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Marrs Electric:Both Feet On The Ground |
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You might expect a family-owned company that’s been in business for 56 years to have experienced a little bit of everything – and that’s the case for Marrs Electric (Louisville KY).
While the company now mostly does commercial construction work, the first two decades of its existence were primarily devoted to residential.
While the company now has roughly 50 employees, at one time it had expanded up to 120. “That was back in 1989 to maybe 1991,” remembered Myron Marrs Jr. “It was tough for me and for my brother (Rick, the company’s co-owner). “We work in the business, we have a direct tie – every day. We’re not playing golf."
“But with 120, we found that we couldn’t be involved in as much. We didn’t know the details of all of the jobs on which this company was working. You can explain it how you like – it was too hard to manage, we were unable to rely on other people."
“Basically, at 120 it didn’t work out very well for it. It just wasn’t our thing, so we ended up cutting back. At 50 to 70 people, Rick and I can stay on top of things. If something is going on, if one of our projects has gotten into some sort of trouble, we’re aware of it earlier. We can address whatever it is before it gets to a point where things can’t be turned around.”
Going back to what’s comfortable – and what works – has led Marrs Electric to use McCormick Systems software. “I can remember when we first bought the system, in the mid-1980s . It was created for an 8-bit processor, and we got two floppy disks; one was the program, the other the data disk."
“Over the years, we have tried a couple of other estimating systems. We’ve had salesmen from these other estimating companies – I can’t even really remember their names – come in here and convince us that what they offered was a better widget. So we switched."
“But, every time, we ended up going back to McCormick. The reason? Maybe it’s because I was comfortable with it. The system can handle anything we needed, and it would adapt easily to what we needed it to adapt to. The other systems? In working with them, we found restrictions in each – we didn’t have that with the McCormick software.” |
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A start with ‘the outlet method’ |
Marrs Electric’s history begins with Myron “Bub” Marrs Sr., a police officer. Working on the side, he learned the electrical trade – and in 1955, started the business. The company worked on houses and apartments. In 1968, Myron Jr. – who had worked summers while in school up to that point – began working with his dad fulltime.
Over the years, the company did well. In 1976, with the company usually working 20 people, Myron Jr. and his brother, Richard, bought their father out. As things have worked out, Richard runs the field work and supervises tools, equipment, and logistics; Myron handles inside management, including estimating.
Two years after the generational change at the top of Marrs Electric, the brothers refocused. The company chose to go after more commercial work; residential involvement faded away.
[Is there a third generation? Myron Marrs III is now in the IEC apprenticeship program. He comes with a lot of experience: Eight years in the Marines, service several postings to Iraq . . . and three Purple Hearts.]
How do you transition from residential to commercial? “Pop did everything by ‘the outlet method’,” Myron Marrs Jr. recalled (and laughed). “He looked at a house, counted all of the outlets, multiplied them by a certain dollar amount – and then added a few hundred dollars. That’s how he got to his price."
“When I started bidding work, I had to learn estimating from scratch. We did small commercial renovations, some boiler rooms when we started out in the late 1970s. We quickly found that working on chain restaurants was something we could do. As an estimator, I cut my teeth on that.”
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From scary to scarier |
At the beginning of the plunge into commercial work, as Myron Marrs Jr. remembered it, things on the pencil-and-paper front were a little scary. A co-owner with no real estimating experience, and hardly any non-residential work under his belt, began doing the estimating on commercial jobs.
In 2011, he said, “it’s scarier.” The company’s strength over 33 years has been in low-bid commercial work. Today, there’s a heap of competition in that area. How do you bid such work so as to avoid losing money? And if you do that, how do you end up as the winning bidder?
“Our focus has been to be more efficient with our estimates, to be more accurate with our take-offs,” Myron answered. “From today’s perspective, I would say that – in the past – we had been just a little bit sloppy."
“For example, in doing the take-off, maybe we used to roll a fraction past the outlets. You’re in a hurry, it’s easier, I guess, to do it that way. Now, we have to have an accurate, detailed take-off. It’s our top priority – we insist on it. We get it down to the nub, we get rid of that fraction.”
There are non-estimating problems, of course. In seeking to bid on enough commercial work to stay ahead of the game, Marrs Electric can end up in situations that it would otherwise prefer to avoid (and, when times were better, it had avoided).
Like what? “We all know that a general contractor can add cost to a job, and that how he manages the job can make a difference to a subcontractor,” Myron said. “Right now, we’re bidding to GCs we’ve never worked for before. We don’t know in advance how they will manage the job. And we’re running into some green superintendents these days, too.”
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Estimating to overcome challenges |
How does a contractor compensate for the added risk? “We work to achieve a good comprehension of what the specifications are calling for,” Myron Marrs said. “The McCormick system gives us an ability to be responsive and to focus on the things we can do to win a job and make a profit.
