The Journey to Scale Model-Based Estimating

CHRISTOPHER MOORE: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Journey to Scaling Model Based Estimating. I'm Christopher Moore. I work with Barton Malow Holdings and I'm the director of construction technology and looking forward to really talking about this today. My background is a portion of project delivery, estimating VDC quality and now this construction technology role, which is a newer role for me. So with that, I'll turn it over to Jason.

JASON SEILER: Hey, thanks, Chris. Jason Seiler here. I am a senior business transformation manager here at Barton Malow. I've been working closely with Chris on this journey. I've been with Barton Malow for a little over five years. Been in the construction industry for almost 20 now. Started my time in the field as a plumber, eventually moved into the pre-construction realm. So I'm just happy to be here and share what we're working on.

CHRISTOPHER MOORE: All right. So today we're really going to focus on our journey. Our journey has been somewhat long and there have been some roadblocks and some lessons learned. And the key of the presentation is, it feels like about every year we sit back, reassess where we're at and then reshape our plan to continue to advance the ball. So we feel like that is important and you're going to see that in our presentation.

But here's our introduction and how we're going to start off with this. So we're definitely going to start off with the introduction. What is a Model Quantity Takeoff? Just to level set. And then the history that we've experienced at Barton Malow, and from there, we're going to go into some lessons learned, and what strategy 4D is. We don't want you to get confused with 5D and 4D. Strategy 4D is an internal Barton Malow strategy. It's just ironic that it represents something else in the BIM world, so don't get caught up on that.

And then obviously the plan of where we're at currently and how we're progressing through that. So, so with that, I'll go ahead and get going into the actual slide deck, and we'll talk about what is Model Quantity Takeoff. Notice I abbreviate Quantity Takeoff from now on.

So at Barton Malow, our definition of a Model Quantity Takeoff is generally using models to create quantities. Whether we receive those from design or we build those in house, we're generating quantities from our models. Sometimes we will produce logistics models. Sometimes we will produce other types of 4D scheduling models, those types of things, and we'll use and extract quantities from those models as well. So it's pretty robust. It's how we get to the model, but it's generally taking that model, slicing it up and getting the quantities you need for our estimating services for our clients.

So one of the programs that we use that we send off to our estimators to utilize is a symbol. A symbol is a great tool for understanding what your models are and breaking down those models and seeing the different quantities. What you see here is a variance slide where you can see a previous model. Maybe we received a design development model, and then later on we received a construction document model or a CAD model.

And you can see what had changed between those models. And that's a feature and a symbol. But a symbol is a great tool and we've been utilizing it for quite a while as a company. So that is one of our mechanisms.

Another one is, we have a great self-perform team who's been active for many years doing self-perform modeling for fabrication and shop drawings and formwork and all these great things. But they're also detailing, and from those detailing models we're producing quantities. So that has been something that we focused on for quite a while, and I've got a few graphics of that. Some of the out results of sequencing of some of those self-perform items you can see here.

So we understand installation. So just trying to level set how the quantification process lends itself to other areas of construction itself, and how everything really starts at the beginning and then transitions, and you can continue to use that. So the sooner you can start using models, the better your project's going to be because everything flows from the very beginning of that process.

So with that, let's jump into the history of model quantitative-- QTO-- adoption at Barton Malow. So what you see here is a slide. Over to the right is just an assemble video playing. So there's a lot of words on the screen here. I'm not going to read these verbatim, but hey, we really started our Revit journey for Quantity Takeoff around 2005 at Barton Malow, and it says to 2018, but that's obviously still going on. It was just really that ramp up phase for us. So ignore that, the 2018. We still use Revit, but it has been mostly in a pocket environment to that 2018 where it really started to ramp up a little bit more past that.

Assemble usage. We started our Assemble journey back in 2015. Between 2019 and 2024 assemble really started to plateau with our utilization on our products over $10 million where we were using it on about 40% to 50% of our projects. And we noticed that was happening. We said, well, what are we doing here? How can we get above this 50% threshold?

So we started looking at who in our estimating department was using Assemble. We do have a robust training program for Assemble that we do in house, and tailor that partner with our VDC department. And we found that roughly 21 of our numerous estimators were heavily using Assemble. So we identified that. That's a great tool. You can do that within Assemble.

