Quantity Reconciliation (Tool and process)

Uncertainty. It’s often the biggest challenge in our industry and that’s why we focus so much on risk. But what about the uncertainty of an owner when faced with discrepancies between cost estimates? Scope of the project is the starting point of every estimate. Quantities and bid items are reconciled early to establish the baseline cost assumptions for the project.

The team needs a comprehensive vison, broad experience, and applied logic to the project approach and that is why we build the project quantity reconciliation worksheet.

At ICETEAMS we use the Project Quantity Reconciliation Sheet to navigate the first variables of project estimates. It’s a well-seasoned, logical, and time-tested process that provides clear communication to the team. The trick is to not only capture the data on one sheet, but to have the information available to the whole team, providing transparency of that data. ICETEAMS makes it clear. Here’s why it works.

Click here to download the OPCC comparison form.

1. The Design team, the Contractor team, and the ICETEAM reviews the plan documents and creates a detailed take-off sheet assigning a cost estimate to each item based on the bid schedule provided by the Design team. Each team fills out their respective columns and we generate the report to identify discrepancies.

2. We then hold a meeting. We compare columns for the Design team, the Contractor team, and the ICETEAM numbers and discuss assumptions, provide clarifications, or commit to re-evaluating the data.  

3. The goal of this exercise is to fill out the “Agreed to Quantity” column. This is the data that all the estimators will use to generate project costs.

4. NOTE: because we are continuing to progress the design as we perform these costing exercises, it is important to draw a line in the sand and stop adjusting quantities. Remember that this exercise is a snapshot in time.

At this point, it’s ready to go back to the team ready to perform the cost estimate portion of the OPCC cycle. Reconciling potential differences in quantities early in the process is just another way that ICETEAMS is bringing confidence to the process and proven efficient practices.

Working together we all win!