What users say about On-Screen Takeoff
On-Screen Takeoff has been available for more than 6 years and comments from some long-term users may provide some assistance to people considering using the program in Australia.
Potential users of the software always ask, ‘How much time can I save by using OnScreen?’
Stuart Sullivan of the Perini Building Company has used the software for many years and his first comment is that; “In my experience, doing a take-off of a retail building using Stone Age implements (rulers & calculator) would take about 100 hours. Using OST I can do it in 20 hours.”
Some parts of a take-off are a great deal quicker with OST. For example, if you have already defined an Assembly in Ttimberline Estimating for concrete footings that includes excavation, , formwork, reinforcing and concrete supply etc; a take-off can be done in about 30 minutes AND produce the units for the reinforcing and concrete orders. A take-off the old fashioned way was tedious and would take 4 hours.
Steve Vairin from Firestop International makes a comment along the same lines and says that ‘a computer, (with OST), is extremely more efficient when calculating lengths and areas and I should add, more accurate’.
Writing an article that was produced in the Construction News family of magazines, Charles Herriot wrote that “On-Screen Takeoff is an impressive system which can reduce a typical quantity take-off from several day’s work to five or six hours”.
Charles goes on to say, ‘at the moment I work for developers and construction financing companies, basically telling them how much a project should cost and then certifying progress payments as construction proceeds. I have to do take-offs in gruesome detail and then compare my estimation to the bids that come in from sub-trades. I do three or four COMPLETE projects each week and there’s no way in hell I could do that with rulers and a calculator.’
In addition to the added efficiency many users report a huge improvement simply from not having to deal with large quantities of paper plans. With the ability to read a wide variety of file formats OST means that offices are now able to work without expensive and cumbersome paper copies.
Stuart Sullivan says ’with a digitiser, I have no record unless I colour the areas or lines. I then have to lug around drawings to meetings, on the plane, etc. In fact, I am flying to an appointment in about 45 min. with approx. 1200 drawings in my computer. Try to do that with paper and pencil’.
Other benefits that users have found include;
- Storing takeoffs, plans, specs on a computer file is obviously more efficient, and easier on the back. At the end of the year, it’s a lot easier to box away dead jobs on cd-rom, than it is to physically throw away a years worth of plans, specifications etc.
- Hitting the page up/down button on the keyboard is a more efficient way of scanning pages, than full size plans.
- Marking up prints for the field is much easier using OST than doing them by hand, and you can print out as many colour coded copies as needed.
Finally, Charles Herriot goes on to say that ‘for estimators who have whiled away the hours, flipping pages looking for sectional drawings, On-Screen Takeoff has a feature that allows the drawings to be hot keyed so that with a simple click of the mouse, the user is taken from the main drawing page to the sectional drawing page.
Another exceptionally useful feature is the ability to import revised drawings and overlay them on the original drawings for an immediate determination of what has changed from revision to revision. Both added and deleted sections are colour coded for quick identification of the changes.’