And then the primary utilization was visualization, and moreso secondary quantification. In other words, we would take it off and then use Assemble as a background. And then sometimes primary. But I think the key is competency does not equal adoption, or adoption does not equal competency. So you have to identify that in your journey.

Hey, just because someone's using something doesn't mean they're using it to its fullest extent. And what do we have to do to get from that point to the next point? To get from secondary to primary? So we've identified that as an action item, as a company and continually work on improving that.

So again, hey, Revit utilization, there's been some extra push on Revit. We've increased our number of estimators that can use Revit and they're using it for very complex items. So for Takeoff mostly and then for visualizations. But we have a larger group growing that are using Revit day to day.

We also added a model consultant for Takeoff from an overseas consultant, and they would be working while we're sleeping, and they can really ramp up when we need them to. We'll talk more about that in the future. And then obviously I mentioned our self-perform group. We've been doing that for 20 years and I mentioned some of the programs below we're using for that.

So hey, let's keep going with the history a little bit. I think that the key here is item number four. This was a strategy item that we had in our company internally around 2019. There's a lot of different things on here, but I really want you to focus on number four. And you can see that was the beginning of like, hey, saying, we've been trying things. We're going to get very serious and strategic about ramping this up at this point.

And so you started seeing it in some of our overall company internal documents about how we were going to improve. And you can see, model based estimating under that number four check mark. So just to lean in there to show that that's where our journey started. And Jason, I think this is your slide.

JASON SEILER: Yeah. Thank you. Great intro, Chris. Appreciate it. So you've kind of seen the history of how we've progressed and as a company pushing for more-- what I've started to call model based estimating. So around 2021, we coined this term "The case for change," which sort of encompassed multiple things, not just model based estimating. But it was a time where I think automation and AI, things really started to explode on the construction scene and the pre-construction scene. And we recognized a need to start making some improvements, and really basically, moving us from just this pre-construction mindset to more of a planning mindset where we started to try to connect all things related to estimating and scheduling and VDC so we could be much more collaborative.

We knew we needed to figure out a way to visualize our estimates and visualize dynamically cost control on projects, on pre-construction projects, things like that. There were things like automated and shared quantity takeoffs. So we wanted to move-- one of the big things we pushed for through this case for change was moving to a cloud based or cloud based takeoff solution, which we ended up choosing Autodesk Takeoff for that.

Schedule and logistics visualization, design quality, constructability, things like that. We knew that we needed to take a larger step forward in that, and we wanted to excel automation. So you'll kind of see a bunch of different products there that we started to-- we've already had a lot of them, but some of them we had to implement fresh. Just pushing us more into, I think, a digital realm at first for this case for change. Ultimately to move us into this journey of true, like, model based estimating. So we want to go to the next one for me, Chris.

So around '21 to '23 there was a lot of stuff going on with tech and with automation and with AI. And so ultimately, we knew that our real end goal is to get from model, connect it to outside things or even our internal estimate database in a more automated fashion where we are kind of integrating the model directly into the estimating solution. So you can get almost real time cost models. And we'd like to-- it's a back and forth.

To be able to visualize cost within the model itself in real time is truly an ultimate goal of model-based estimating. 2D gap fill takeoff, things like that, moving the team more into a model based mindset, because we think that that's the real future of estimating is in the 3D world. So, so from '21 through '23 we did a lot of different things.

The first thing we did, though, was to revamp our estimating database. And make it so that spec section coding and our item codes, these unique identifiers, these unique data points were consistent across all of our teams. So you can't gather and use that data if it's not consistent across all of your teams, if your data points aren't the same. And so we had a huge push for that, as well as moving into Autodesk Takeoff as our 2D solution, because we needed to first get everybody working in the cloud, working collaboratively and connecting and integrating with our estimating solution before we could truly start to build into this model based world.

So you want to go to the next one for me? Perfect. So we've got kind of a report card here. These were different initiatives that we were tackling that we wanted to address. And you'll see, so what we have is we have these check marks for things that we have accomplished, and we have the open boxes there, which kind indicate things we are currently pursuing and just hadn't completed yet. So things like gap modeling and model conditioning. That's the journey that we're on, and we're heading far down that road, which is great. But you'll see a Power BI report here as an example of what we were able to do once we created consistent data and consistent items within our estimating database, so that all teams are using these same items.

