Interactive estimating for building contractors

The objective of this work was to develop a computer-aided estimating system to meet the specific requirements of the British building industry. The sponsor was the National Research Development Corporation. The project comprised: - a review of existing commercially available computer-aided estimating systems suitable for use by building contractors to establish the need for the project; - a review of computer applications in the construction industry to establish the context in which computer-aided estimating systems could be applied; - the development of a computer-aided estimating system specification for a system, INTEREST BUILD (INTERactive ESTimating for BUILDers), suitable for programming work by computer programmers; - an appraisal and review of available classification systems for use with the estimating system; - the development of a classification specifically for use with the INTEREST BUILD system against which performance data could be filed and retrieved; - the collection of estimators' performance data suitable for use in demonstrating and testing the system; and - the demonstrations, testing .and assessments of the INTEREST BUILD.system. <~,. Five commercially available estimating systems were investigated and none were found to fully meet the needs of building estimators. A review of computer applications for contractors revealed that existing applications in order of popularity were: accounting; network analysis; costing; cash flow forecasting; estimating; NEDO formulae; valuations; and discounted cash flow. [continues]