating an Estimating System
Having worked with a number of groundwork companies we believe that this is an area that often gets over looked in good times but certainly many wished they had maintained or had a better understanding when conditions dictate that operating and profit margins are tight. We feel by offering the following services we can assist in this area.
- Preparation of a schedule of rates and resourced database
- Assistance with developing or updating a computer based estimating system
- Developing spreadsheets to assist in speeding up take off and rate calculations
Training
Over the years we at Onyx Construction Consultants have realised that our more basic take off and estimating services have become more and more in demand as a result of a number of factors such as experienced staff retiring or leaving the industry, colleges putting an emphasis on project management and elemental estimating for trainee surveyors or simply not enough time due to work load to properly train members of staff in some of the basics.
We are able to put together a programme of training at your or our offices for members of staff in some of the traditional and modern methods of estimating and surveying tailor made to your requirements including
- Basic taking off from drawings by traditional methods
- Basic taking off from drawings with digitizers with specialist software
- Basic taking off from electronic drawings on a computer screen with inexpensive / freely available software
- Detailed taking off from electronic drawings on a computer screen with specialist software
- Material take offs
- Scheduling
- BOQ Production
- Rate Build up from basic principles
- Working with and developing excel spreadsheets
Marketing
This is a service we offer to subcontractors where we are able to provide our knowledge and experience of working for clients and successful subcontractors.
Giving details within small focus groups of techniques used by the more successful contractors to choose which companies they wish to work, placed on the right tender lists and get themselves know to the people who make the decisions.
We also provide details of our own numerous contacts within the industry with both regional and national developers, including providing introductions where possible.