Now we're able to create things where we can gather metrics on historical cost and average cost per square foot. Things, all the way down to how many light fixtures were in a particular project, based on many other parameters. What that does is it sets us up for the ability to create a cost model engine that can pull historical data, and eventually that can pull actual final model data in an automated fashion, pull out all of that model data with our data points and use those things to build or track metrics and build out Power BI reports so that we can better present these things to owners. Learn from different projects, things of that nature.

And that's kind of-- you'll see where we're at right now with the development of that cost model. The development of pulling out quantities from models, assessing cost, doing model based estimating or model based planning.

CHRISTOPHER MOORE: All right. So I want to lean in here and say there's a couple things on this screen that you see. SP stands for standard practice or standard work instructions at Barton Malow. So when you see SP, that means that, hey, these are things that are more so required. And I want to reiterate that just because something's not checked here doesn't mean that we haven't made great progress. It just means that we're not happy with where it's at.

So every company you need to be able to identify, hey, you can't just pat yourself on the back all the time, right? It's got to be real and you got to be honest with yourself, and there's things that you want to improve and get further on. But Jason did a good job explaining that slide. So I'm going to move to the next one.

JASON SEILER: Perfect, thanks, Chris. And so again, this one is just laying out everything that we were able to work through, through '21 through '23 cost model database creation. I talked about that where we got consistent with our data points, our item codes, things like that that make the items within an estimate unique, and allow you to gather data and track data. Autodesk Takeoff process. That's allowing the team, currently to use that as our 2D Takeoff solution, and it's integrated with our estimating.

We created a full on Revit training program from-- I think we titled it, levels 100, 200, 300, 400, and they all progress. So we have a very good training program to get people into Revit and advance them from just a basic user to a model conditioner to a gap modeler. And then forget I had a very funny term like Revit Master or something like that in the 400 level.

Sorry. Assemble training and templates. We've improved on that. We are moving forward with Revit template creation. Revit template families, which I'll get into detail as we work through the actual plan. This strategy 4D monday.com adoption, allowing us to track activities and tasks much more efficiently,. Join adoption. That's been a big cost control endeavor for us. And we're working on, again, connecting that to our Power BI reports. So we can see how a project goes from estimate to change management to ultimately actual cost.

And then so now, like I said, now we're finishing Revit templates, leveraging our consultant for model creation and conditioning so that we can pull quantities out as well as do clash detection, and constructability reviews, things like that. And scaling model based takeoff across all of estimating. And then I'll hand it over to Chris to talk a little bit about the modeling consultant, as he's worked very, very closely with them.

CHRISTOPHER MOORE: Hey, we all have. Actually the original slide here has Jason's face along with one of our VDC representatives. But the goal was to bring on a consultant for them to learn how we do things in order to give us positive information back, and to build that team up so that we could have extra horsepower, I guess you could say. They can work when we can't. They're from overseas, so it creates a scenario, and then they can ramp up to the level that we need to produce quantities. But we used them for much more than that.

And again, going back to one of my first comments is like, when you do a model for Takeoff, you get a model for other things too. If you don't leverage those other items, you're putting yourself in a position where you're not taking full advantage of what you could be. So there's things like construction. Constructability reports, there's logistics, there's some understanding your existing and new site utilities. There's even 3D coordination at some point.

But you can really start to see problems and then identify those and build that into your overall process. But the goal really was, is to get them working, like, we need them to work so that we're not having to interpret the data that we're receiving. And that was a big undertaking.

Part of that also is part of our future journey as we continue to onboard more estimators that can model for Takeoff, or condition existing models we're receiving from design. We've already tested out all the roadblocks and all the lessons learned that we receive from working with the consultant. And so that creates a smoother process for our team. And as many of you know, if there are estimators here watching today, this can be intimidating. And if we can remove as many roadblocks from our team learning to do these things as we possibly can along that journey and use consultants to help us with that, and then continue to use those consultants to ramp up when we need to, then that's a huge win.

So this is just a one screen shot of us really jumping into this around 2020. Really the end of '23, and basically continuing that on. We've used them for so many projects now and have found a lot of great benefits from that. And so let's just move into to lessons learned.

I think I've got a very busy slide here, so I apologize for that. But this is model consultant cumulative feedback and improvement slide. So the pluses you see here that Jason added, which was a great add, is the plus delta is here. So you have to understand your positives and your negatives and you have to create an improvement plan.