“We use the Win 12000 system. It enables us to have all of our estimators (Myron and three others) work on the same job. We have been asked to come up with a quick budget number on a negotiated job, for example – with maybe two or three days to respond.
“We have the ability, with our estimating software, to put everyone on that job at the same time. Everyone grabs a sheet or two. And we work our schedule around, and knock it out.
“We’ve added, about a year ago, the TRA-SER SX. We’re trying to be more accurate with our estimates; now we have access to more accurate prices than we used to use. It saves us time and probably a person, too. You could almost keep one of your estimators working full-time on updating prices – especially the way prices are changing today, and especially if what you want to do is be as accurate as possible with every estimate.”
In these days of tough competition, what’s Myron Marrs Jr.’s favorite estimating function? “I like the bid summary. When it comes down to bid day, you’ve got the take-off done. You enter the supplier quotes, you get your price immediately. Now, you can manipulate your bid price. You don’t have to have maybe 10,000 pieces of paper lying around to sharpen your pencil.”
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 What's In The Media: |
Software Offered For Fast, Proven
Plumbing & Mechanical Estimating
McCormick Systems, which has provided estimating software to electrical contractors since 1979, has taken a step in a new direction – offering its mature, sophisticated-but-simple system to plumbing & mechanical contractors.
The major difference: This system comes with a discrete database customized for plumbing & mechanical estimating, developed and fabricated in consultation with plumbing and mechanical contractors who have worked with McCormick over the years.
Contractors (and their estimators) who regularly bid on or negotiate for plumbing & mechanical projects can now select from a variety of options. McCormick offers software tailored for smaller companies up to sophisticated, networked systems.
Additionally, the company offers add-on such as CAD Estimating, a unique interface with OnScreen Take-Off software, a time-and-material billing system, and more.
“When we promote our products to the electrical field, we talk about the need for speed in estimating, especially these days,” President Todd McCormick said. “Our company was founded by my dad, who was an electrical contractor. So the focus, from Day One, has been on improving estimating productivity. “
“Our customers also tell us that our system is adaptable to their needs. They also say that our customer support is the best they’ve ever seen. “
“We intend to maintain these attributes, and enhance our reputation, in our continued work with plumbing & mechanical contractors and estimators.”
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For Your 2011 Calendar |
BICSI Fall, September 18-22, 2011
Las Vegas, NV
See www.bicsi.org for more information
IEC Convention and Expo
October 11-14, 2011
Louisville, KV
See www.ieci.org for more information
NECA
October 22-25, 2011
San Diego, CA
See www.necaconvention.org for more information
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NY Times Notices Light Bulbs |
A 5/25 NY Times story – weighing in at 1,950 words – looks at how folks are reacting to the idea that certain incandescent light bulbs won’t be available in 2012 (with more disappearing in 2014, under federal law).
Here are 3 things I’d like you to notice in the story:
ONE: It’s not just crabby electrical bloggers (i.e., me) and crazy right-wingnuts (i.e., Glenn Beck) who are upset about the disappearance of the standard incandescent light bulbs. These 3 paragraphs (the actual LEAD of the story) show you that:
BUNNY WILLIAMS, the no-nonsense decorator known for her lush English-style rooms, is laying in light bulbs like canned goods. Incandescent bulbs, that is — 60 and 75 watters — because she likes a double-cluster lamp with a high- and a low-watt bulb, one for reading, one for mood.
“Every time I go to Costco, I buy more wattage,” Ms. Williams said the other day. She is as green as anybody, she added, but she can’t abide the sickly hue of a twisty compact fluorescent bulb, though she’s tried warming it up with shade liners in creams and pinks. Nor does she care for the cool blue of an LED.
It should be noted that, like most decorators, Ms. Williams is extremely precise about light. The other day, she reported, she spent six hours fine-tuning the lighting plan of a project, tweaking the mix of ambient, directional and overhead light she had designed, and returning to the house after dusk to add wattage and switch out lamps like a chef adjusting the flavors in a complicated bouillabaisse.
Excuse The EleBlog for noticing, but being “extremely precise about light” is not something limited to decorators, for Pete’s sake!!!
For most of 200,000 years, we human beings lived under “natural” light (or fire). For the past 130 years, some of us (now many of us) have had a substitute for “natural” light. We live in it, we love in it, we work in it, we relax in it . . . we SWIM in light!
Perhaps there are reasons that (a) people like Bunny are “precise” about light, and (b) lots and lots of folks have tried CFLs . . . and removed them from their homes.
