Estimating and engineering: accurate, fast quotes from drawings, and engineering changes that are traced.
The engineering office designs; estimating turns the design into a price. In between, drawings, specifications or a tender pack have to be read, quantities counted, suppliers consulted and old quotes retrieved. The time spent gathering these elements is taken from technical analysis, and a quote delivered late is often a contract lost.
The role
Between the customer, the sales rep, production or the site, and purchasing.
The engineering office turns a customer need into a technical solution: drawings, bills of materials, calculation notes, specifications. Estimating derives a cost and a price from quantities, times, materials and subcontracting. After the order, the engineering office manages engineering changes and keeps drawings up to date for the workshop or the site. In a mid-sized company, the same small team answers tenders and supports the execution of current jobs.
Day to day
A typical day.
- MorningGo through a new tender: drawings, specification, technical clauses, bill of quantities to complete.
- MorningCarry out quantity take-offs from the drawings and the model.
- MiddayRequest prices from suppliers and subcontractors, and chase those who are late.
- AfternoonBuild the quote: quantities, times, materials, overheads, margin, options and alternatives.
- AfternoonHandle an engineering change requested by the customer, the workshop or the site.
- End of dayUpdate drawings and revisions, and send them to the right people.
The objectives
What the role is measured on.
- Quote turnaround time
- Quote conversion rate
- Gap between estimated and actual cost
- Engineering changes handled on time
- Drawings issued up to date
- Engineering office workload
Indicators are named, never quantified: levels depend on each company, and the diagnostic measures them.
Day to day
The problems that come up most.
Drawings and tender packs to read in full
Each tender arrives with its drawings, written documents and requirements, to go through before any estimate can start.
Take-offs redone by hand
Quantities are measured on drawings or recounted in the model, then copied into the estimating spreadsheet.
Unit prices scattered
Supplier prices, ratios and standard times live in personal files, more or less up to date.
Old quotes impossible to find
A similar structure or part has been quoted before, but nobody can find the quote or what it really cost.
Engineering changes poorly traced
A change decided in a meeting never reaches the workshop or the site, or arrives on a drawing at the old revision.
Estimates never compared with actuals
The real cost of the job is not fed back to estimating, and the same gaps keep recurring.
By sector
One role, several realities.
- Construction and property
Tender packs, technical specifications, priced bills of quantities and schedules of rates, take-offs from drawings or digital models, alternatives and options: estimating depends on reading the pack and getting quantities right.
- Industry
Customer drawings and specifications, made-to-drawing parts or configurable products, bills of materials and routings, machine times and subcontracting: the quote depends on the design, and the design on manufacturing constraints.
What changes
Automate the task, keep the judgement.
What gets automated
- Analysis of tender packs and specifications by an AI agent: requirements, lots, documents to supply, points of attention.
- Quantities taken from the model or the drawings and carried straight into the estimating tool.
- A database of unit prices, ratios and standard times kept up to date from purchasing and completed jobs.
- The engineering change circuit: request, impact analysis, approval, issue of drawings at the new revision.
- Automatic comparison between the estimate and the actual cost of each job, item by item.
What stays human
- Technical choices and responsibility for the design.
- The price submitted, the margin and the bid strategy.
- Approval of calculation notes and construction drawings.
Use cases
How to automate, case by case.
Each case starts from a question leadership teams ask. The starting point, what gets automated, the tools involved, and what stays in the teams’ hands.
How do you automate quotes from drawings?
- Today
- The customer sends a part or assembly drawing. The estimator studies it, estimates materials, operations and machine time based on experience and old quotes, then builds the price in a spreadsheet. Response time depends on workload, and two estimators do not give the same price.
- What gets automated
- An AI agent reads the drawing and the specification and extracts the characteristics: material, dimensions, tolerances, treatments, quantities. The tool proposes a routing and times based on similar parts already made, applies the price database and margin rules, and prepares the quote. The estimator corrects and approves.