What's your current state? What's your future state be? So just to not read through these, but to move through them fairly quick. One thing that we learned is our estimators struggle to allow someone else to do their Takeoff. They learn the drawings through Takeoff many times. So you have to retool that thought of, like, how could you learn the drawings without actually doing all the manual Takeoff which takes weeks on end for some systems.

So that is a feedback that we learned. Aligning the Takeoff to match our workflow is a delta. And I'm going to bounce back and forth. You can read this as you will. But hey, obviously this is great for presentations, proposals. It's very good when you have minimal information and you have a consultant that can reflect on other projects that they've done and then fill in the gaps that help produce quantities for us to analyze.

And you really need to make sure that there's a good communication process. Again, people are working when you're sleeping, and sometimes they need answers. So there needs to be protocols in place. And someone, frankly, willing to be that kind go between. And if there's a critical moment, be willing to work and answer those questions late if needed. That doesn't happen very often. But it is part of that.

So improvement actions. Hey, constant validation of data process through consultant utilization. I think that's a key one. A final cost model unit price exercise. So, like, I didn't mention this before, but receiving your final estimate and then benchmarking that against your final as built model can help you figure out what your risk and allowances should be at that end of that estimate.

You can analyze that data. You can understand that based off of the type of building the client, all those different conditions. And those things help you understand where you were at and where you ended up. So that's another powerful item.

I think creating better visuals is another one. Like if you don't want your estimators to be stuck on, I have to do Takeoff to learn the drawings. You have to create a lot of great visuals that helps them interpret the drawings that they're looking at with the 3D takeoff so they can be sure that it's right and they can move on and do some of the more value add items that we want them to do.

So with that, I'm not to read all these things on the slide. I'm going to move on and go to the next slide. And I think, Jason, this is yours.

JASON SEILER: Yep. Great, great job there, Chris. So as I said in my introduction, I've been in the industry for almost 20 years. The bulk of them have been in estimating. I started as a plumber in the field, then moved on into the office as a plumbing estimator, and then eventually moved to a general contractor, again, to stay within estimating and pre-construction. So I've been doing this and I've learned one immutable fact.

The one thing that estimators dislike the most is change. And so there are going to be model QTO roadblocks that you're going to run into. Model based competency and estimating takes time. It's a whole new world. When you're going to work in Revit, when you're going to work within a model, to conduct your quantity Takeoff after you've been doing 2D Takeoff for years.

Leadership has to lead that change. They have to be, again, on board with that same vision. You can't depend on receiving a good model. I don't-- I think I'm preaching to the choir here when I say that. And then initiatives need to be-- it needs to be prioritized. It needs to get the support that it requires to advance a model based estimating initiative.

So again, some of the roadblocks that occur, I don't think this is new to anybody. Estimators learn drawings through manual 2D Takeoff. I was one of those as well, right. Flipping through the drawings, coloring them with highlighters. You did. You felt like you were immersed in the project and you learned greatly about the project.

It's a culture shift to change methods from 2D to 3D quantification. It truly is. And that's one of the hardest things when you're trying to shift the actual culture of a group of estimators. Lack of quantifiable models from design, that's a huge one. You're going to hear that all the time. Hey, we never get good models. We never get good models.

And so those are one of the things you have to address when you push this model based estimating initiative. OK? Agreed. We're not going to get good models. So how do we tackle that?

Consultant model nomenclature does not align. That was one of the biggest things that-- and you saw that in Chris's slide before one of the deltas was they don't name things the same way we name things. And it's the same with all design teams, right? We want to see if it's a grade beam. I want to see it named grade beam, so I can easily find it, easily be able to compare that quantity to what I may have checked with a manual Takeoff.

And those are one of the things that we're working with or working on when we develop Revit template families, is the naming. There's a lack of desire to learn to decipher information. There's a lot in Revit. Revit is a big tool. And so the desire to learn it sometimes isn't there. And so you have to work through that. And that's all a part of that culture shift.

Limited innovative subject matter experts. Not everybody has worked in Revit before. So, you're working with that gap as well. There's always too many competing initiatives. I don't if the listeners out there are suffering from the same thing, but it's tech overload. It's initiative overload. It's innovation overload.

Everything is coming out so fast and everything is newer and better. And so you really have to be able to compartmentalize and focus on this initiative and get the resources and start to drive that through and drive this change through.