TWO: Folks are buying more light bulbs — not just the to-be-banned kind, but the hideous CFLs as well, the article claimed:
One thing is true: it’s a good moment to be in the light bulb business. Big-box stores like Home Depot are selling more bulbs because they have more to sell: incandescents are up “in double digits over last year,” said Brad Paulsen, the company’s light bulb buyer.
But so are compact fluorescents, he said: “People are moving to different product types at a higher rate than I anticipated.”
Not included in the story: If you define the market as Incandescents and CFLs (i.e. ,just those 2 types of bulb that can be screwed into a screw base with little effort) . . . incandescents NOW have a 75% or higher market share. Therefore, being up “double digits” is pretty damn impressive for the old lamp style, no matter what the claim might be about CFL sales.
THREE: Penelope Green’s opinion was in there. She had the byline on the article, and ended it with this:
The reporter tried out one of the new, more efficient incandescent bulbs (the Philips EcoVantage in soft white, which will sell for $2.97 for a two-pack) and liked it. And yet, on a recent weekday, when the bulb section of Home Depot’s Manhattan store was empty of customers, she plucked two six-packs of old-style 75-watt G.E. soft-white bulbs ($3.47 each) and stuck them in her basket.
It can’t hurt to set aside a few packages.
Please notice the price points here:
- EcoVantage from Philips (newfangled incandescent that’s more energy efficient): $1.485 per bulb.
- Six-pack of 75W incandescents from GE = $3.47 = $0.578 per bulb.
So those EE “approved” incandescents sell for 257% the price of the to-be-banned version.
Perhaps . . .
a. This whole thing isn’t about energy. Maybe it’s about money.
b. Duya think such a thing might have been in the LEAD of the story, instead of Bunny’s hopping around?
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. . . could store more energy, deliver more energy, etc. etc. etc.., than today’s batteries. Potentially.
(Maybe you don’t want to bet the mortgage money on this one, but just keep an eye on it…..?)
More here.
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Another Push For DC Power
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If you read this blog closely, you’ve seen The EleBlog push DC Power. If you’ve read every thing I’ve ever written (poor you!) . . . you know that the proprietor here thinks that Edison was right, Westinghouse (and Tesla) were wrong . . . DC Power is the thing — and we’re living today through what I have called “Edison’s Revenge.”
Needless to say, there are others (smarter, richer, more important) who seem to be thinking along the same lines . .
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Here’s a report on what Joe Hogan, who’s at the top at the big supplier ABB, had to say recently:
Expanding on remarks from earlier in the day that illustrated ABB’s expertise in DC power, Hogan endorsed DC power as a market disrupter, adding, “I’m not saying AC power is dead…but look at the lights in here,” said Hogan. “Those are LEDs. Right now we’re inverting AC to DC to run those lights.
“My role is to look for disruptive things and see what’s changing and what role we can play in that. There’s a strong direct current literacy and capability in ABB. And we see a pull from the market happening more and more.
“If you look at renewable energy, whether it’s solar or wind, it’s coming off as DC, and we have a lot of technology geared around that. I talked about data centers this morning, and the idea that you want to invert AC power five times before it ever gets to the server banks is kind of ridiculous. Further, why would you ever run a ship on AC? It’s 25% more efficient to do that with DC.”
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Who ‘Busts’ Electricians?
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From The Minneapolis Star Tribune (4/24):
Unlike the many consumer complaints against building contractors, the vast majority of complaints about electricians come from those in the know: inspectors and competitors . . .
Power Factor Economics
Why do electric utilities hit some (esp. industrial customers) with a power factor charge? What can be done about that?
Here’s the start of an answer from Consulting-Specifying Engineer. It’s possible you’ve not previously seen this explained (or at least, not explained in such a way that can be readily understood):
Electrical loads demand more power than they consume. Induction motors convert at most 80% to 90% of the delivered power into useful work or electrical losses. The remaining power is used to establish an electromagnetic field in the motor. The field is alternately expanding and collapsing (once each cycle), so the power drawn into the field in one instant is returned to the electric supply system in the next instant.
Therefore, the average power drawn by the field is zero, and reactive power does not register on a kilowatt-hour meter. The magnetizing current creates reactive power.
Although it does no useful work, it circulates between the generator and the load and places a heavier drain on the power source as well as the transmission and distribution system.
As a means of compensation for the burden of supplying extra current, many utilities establish a power factor penalty in their rate schedule. A minimum power factor, usually 0.85 to 0.95, is established.
When a customer’s power factor drops below the minimum value, the utility collects a low power factor revenue premium on the customer’s bill. Another way some utilities collect a low power factor premium is to charge for kVA (apparent power) rather than kW (real power). With a diverse range of billing rate structures imposed by electrical utilities especially for large users, it is imperative to fully understand the billing method employed.
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