Date: September 1991

Author(s): M. Syal, M. Parfitt, J. H. Willenbrock

For builders, generating an estimate and construction schedule for a job require the use of design information that has already been completed in the drawing process. It is usually the case that the estimator or project coordinator goes through a long repetitive process in completing the estimate and construction schedule and transfers a great deal of information that has already been recorded into another form.

Many builders have computerized their operations with packages for design drawings, cost estimating, and construction scheduling and are now looking for ways to link these three operations together. The concept of linking or "integrating" systems is of great interest to residential Builders because of the largely design-build nature of the industry.

This report includes the study of computer based packages for design drawing, cost estimating, and construction scheduling; as part of an integrated system. The report describes various commercially available software packages and contains a step by step tutorial based on an example problem. Finally a summary of the discussion meeting with the representatives of the software companies whose software packages were used in this project, is provided in the appendix.

For Builders who have implemented any one of the stand alone computer packages mentioned above and are willing to expand their capabilities this report will assist you in making these systems talk to one another. This report can be used as an example of what the latest packages on the market have to offer. In this regard the builder can get a feel for the capabilities and limitations of the integration of design drawings, computer estimating, and construction scheduling.

This report lays the groundwork for future investigations into the area of computed integration for the residential builder. The areas of automatic computer price updating for materials and expert computer systems will be important areas in the future.