- What stays human
- The price submitted and the technical feasibility analysis remain the responsibility of the estimator and the engineering office.
- AI drawing-reading agent
- Estimating tool
- ERP
- Price database
How do you automate quantity take-offs from the digital model?
- Today
- Quantities are measured on drawings or recounted in the model, element by element, then copied into the bill of quantities or the price breakdown. With each new drawing revision, the take-off has to be redone.
- What gets automated
- Quantities are extracted from the model by lot and by element, using a mapping set once between model objects and bill of quantities lines. The tool updates the take-off with each new revision and shows the differences from the previous version, line by line.
- What stays human
- Checking quantities and elements not modelled remains the quantity surveyor’s job.
- Digital model
- Take-off tool
- Estimating tool
How do you automate responses to construction tenders?
- Today
- A tender pack contains many documents: rules, administrative and technical clauses, drawings, priced bill of quantities. The engineer reads them in full to spot requirements, permitted alternatives, documents to supply and penalties, then prepares the technical submission from old files.
- What gets automated
- An AI agent analyses the pack and produces a summary sheet: lots, technical requirements, documents to submit, dates, risky clauses, with a reference to the source page. The bill of quantities is pre-filled from the take-off and the price database, and the technical submission is prepared from a library of approved paragraphs.
- What stays human
- The decision to bid, the price and the technical commitment remain with management and the engineer.
- AI document-reading agent
- Estimating tool
- Document management
- AI writing agent
How do you automate engineering change management?
- Today
- Change requests arrive by e-mail, in meetings or by phone, from the customer, the workshop or the site. The engineering office updates the drawings, but the impact analysis on purchasing, production and cost is only half done, and distribution is not always complete.
- What gets automated
- Each request opens a change record with its cause and urgency. The tool identifies the drawings, bills of materials, orders and work orders concerned, calculates the impact on cost and lead time, and submits the change for approval. Once approved, drawings move to the new revision and are sent to the list of recipients concerned.
- What stays human
- Approving the change and any invoicing to the customer remain decided by the engineering office and the business manager.
- PLM
- ERP
- Document management
- Messaging
How do you automate transferring bills of materials from CAD to the ERP?
- Today
- Once the drawing is approved, the bill of materials is re-keyed into the ERP, item by item, with its quantities and codes. Transfer errors are discovered in the workshop, when a part is missing or wrong.
- What gets automated
- The bill of materials is extracted from CAD or the PLM and transferred to the ERP following the company’s coding rules: creation of missing items, reuse of existing ones, quantities and units. Differences from the previous version are flagged, and the transfer is blocked while an item remains incomplete.
- What stays human
- Approval of the bill of materials and new items remains with the engineering office.
- CAD
- PLM
- ERP
- Integration connector
How do you automate configuring made-to-measure products?
- Today
- For each made-to-measure request, the engineering office takes a similar model, adapts it to the customer’s dimensions and options, then recalculates bill of materials and price. The compatibility rules between options are known to only a few people.
- What gets automated
- Design rules are written into a configurator: permitted dimensions, compatible options, mandatory components. The sales rep or the customer fills in the request, the tool generates the bill of materials, the price and outline drawings, and flags requests outside the rules that must go through the engineering office.
- What stays human
- Non-standard requests and changes to the configurator’s rules remain settled by the engineering office.
- Product configurator
- CAD
- ERP
- Estimating tool
How do you automate FMEA analysis?
- Today
- The product or process FMEA is built in a meeting, in a spreadsheet, starting from a previous analysis. Failures already encountered in production or at customers are not always included, and the document is rarely updated afterwards.
- What gets automated
- The tool proposes a starting FMEA based on similar products and the history of non-conformities, complaints and field returns, classified by an AI agent. Ratings and actions are entered in the session, actions are tracked until closed, and each new defect found flags the FMEA for review.