And then finally, it's just that. Everybody, every estimator truly, it's kind of nice to just put the headphones in and just rip through a takeoff. And just count it, move-- it's low stress. It's just it's almost as if it's one of those breaks in your day. And so we're battling through that. Like hey, not going to be around. You maybe won't get that.

But we do feel the positives of moving into a model based estimating world outweigh those things. So Chris, you want to go ahead and just let the listeners know what is strategy 4D and all that?

CHRISTOPHER MOORE: Sure. So again, strategy 4D and why now is this next topic. So every year we have a strategies that we set in place and they're under the bucket of our company Horizons. And you can see the graphic there for Horizons. So we have Horizons, within each Horizon there's different strategies and different deadlines and timelines for those strategies. So we've set this execute BIM-centric process for quantity Takeoff, estimating constructability as what we consider our FY25 end of year, which is March 31 for our company.

I've got the other ones hidden because we typically don't share these out to the masses because we feel like it's our sometimes our secret sauce. And so but this is our strategy 4D. Not to be confused with 4D scheduling or-- and more related to more of a 5D world, but just the term there.

And again, we've been doing great things for a while with these tools. But you got to continue to double down and continue to improve. And we're going to talk about, what the goal is here. And we want to be the envy of the industry when it comes to our strategies. We want to create better value for our customers. We want to have radical clarity for scope, cost and schedule. And we want to be productive, the best. That's the goal. If you're not shooting for that goal in this industry, then it's easy to get left far behind.

And then strategy 4D. Hey, these percentages are not-- these were more of graphical percentages here, but we don't want our estimators spending most of their time doing quantity Takeoff. We want them focusing on what you see over here to the right. We want them focusing on value add, target value design, programs like Join. We want them focusing on constructability. We want them focusing on buyout and working with our project teams to do that, helping out with our scheduling process and making sure that our schedule matches and is accounted for in our estimates.

We all these great things that you see on the screen at the right, that's what we want to focus on. So to flip the script. So if we can utilize consultants, we can use model based estimating, we can create people that are efficient, all these other items are easier to obtain because everything builds on the next thing. And it creates a situation where your different departments are working together.

And by doing that, when your VDC departments align with your transformation department, and your transformation departments align with your estimating department, and your project delivery team is taking the benefits of all these things and we're all working together, then all of these values become much better for our clients and for our product, and it makes us best in business. So that is why. And hey, this slogan is, "We're successful winning and executing projects because the planning, not quantities," right?

So why now? I think I've already mentioned why. But a couple other items worth mentioning is we were also going through a data initiative and have a data department that that's connecting data across all of our different platforms to utilize internal AI systems. So not going to go too detailed into that. But there's a lot of data in models, and the better we use models and the better we use the data within the models, the more information we have for that initiative as well.

And as well as digital twins. Digital twins is a hot word right now. It has been for several years. Everything starts at the beginning of the job. The better digital twin we have is based off of how soon we start utilizing models. So it's not just about getting quantities quick. It's about taking advantage of all the other things that you get when you immerse yourself with utilizing models to do your work.

And again, SP stands for standard practice. You can see over there to the right of the screen, that's just an example of us measuring how we're doing things. That graphic is a little old, but you could see, hey, we're over 50% on doing 3D constructibility reviews per our standard practice.

You'll look at some of these other percentage, you'll say, well, it looks like they're not doing too many 2D constructibility reviews. That is not the case. It's just we have a high standard of how that should be done and we measure that to make sure that we're following compliance with that. So if that's not the case, then we don't give ourselves a pat on the back. And we do heavily use Autodesk Build for our constructability reviews and issues so that those issues live on throughout the project and become eventually RFIs if they're not handled as we get into construction. And Jason.

JASON SEILER: Yeah, thanks. And so really, finally, why now is the future is here. Hopefully not that future. But I know that I heard 10 years ago, we're going to get better models sooner. And I'm sure all of you did. Five years ago. We're going to get better models sooner, I promise. So what's different now?

Well, now AI and automation has exploded into the pre-construction world. I mean, never before-- five years ago, 10 years ago, there was never this amount of tech improvement and investment as there is right now. And so I do feel way more comfortable saying, we are going to get better models sooner. And that's why we need to learn how to work within a model based environment.

