Serving a 40-mile radius of East Peoria, Illinois, C&G Concrete Construction is a small concrete contractor that has built a solid reputation by successfully performing jobs for commercial organizations since it was founded in 1966.

The firm handles jobs as small as $3,000 to as large as $2 million. Bruce Cox is charged with developing the estimates to win the company’s wide-ranging jobs. When he joined C&G Concrete in the late 1990s, the estimates were still done using pen and paper. The estimator at that time struggled with producing estimates quickly. It was an extremely time-consuming process to check on job costs for materials and labor because he had to flip through many pages of blueprints to find the details he needed to estimate the job.

When Cox took over as estimator, C&G Concrete was transitioning from its paper-based processes to ProContractor™ by Viewpoint for takeoff and estimating. Today, the contractor uses ProContractor for its seamless takeoff and estimating capabilities to help quickly and accurately quantify, price, and bid projects.

ProContractor provides the option for contractors to perform digitized takeoffs using a digitizer to generate accurate measurements and quantities from traditional blueprints; or to go completely digital by performing takeoffs from electronic plans. Cox explained that he uses both methods depending on the size and scope of the specific project.

Walking through the takeoff and estimating process for a typical project using ProContractor, Cox described how he first imports the PDF of the blueprints and related documents, reviews the different files, checks the scale, and then goes through the plan and deletes the pages that he will not need. He then sets up the job in ProContractor and uses the solution’s catalog, which he has customized specifically for his business, to takeoff foundations, slabs, footings, sidewalks, etc. He goes through the job, digitally taking off each section of the project using his mouse and computer monitor. Once the measurements are completed, Cox easily sends them to the estimate to prepare the bid where he can easily adjust crew sizes, production rates, and materials to complete the estimate.

“For a simple job, it can take just a couple clicks of the mouse and the estimate is done,” said Cox. “A smaller job can take as little as 10 minutes to estimate. For a more complex job, we save a lot of time by not having to flip through papers and can find details much quicker. With ProContractor automating the calculations, we are able to save additional time and increase accuracy.”

“It also helps us to keep a job organized,” he added. “When I am going through line items, I know exactly where everything is.”

By eliminating slow and cumbersome paper processes and performing more precise takeoffs, C&G Concrete has been able to save valuable time and increase its accuracy, enabling them to bid and win more jobs.