The role of an estimator at a commercial flooring contractor is about much more than just measuring and estimating the flooring quantities needed on a project. The size of the company you work for and the number of roles each employee handles will determine ultimately what your estimator’s responsibilities are. When a company is deciding to potentially quote a project, based on a bid solicitation, the job of your estimator starts immediately.
Pre-bid evaluations of the bidding materials, such as the project manual, project specifications, project drawings and project addenda/bulletins, are a relatively quick way to gather information for your sales team to determine whether a project will be quoted or not. Have a checklist of what to review. This basically is a lead sheet or a quick summary. Once your company has decided to bid a project an estimator is responsible for gathering, reviewing, understanding the scope of work and communicating to your company all of the following: