Cad Interface
After more than a year in development, McCormick’s CAD estimating module is now in Bata. This new product allows the estimator to export CAD drawings directly from CAD to the McCormick Win 6000, 8000, or 12000 estimating product without the need of additional third party software.
This "smart" interface makes the takeoff in several steps. Once you have identified the sheet, combination of sheets, layers, etc. that you wish to take off as well as have set up the labels in the estimating program:
The first step is the automatic takeoff from known items in one of the several CAD takeoff libraries. Multiple libraries allow you to change between inside and watertight, standard and spec., etc. These libraries will grow as you continue to use the product.
The program will find all the "things" (items and/or assemblies) that is in its library and will count and/or measure them. As this is done, the "thing" changes color to indicate that it has been taken off.
The second step to identify all the "things" that are not in the library. Once identified, you take them off adding them to the library or, take them off as a special one time "thing" and not put them in the library.
Once the counting and measuring have been done, you are ready to complete the estimate in the estimating product.

WIN Menus
Your WIN 3000, 6000, 8000, and 12000’s menu feature has a lot of flexability and is easy to setup for your unique needs. As with most programs, most "take what they get and use it" however, with a little work, you can make all kinds of changes to make it work better for you.
The Menu comes setup with three columns or "levels". It will expand to four however, most only use three. If you need the fourth level, just go to xx, click on "add level" and there it is. Keep in mind that whance you add the fourth column, you cannot remove it.
Now that that is said, lets go to the fun part. Assuming that we are using three levels, most set up their item (or assemby) headers on the third level. This does not mean that the header must be on the third level. If that header is something that you use all the time, put it on the first level. A header can be on any level on the Menu.

McCormick Building
Well, McCormick bit the bullet and purchased a building. Not just any building but a historic building in downtown Chandler (Arizona) that was built in 1928. Constructed out of adobe, it was Chandler’s first IOOF hall and, during the war, was turned into the armory. After that, it became two doctors offices downstairs and four apartments up. It has been vacant for the past ten years.
What this really means is that there are multiple ceilings and multiple walls and all kinds of other things as when the building changed use, nothing was removed but just added to. So, with 7,000 square feet to play with, all the ceilings and walls came out and, as the roof is sagging (really sagging) it will be off by the time you read this. This just leaves me with four walls and the first and second floors. Could have used an estimating program on this one however, I don’t have labor units for lath and plaster removal nor do I have units for cast iron pipe removal. I keep thinking of it has a gem in the rough however, others refer to it as a money pit.
Now that I have gotten the demolition done, I have gotten my demo permit (works better if you do it first and permit it later) and I now have an architect and an engineer working on the drawings. We hope to be in it in six months however….

Added Export Capabilities
Considerable time has been put into the Win 6000, 8000, and 12000’s exporting capabilities.
Because of the continual demand to export more and more data, we have made changes to the products so that virtually any data is available to export in almost any format. This may not really sound like a lot however, the process was major and there was over nine months work involved.
This new enhancement is scheduled for Bata in the next several weeks and will be part of the next major release scheduled for the year 2000.

Citrix Server
Just being implemented in the office, McCormick’s Citrix server is proving to be quite a machine.
With a processor of xx and a xx and a xx and a xx, speed, flexibility, and backup are no longer a problem. Basically, Citrix is a mainframe computer that uses PCs as dumb terminals.
Because of its tremendous processing speed, there is virtually no slow down as additional stations come on line. As an example, four of our estimating stations operating on the server are much faster than on a stand-alone machine. One major function that the server will allow is the use of a WAN or, wide area network through telephone lines.
With this server, you can talk to it from a remote location via regular phone lines and see little loss of speed. And, as all processing in done at the server, you can dig out your old PCs as a 486 runs just as fast as the latest greatest machine that is available now.

Central America and More
Well, we said that we would keep the toy talk down however…. On November 1, Jack McCormick, President of McCormick Systems, will be departing the US for a trip down through Mexico and Central America.
Flying his twin engine Aero Commander, he will be leading twenty other aircraft on this two-week adventure.
The tentative itinerary includes stops in Mexico, Guatemala, el Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. This is Jack’s third trip down in the last sixteen months.
In the spring of last year, Jack flew down to Costa Rica where he spent three weeks in an intensive Spanish class. On the way back, he explored remote areas of Panama and Costa Rica that could only be reached by private aircraft. Then, last November, he led seventeen aircraft on a trip down through Central America where a boat was charted for a trip through the Panama Canal.
This years trip should be very interesting as he has made arrangements with the Secretary of Aviation Civil in Panama to go into a remote jungle strip adjacent to the river that separates Mexico and Guatemala. From there, they will be taken by dugout canoe upriver to a remote lodge where they will spend several nights. Been told that this is real Indiana Jones stuff. Jack has been flying for over 15 years, mostly in Mexico and Central America, and has about 1,400 hours. His aircraft is an Aero Commander AC50, more commonly called a Shrike. Cabin class, it has two 290HP engines, cruses at about 220 miles per hour, and can seat seven persons with fuel and luggage.

Trade Service Corporation
With the recent release of McCormick Systems interface from TRA-SER, and Trade Service’s recent enhancement to its database, there is more reason than ever to use the TRA-SER product.
In a reason statement by Alan Wulff, National Accounts Manager, he indicated that in addition to TRA-SER’s 850,000 electrical items now in the base, Trade Service Corporation is now in the process of releasing an additional 30,000 item Data/Com base and is working on expanding it to 100,000.
Every Data/Com item has an industry standard UPC code and can be updated electonically. When released, this will be available to McCormick users as a separate database. Then, the estimate can be made from this database or all or parts of the Data/Com base can be imported into the standard database.
McCormick anticipates getting this database from TSC in the near future so that the items can be put into groups, cost and schedule codes assigned, and all items labored. In addition to Trade Service updating,
McCormick encourages its customers to update prices in their standard databases from two or more sources, i.e. TSC as well as other venders, i.e. GE Supply, Wesco, etc.