So I'm going to jump in here and we're going to talk about the plan. So get ready. It's a little bit of our secret sauce. This is what we're doing. So get excited.

All of that, all of that history that we've gone through has led us to what a successful plan is really going to look like in order to move into a model based estimating world. All of that history led to, hey, our ability to learn and improve and come up with a plan that we do feel is going to work.

So I'll run through step by step. I've got a seven step process here. So step one is planning leadership buy-in. I mentioned that before. That's a big thing. Leadership has to buy-in on this. They have to communicate that plan to everyone. They need to prioritize that for success.

Excuse me. And our goal is success in fiscal year '25, which our fiscal year will end March 31. So it definitely a tight time frame. But what's construction without a tight time frame? And then restructuring reporting may be needed as a last resort. Shifting people over into different roles.

Step two is, right, assemble that team. And that's we've talked about that. That's that shift of roles. We've worked pretty hard on developing what we call 3D model QTO team, made up of VDC individuals, made up of estimators, folks from transformation. You can see that, this group of estimating process improvement. We have a couple folks there that will offer partial support as well. And we have the model QTO consultant.

So I think we've got a good team in place to be able to drive this initiative and push it forward. And that's really key. It's all about the team that you put together. It is ultimately how you gain success here.

So in step three is the initial QTO focus for projects. OK? So we've come up with a project criteria for model-based QTO. It's not every project. That would be a little bit too much. We want to focus on larger projects, IPD design build projects, things where we might have a little bit of say in the design model, stuff like that.

And the teams, they have to agree on that initial focus. Facade, structure, and interior wall systems. Some of the larger levers from a cost perspective on a project, that's what we're going to focus on and we're going to move forward with those and conduct model based estimating on those for those particular projects.

And this is also a good way to-- it's not a jump in the pool, right? You're not just going to jump in the deep end. We can start it off slow, work through that process, fix whatever things we need to fix within the process as we work through a small chunk of a project. Facade, structure, and interior walls, right? Take that small chunk, learn from it and improve upon the process before you expand operations.

So then we got step four. Finalize templates, validate, train the new team. OK, we are in the process of going down this road. We're kind of plowing down this road, I guess, if you would want to say that. Developing Revit template families.

Talked about that before. That's helpful not just for the model consultant but for everybody on board that's going to be doing this to have your own-- our own Barton Malow families that have the data points already in them, like item codes. Things like that that allow it to then integrate with our estimating solution. We want to be able to go from model to estimate, sort of at the click of a button.

Template schedules and views. The idea is to, in a nutshell, the idea is to make Revit look like Assemble. I think everybody is very familiar with Assemble. Even the estimators, non-VDC people that don't work in models, everybody seems to be comfortable with Assemble. I've always said, what's great about Assemble is you can't break it. You can't break the model. People are always-- they get leery about being in Revit. So if we can make Revit operate and look a little bit more like Assemble even with colors, with filters on your views so that the teams can focus on, say, just the structural columns, just the beams, things like that. It makes it a little more comfortable of an environment.

Create a list of shared parameters to be added to all elements in a more automated fashion as well. So these are all different data points. Like all of your spec section coding. Those should be added to all elements. Excuse me.

And that's going beyond the Omniclass that Revit has out of the box. This is true uniformat, true master format. That allows us to do more filters within those views so that, again, the team can start to utilize this as a visualization tool and not just a Takeoff tool.

And then build a scalable workflow. We want to automate as much as possible. Allow you to add item codes and add specs section coding based on certain rules. Write a playbook. So a kind of guideline for how a team attacks a model. What can you get out of a certain level of model? What can you quantify? What still needs to be quantified maybe in 2D? Or what simply needs to be added into your estimate to accommodate things that aren't shown in a model, or that aren't modeled?

Things like perhaps your miscellaneous metals, or your connections, your steel connections. A lot of times that's just a percentage of your total steel tonnage. Like that's in the playbook. It should say, hey, when you get your steel tonnage into your estimate, make sure you add a percentage for your connections.

We want team members to be able to have something almost as if it's like a checklist. OK? Did this, did this, did this, so that we can cover everything. Eventually train new 3D focused estimating teams for model Takeoff. So expanding, expanding the skill set of others. And validate against traditional QTO. One of the first things you're going to do once you focus on those certain projects and you've built those templates and this model based estimating workflow is ready, you want to validate that against traditional QTO.

