how can you protect your drawing

[JohnLashuay]

Well said Sergio! Everybody here has very good points. There is an art to working with people. I think that reading a person is the biggest part of the battle. By learning how to read each person individually we can better provide a service that will suit their needs and we will better know how we have to go about selling the product to them that will also suit their needs (i.e. charging for drawings or not, etc.).

We can also never forget that the market is always changing. People are always changing and in turn we have to change as well.

We have been throwing around the idea of charging for drawings or not. There are good reasons on both sides and for now we don't charge. Tomorrow is another day...

-John

[Kerry Fullington]

Mike,

Thanks for taking the time to post . I was glad to read your post because that is exactly my method for creating estimates. I looked at Buckley's Business Partner a couple of years ago (and I agree that it is still probably the best laid out spread sheet for creating estimates. It is even better if you conform to his system, standardize everything and limit your offerings) and that is when I started developing my own spread sheet. The only difference is that I wanted my spread sheet to work with eCabinet Systems Software. I have started several threads over the past couple of years trying to get the folks at Thermwood to adopt this system but have yet to get them interested.

The system is just as you suggest. You break cabinets into their basic components and labor is then associated with each individual component. Every component of a cabinet has certain types and amounts of labor that must be associated with it from the time it is taken off the delivery truck, through various processes in the shop and up till and including installation of all these components. These labor processes for basic components (such as a square foot of sheet goods) remain pretty constant from job to job. (ie it takes basically the same amount of labor to cut 25 sheets of melamine as it does to cut 25 sheets of cherry ply.) Some jobs do have more parts per sheet but if you average your labor times over several jobs you come up with a figure that works on most every job. Since eCabinets knows how many square feet of sheet goods we use, how many board feet of lumber, how many doors, hinges, and slides we use it would be very easy for eCabinets to release the information on total amount used of each individual components to the spread sheet where labor is calculated. This method of estimating is extremely accurate. The actual costs on my last job which was a $14,000.00 job was only $200.00 off from my estimated costs. I think that is pretty good. The drawback is that I have to complete the design drawings to make this work.

I still maintain that you must have a design before you can give an accurate estimate. An example from the job I posted is the Range Hood Cabinet. That is a pretty expensive cabinet especially when you factor in the $1300.00 liner that it requires. Until I design this kitchen the customer has no idea if that cabinet is going to have enough impact on the look of the job to be worth the cost. All in all there are just too many variables to account for until you have something for the customer to look at and approve. None of my customers ever accept the first design that I give them. lately I have been doing four to six revisions before we get things the way they want them so that I can bid the job. There can be thousands of dollars difference in the kitchen I first show them and the final kitchen they accept.

I have been keeping track of all my time spent on estimates where I didn't get the job and those are now factored into my overhead. This still doesn't get you the time back. The biggest problem with a one man shop is the fact that you only get on average 30 billable hours per week and around here I can't adjust my shop rate up high enough to pay me for this lost time and remain competitive, but that is another thread.

Sergio,

I have close to 16 hours in that drawing, estimate and proposal. A great deal of that time comes from the fact that I put 3D models of the actual ornaments they are looking at. This requires me to find them download them, convert them to work in eCabinets, texture them and save them which is time consuming for so many items. I also made sure any fluting etc is accurate. Another problem I run into is when a job gets this detailed, toward the end, I spend 50% of my design time waiting for eCabinets to complete tasks. I know this is something that the programmers are working to improve and it can't come too soon. I also didn't get any input from the customer on what they wanted so I have to spend a great deal of time working out the design. All this being said, my average time spent on bidding every job is between 16 and 20 hours.(it is actually taking me more time than it used to. I get too caught up in the details. I spend a huge amount of time with lighting and camera position getting the proposal pictures just right) That is too much. Especially if I don't get the job.

I forgot to mention that all of the stuff inside the cabinets is represented with 3D models. there are the lazy susans, the rev a shelf wood pullouts, Even the GE Monogram Hood liner is there to look at. Normally I do pictures with all the accessories showing. I got lazy on this one.

Kerry

[Sergio Fetter]

Kerry,
Thanks for your reply.
I hope you got that job, the design is awesome.
I am glad you said that, because I spend quite a bit of my time waiting on ecabs. Just today, it crashed about 5 times in the same job. Let me take that back... I do not know if crashed or if I didn't have patience. I waited 5 or 10 min and it didn't do what I wanted to do, I shut it down by force and started all over again.
But I still thing that it is very rewarding once you finish the drawing.

Thanks!

[DanEpps]

You make a very important point Kerry.

Every time you touch anything related to a job is a point of value-add thus, added cost as well. Keeping up with the information is definitely a pain but it must be done to produce accurate bids.

If you don't completely understand your costs, you cannot be sure you are making a profit.

[Michael S Murray]

Amen to that Dan, building cabinets is the gravy in this business,paying the bills is the tricky part!!
And by the way, my art -cam guy is working on your project and told me he was getting close the other day, said it was fighting him a little for some reason, but he will get it and I will cut it asap.

[DanEpps]

Amen to that Dan, building cabinets is the gravy in this business,paying the bills is the tricky part!!

...And by the way, my art -cam guy is working on your project and told me he was getting close the other day, said it was fighting him a little for some reason, but he will get it and I will cut it asap.

No problem and no hurry. I wasn't even sure whether it could be done or not.

[Kerry Fullington]

Mike,

Have you standardized your box sizes etc. to simplify things?

Using the Business Partner you get a ready to use Proposal without a lot of extra work don't you? I spend way too much time trying to get the proposal the way I want it. I have always wanted the proposal to be a by-product of the design. I haven't figured out how to get that yet.

One great thing about being able to give an estimate before the design would be that the estimate is now that magic "Budget" that we all want. You can design the kitchen to fall within the limits of the estimate.

I will have to keep playing with this.

Kerry

[Michael S Murray]

Hey Kerry,
In bp you specify all your different box configurations such as drawer over door, drawer over doors, 3 drawer stack, so forth and so on, actually it will come preloaded with frameless and face frame library that you can just modify to the way you build, such as backs, strechers,nailers, whatever. If you use conestago doors, there all in there.

No when you do your estimate you can adjust the sizes of the different box configurations, number of shelves, number of finish interiors, etc. You also specify what hardware your going to use as far as drawer systems, hinges, etc.
Then you add appopriate sticks of mouldings, finished end panels-sizes,#panels#sides finished,etc.

Then you customize your estimate proposal to whatever you would like and it prints whatever you choose to show your client.
Theres not much in their that you cant control or set to your own use, terms, markup, overhead, delivery cost per box, miles to job for delivery cost.

Like I said, I had a similar decent system put together, but this is so far superior that it is not even comparable.
I beleive if you go to true 32, Bob has a pretty good demo of bp set up that you can go through.

Pm me your fax # if you want and I will fax you a finished estimate.

[Kerry Fullington]

Thanks Mike,

I think I am going to try the 30 day trial to see how it works.
I can get it set up using the trial and it says when you purchase you can keep all your work you did in the trial.

Kerry