From construction and renovation for skate parks to commercial and industrial facilities, the work and Vandeberg never stands still.

SABER (Simplified Acquisition of Base Resources), the group that oversees base projects under $500,000—soon to grow to $750,000—found that Sage Timberline Office made estimating much faster and easier.

Saving Time
“When we put an estimate together with an Excel spreadsheet, we had to type everything in and it took two or three days—a real long time. With Sage Timberline Office, we have so much historical data that I can throw together a proposal in 15 minutes and be pretty close to what the contractors will come up with. It saves a lot of time,” says Randy Pickard, a SABER project manager.

The project managers do their own estimates, then send them to contractors who—using Sage Timberline Office—submit their own estimates, which then have to be compared to the government’s estimates. Sage Timberline Office makes it easy to do those comparisons.

“We can throw both estimates up on the screen and merge them or take a variance or do whatever we need to do and it’s done,” Pickard says. “What used to take us three days at a shot, sometimes a total of six days, we can do in under half a day now. That’s a big time savings.”

Why Re-do What’s Already Been Done?
Project managers often rely on estimates of similar projects, something that’s easy to look up with Sage Timberline Office. “When we’re in crunch mode and we know we’ve had a similar project, you can take up an estimate and change the headings and cover page and basically make it your own,” Pickard says.

“Sage Timberline Office sure beats an old Excel spreadsheet,” he says.

He also appreciates the ability to save estimates as PDF files so people who don’t have the Estimating application can view it. Although current contractors also use Sage Timberline Office, Pickard says it’s possible future ones won’t, and this ability will allow the SABER project managers to e-mail their estimates and know they can be viewed by anyone.

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