How different is my steel Takeoff, if at all? How many square footage? How much square footage of wall did I get as compared to a traditional takeoff? And so we're going to use that initial team to do just that. So we're not impacting the estimating teams. The estimating teams can still conduct their traditional Takeoff, and we compare it with what our team is able to pull out of the model, or model from scratch so that we can start to show and build the confidence of estimators in this process.

And then refine and evolve the templates, the parameters, and the process. That's always going to happen. That's just-- it's continuous improvement all the time. We're going to continue to learn things and kind of expand on that and make those improvements.

So step five, we want to align the modeling consultant efforts for extra support. And I should have prefaced this when we kind of walked through, or we showed the outline of all the steps. But these aren't necessarily step one has to be done before step two, before step three, before step four. These will inevitably overlap, and that's good. It's great that you can start to do something.

So we can start to align modeling consultant efforts once we have some of our templates and views and Barton Malow families ready to go. Like we're already working on that right now. We've got templates already built that the modeling consultant is using so that when they build a model now it's going to say the things that we want it to say. It's going to call things the way we call things in construction and not be the out of the box Revit nomenclature. So it's great. There's an overlap right there.

So the modeling consultant is able to provide extra support. And they also assist in some of that view creation. It's very nice to be able to send them, hey, here's a list of bullet points. These are the views I want. These are the filters I want in that view. You run with it, and I'm going to keep kind of punching out some template families.

I've engaged them when we need custom families. Excuse me. Their expertise in Revit far surpasses mine. And so, hey, go ahead. And you build the custom family. Because if anybody's been in trying to build custom families, I can bang my head against the wall for hours trying to do some of that. So yeah, utilizing them as they've been a great, great benefit and great partner to have.

And then tasking them with assemble population. Things like that. So we really start to use them more and more as we go down this path. So finally.

CHRISTOPHER MOORE: I'm going to stop you for a second and just say that is Jason's finger there. He's got one extra long finger that he's really embarrassed about. So I just wanted to put that out for world to know.

JASON SEILER: Yeah, I appreciate that. It worked really well when I was running work as I was a good pointer. Do that. Do that. No, so step six is drawing a line in the sand, right? You have to eventually say-- you have to eventually turn the page on the old way of doing it. Move into this new way of operating and say that there's no going back. Because ultimately every-- this is true of everyone.

People will want to fall back on old ways and old processes if at the first sign of a hiccup, at the first sign of trouble. And that's totally natural, right? That's a culture thing. That's one of the things you work with.

You don't just lock the door and slam the door shut in their face and lock it, right? But you do draw this line in the sand and you say, listen, for these focus systems, all takeoff is going to be performed by what we're calling VDC estimators, and the consultant in 3D. There's no traditional takeoff. So once we've validated-- and that's the idea of the validation, is to build that confidence with the estimating team so that they say, yeah, OK, that's fine. I've seen it work. The quantities are spot on. Yeah, go for it.

So this line in the sand isn't this door slammed in their face. They're comfortable and they're ready for this. Regardless if models are received from the designer, we will recreate models using our process. And then design models received can also be conditioned by the modeling consultant, by VDC estimators. Now we will have a way to condition these models to add in these item codes that we want so that you can, again, extract this information in a confident and efficient manner and get it into our estimating solution. So we're moving just straight through to that line in the sand where we're going to be doing model based estimating for these systems.

CHRISTOPHER MOORE: And Jason, I'm going to lean in real quick and, unplanned, but I think one thing to mention here is we've learned that our initial thought was like, hey, let's just receive a bunch of models from designers and condition those and teach our estimators to do that. It's really hard to teach someone to condition models and understand where the issues are if they don't know how to model to create those same elements. And that was a big lessons learned that maybe we missed on the previous sheet.

So that's why we're like saying, hey, we're going to just model it. And even if we get a design model, we're going to model it until we get really good at that. And then we will grow our estimators that can condition. We have estimators that can condition models, but to get scalable, that's something that's very important to understand. You need to be able to model in order to condition well in order to get a positive outcome when it's time to navigate to that next phase. Sorry, go ahead, Jason.

JASON SEILER: No, I appreciate that. So yeah, no. So now after step six is inevitably step seven. See, we estimators can count. The next thing is to connect data, to connect model data to estimates. And that's what I'm talking about. This wonderful, easy button.