The Estimating Software That Helped This Company Thrive

By Cass Jacoby. 

Olympic Companies, Inc. used Estimating Edge to bring their estimating process into the 21st century while remaining true to what made their company successful over 25 years ago. 

Olympic Companies, Inc. is a specialty contractor that provides a well-trained workforce to do quality interior and exterior finishes. With locations across the upper Midwest, they perform a variety of commercial construction. In 1990, Olympic Companies, Inc. was looking to grow more productive, efficient and accurate with their work, all while still maintaining their company culture — that's when they turned to The EDGE® Estimator. 

Goals 

Olympic Companies had the goal of showing profits in every job to increase the businesses' success. They were looking for a new program that could offer them better accuracy and speed on their estimates, without them doing away with their existing methodology of estimating. Further, they wanted to find a program that would allow them to customize each job and report to meet the individual estimates of their customers. 

Challenges 

Going over the 25-year-old estimating process that Olympic Companies, Inc. was using, it was clear that they were in desperate need of a new solution. Estimators used to complete bids longhand using a scaled ruler to measure drawings and calculators to double-check their estimates. This process was very time consuming in addition to being prone to error. 

Each estimate was started from scratch. Estimators were not using computers or software to assist them in making estimates, so the estimates were reliant on the estimator's ability to calculate material and labor costs properly based off a spreadsheet. The leadership team at Olympic Companies, Inc. knew this had to change. 

Solution 

With leadership that championed technology as a solution, Olympic Companies, Inc. sought out a program that could help increase productivity while being able to fit in to their established company processes. The company eventually decided that The EDGE® Estimator was the best fit for their company. 

According to Estimating Edge, Olympic Companies, Inc. learned about The EDGE Estimator at a tradeshow in 1990. Their vice president originally tested the program on a fireproofing module to make estimating the job less tedious. However, once he saw the consistency of the program, he expanded the reach of the estimation software in the company so that contractors could bid more jobs at a faster rate and maintain a steady revenue stream. 

Success 

Today, Olympic Companies, Inc. uses the program for every job they bid. Be it large or small, $20 million or $5,000 The EDGE Estimator is now an integral part of the company’s estimation process. With The EDGE Estimator, Olympic Companies, Inc. streamlined their estimating process, making consistently accurate and quick bids that could sustainably help them grow their company. Because of this level of productivity, Olympic Companies, Inc. has 28 – 30 estimators and/or project managers using The EDGE Estimatorat one time. 

The company attributes the success of The EDGE Estimator to the company’s decision to have a “power user” in control of the database and training. This means that all estimators are using the same information with every bid they create, and any training or refreshing needed by the estimators is done internally. By providing consistent, internal training that is tailored to the way the company wants to make estimates, the program can be optimized within Olympic Companies, Inc. 

Conclusion 

With The EDGE Estimator, Olympic Companies, Inc. was able to address the unique challenges of every job while creating a consistent, accurate process that streamlined their estimations. With the company believing that each estimator is responsible from start to finish for all their jobs, the EDGE Estimator gave Olympic Companies, Inc. estimators the ability to thrive.  

Learn more about Estimating Edge in their RoofersCoffeeShop® Directory or visit estimatingedge.com.

About Cass  

Cass works as a reporter/writer for RoofersCoffeeShop, MetalCoffeeShop AskARoofer and MetalCoffeeShop. When she isn’t writing about roofs, she is putting her Master degree to work writing about movies and dancing with her plants.