- What stays human
- Rating severity, occurrence and detection, and choosing actions, remain decided by the team in session.
- Quality tool
- PLM
- AI classification agent
- Action tracking tool
How do you automate managing drawings and their revisions?
- Today
- Drawings are stored on a file server, with a revision in the file name. The workshop, the site or the subcontractor sometimes work from an old print, and finding the list of recipients of a drawing takes time.
- What gets automated
- Drawings are held in document management with their revision, status and approval circuit. Each new revision is sent automatically to the recipients concerned, who acknowledge receipt, and old revisions are marked as superseded. A register shows at any time which revision is current.
- What stays human
- Approval of each revision and the list of recipients remain the engineering office’s responsibility.
- Document management
- CAD
- Subcontractor portal
- Messaging
How do you automate updating the estimating price database?
- Today
- Each estimator keeps their own unit prices, ratios and times in personal files. Supplier prices change without the files following, and quotes from the same team do not rest on the same prices.
- What gets automated
- A single database brings together unit prices, ratios and standard times. It is fed automatically by supplier price lists received, read by an AI agent, by the prices of past orders and by the times recorded on completed jobs. Each price is dated and sourced, and those not reviewed are flagged.
- What stays human
- Approval of reference prices and ratios remains with the head of estimating.
- Price database
- ERP
- AI document-reading agent
- Estimating tool
How do you automate comparing a job’s estimate with its actual cost?
- Today
- Once the job is finished, nobody really compares the quote with the hours spent, actual purchases and subcontracting. Estimating does not know which items it gets wrong, and the same gaps keep recurring.
- What gets automated
- The quote is broken down into items linked to those of the job in the ERP. The tool automatically matches hours, purchases and subcontracting to each item, calculates the gaps and presents them by type of structure or part. Recurring gaps update the ratios proposed for the price database.
- What stays human
- Analysing the gaps and correcting the ratios remain the work of estimating with production or the works team.
- ERP
- Estimating tool
- Reporting tool (BI)
Questions from the teams
What teams look to improve.
- How do I automate building a quote?
- By separating what is calculated from what is decided. Quantities come from the drawings or the model, unit prices and times from a database kept up to date, overheads and margin from set rules. The tool assembles the quote, and the estimator focuses on unusual items and pricing strategy.
- Can AI read a tender pack?
- It can carry out a first analysis: list of lots, technical requirements, documents to supply, penalties, deadlines, unusual clauses, with a reference to the source page. The engineer quickly gets an overview, but checks every point before committing.
- Can quantity take-offs be automated?
- Yes when a digital model exists: quantities are extracted by element and by lot, then matched to the bill of quantities. On PDF drawings, an AI agent can help measure areas and lengths, but the result must be checked. In both cases, quantities feed the estimate directly.
- How do I keep a price database up to date?
- By feeding it automatically with supplier price lists received, the prices of past orders and the times recorded on completed jobs. The tool dates each price, flags those not reviewed for a long time and shows the source of each one.
- What circuit should an engineering change follow?
- Each change request follows a circuit: description, impact analysis on drawings, bills of materials, cost and lead times, approval, then issue. The tool informs the people concerned, updates the drawing revision and keeps the history of decisions.
- How do I find a similar quote already produced?
- Past quotes are indexed with their characteristics and documents. An AI agent finds similar jobs from a description or a drawing, and displays the quote and, where it has been fed back, the actual cost. The estimator starts from a proven basis rather than a blank page.
- How do I connect the engineering office to the ERP?
- By automatically transferring approved bills of materials and items from CAD or the PLM to the ERP, following the company’s coding rules. Purchasing and production then work on the same definition as the engineering office, and every change is passed on.
- Do I need to change CAD or estimating software to automate?
- Rarely. Automation connects to the tools in place: it extracts data from CAD or the model, feeds the estimating tool or a custom tool, and routes the results to the ERP and the sales team.
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