In Short:
Bill Brady, COO of KBI Painting, uses ConstructConnect's Takeoff BOOST to bid on as many jobs as possible without burning his own time on repetitive measurements.
On a 37-building housing renovation in Eureka, CA, Takeoff BOOST’s Auto Takeoff cut estimating time by up to 91%, turning 2-3 hour tasks into 15-minute jobs.
The time saved on another project let Brady pursue an extra $2 million in work while still hitting his original bid deadline.
The hardest part of an estimator's week isn't the hardest job, it's the most repetitive one, says Bill Brady.
Brady has spent close to two decades at California-based KBI Painting Contractors, working from apprentice to Chief Operating Officer, with a stint as an estimator in between. He still estimates public works bids himself, though. And his team's philosophy is simple: bid everything you can.
“You're not going to get a job if you don't bid it,” he tells ConstructConnect. “We just have to bid everything possible.”
That philosophy is exactly why speed matters to Brady. Every hour spent re-measuring repeated ceiling heights is an hour not spent on the next bid.
It’s that need to ration time that first interested him in Takeoff BOOST™, ConstructConnect’s AI takeoff suite, several years ago. Once Brady became a Takeoff BOOST customer, he has not looked back since.
"It's freed up time and you get the same quality of work,” he says.
There’s one project that Brady says really shows how Takeoff BOOST has helped KBI Painting bid for millions of dollars of work.
In the northern California city of Eureka, a 37-building housing complex renovation recently came up for bid. While estimating three-dozen buildings for a single project is a quite a task, Brady was able to get a good chunk of it done quicker than a summer blockbuster movie.
"I did this takeoff for the interior portion in, like, an hour and a half,” he says.
The structures in the complex share several building types, which Brady says makes it a perfect candidate for his Takeoff BOOST strategy:
Scale the drawing
Select what he wants Takeoff BOOST to pick up
Click “Auto Takeoff”
Move to the next building type while that run processes.
Expanding on this strategy, Brady says, “When I started to bid multi-residential buildings, [Takeoff BOOST] sped it up drastically. You know, very repetitive stuff: same ceiling height, same room layout. To not use it would be crazy now, you know? It cuts those takeoffs down by at least half.”
Brady shows one of the building plans from this project, and laments how long it would take him doing things the “old” way.
“Just this sheet alone would have taken me probably two to three hours to do it accurately. With Takeoff BOOST, to get a budget on that sheet, I could do it in 15 minutes,” he tells ConstructConnect.
That’s a 91% faster process and frees KBI Painting to find more projects to bid. Brady even found another one in Eureka; a three-building project.
He recalls, “There's one for the housing, one for a community center, and then [green space]. I had to do a quick budget for them, and I was able to do it in half an hour.”
KBI Painting Contractors COO Bill Brady (Provided Photo)
With a philosophy of “bid everything possible,” you might think Brady’s biggest benefit from Takeoff BOOST is getting budget numbers to general contractors faster. He is quick to push back on that framing, though. For him, it's not about the GC's clock, but his own calendar.
"It's not that they need it faster, it's that I have so many projects on my calendar. [Takeoff BOOST] allows me to bid more volume,” he clarifies.
Brady tells ConstructConnect about how Takeoff BOOST freed up so much time on another project, he was able to jump at millions of dollars in more projects while still making the original GC’s deadline.
He says, “I actually hit the date they wanted it and, you know, bid $2 million in other work.”
Outside of Auto Takeoff, Brady calls out two other Takeoff BOOST features that help KBI Painting’s work.
First, there’s Auto Link, which connects plan symbols to their reference details.
Explaining the benefit of Auto Link, he says, “[Think of] a school with a lot of landscape items. You're looking at a fence trying to figure out what it looks like just a line on the drawings. What does that fence actually look like? Instead of flipping through 300 sheets of drawings, you can just hit the button. Bounce over, look at it, bounce back, do your takeoff.”
Auto Count can locate and take off any repeated object you select on your plans, such as light switches or smoke detectors. For a painting business like KBI, Brady says it comes in handy when a project contains a lot of bollards (the posts used to block car traffic from buildings), which often require high-visibility paint.
“[Auto Count will] go through and put a dot everywhere I need a dot, instead of me trying to assume where a bollard is,” he explains.
While Takeoff BOOST has helped Bill Brady and KBI Painting find a steady stream of opportunity and deliver fast, accurate bids, there’s one more advantage it provides.
“It's just, it's helped me free up time,” he tells ConstructConnect. “I'm not working 16 hour days, working such late nights.”
That extra time has also been a win at home, he says.
“Anything that's gonna’ improve my quality of life and time with my kids is a benefit.”
There's even more to Brady and KBI's story. Take a look at the full case study on OnCenter.com to get the details on how Takeoff BOOST has changed their estimation process for the better, and why Brady says the time saved has only helped the company grow in the hyper-competitive California construction market.
If you like what you see, and you're ready to see results like this, request a demo today or try it yourself for free (no download required), with a planset of your choosing, and see how you can apply the same tools and tactics to grow your business faster with Takeoff BOOST.
It depends on the project, but Bill Brady of KBI Painting says it cuts his multi-residential takeoffs "down by at least half." On one sheet from a 37-building renovation, he estimates a job that would have taken two to three hours was done in about 15 minutes. That's roughly 91% faster. See how it could work on your own plans with a Takeoff BOOST demo.
Not according to Brady. "It's freed up time and you get the same quality of work," he says. The time savings come from automating repetitive measurements, not from cutting corners on accuracy. Want to test it on a real project? Start a Takeoff BOOST trial.
No. The 37-building renovation is the headline example, but Brady also used it on a smaller job in Eureka: a three-building project with housing, a community center, and green space. He says he "was able to do it in half an hour" for a quick budget. For him, the payoff isn't only about getting numbers to a GC sooner. As he puts it, "I have so many projects on my calendar. [Takeoff BOOST] allows me to bid more volume." Try it on your next bid with a Takeoff BOOST demo.
Auto Link connects plan symbols to their reference details. That means you don't have to flip through hundreds of sheets to see what a fence or other detail looks like. Auto Count finds and takes off repeated objects you select, such as light switches, smoke detectors, or the bollards that often need high-visibility paint. Brady says Auto Count will "put a dot everywhere I need a dot, instead of me trying to assume where a bollard is."
It lets you bid more. KBI Painting's approach is to bid everything possible, because "you're not going to get a job if you don't bid it." On one project, Brady hit the GC's original deadline and still bid $2 million in other work. He also says he's no longer working 16-hour days or late nights. Talk to our team about bidding more volume without adding hours.
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