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| Ed Thoma (from left to right) , Bill Thoma , Rob Flory, Steve Arnold and Mark Westley gather to discuss a project. Bill is
president/engineer; Ed is vice president and
estimator/project manager for the Service Plus division;
Steve is quoted extensively in the surrounding story; Rob
and Mark are estimator/project managers. |
By
Joe Salimando
Exclusive for McCormick Systems
Thoma Electric, a 46-year-old
electrical contractor (based in San Luis Obispo, Calif.) provides
electrical contracting and electrical engineering services. It has,
for a long time, provided design-build project delivery to customers – and lately, the company has
been working on construction projects using BIM.
But
along the way, as projects proceeded to the construction phase, no
matter what role Thoma was assigned, it has (for the past 15 years)
used McCormick Systems to estimate those projects.
“We
like it because it’s simple to use,” says Steve Arnold, senior
project estimator and project manager for Thoma. “It’s powerful and
it’s flexible. You can do just about anything you want to or need to
do with McCormick"
“I
can split up a bid any way I want to. I can do anything on the fly,
add anything that I want to add. The key factor, for me, is that
it’s accurate!”
Designing, building, estimating
Essentially, Thoma offers customers integrated design-and-construct
services, but keeps responsibilities separate inside the company.
There is an Electrical Engineering division, but the engineers
typically don’t use the estimating system.
What’s the difference between design-assist and design-build?
Explains Arnold: “In a design-build job, everything gets done inside
our building. In design-assist, we are helping an external
engineering firm."
With the ability to help, design, or just do a straight electrical
construction job, Thoma works on a wide range of projects. The
project portfolio includes schools, hospitals, wineries, fabs for
chip-making firms, banks, power plants, and service equipment for
big communications companies.
“When
I got here, 21 years ago, I was the only estimator,” Arnold recalls.
“There were 15 electricians. The retired contractor (Clarence W.
Thoma – father of the present company president, Bill Thoma)
actually came in back then, because we were without a veteran
estimator at the time.”
Today, Thoma Electric typically runs 65 field electricians. Arnold
oversees a staff of two estimators; an additional estimator/project
manager works independently with Thoma’s Service Plus division.
Working on a 4th estimate
At
the time he agreed to an interview for this newsletter, Arnold and
his staff were at work on the “fourth and final estimate” for a
given building – a 236,000-square-foot addition to a hospital in the
region.
“We
really have estimated it three times,” he says. “The
contractor wanted an estimate at the 50% level, and then at the 90%,
and then at what they said was the 100% level. They’re basically
building a new hospital, connecting it to the old one, and also
connecting it up to their new central plant, which was just
completed."
“At
this point, we’ll do the final estimate after we get the results of
the plan check by the Office of State Health and Planning. So, yes,
we’ll have done four estimates on this job."
“But
since it’s a design-assist contract, we are doing a lot more than
estimating. On a job like this, we scrutinize the plans for
completeness and design oversights, and we overlook the entire job
for constructability."
“Also on this job, everyone is using AutoCAD 2006 to do 3-D MEP
coordination. It enables us to build the entire structure in the
computer system and find and repair all of the collisions between
the trades.” * See last months newsletter for our 3-D BIM estimating article.
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| The estimating staff
(from left, Mark Westley, Steve Arnold, and Rob Flory)
review a drawing. |
Using edit extension
Thoma has the McCormick 12000 system installed. Arnold claims that
the system’s ease-of-use helps not only in daily use, but in keeping
the company staffed with estimators. “The last two people we’ve
trained on it, the McCormick System has seemed easy to learn. It’s
gone really well for them.”
As
head of the estimating department, Arnold is the system’s
administrator, which means he makes thorough use of McCormick’s edit
extension feature before many significant project estimates go out
the door. “Time is of the essence, of course,” he admits.
“Sometimes, I just get a look at the final page.
And often, I take a look and change something. It’s a question of
adding what you might call ‘the artist touch’ to an estimate.”
As
well as he says edit extension works for Thoma, Arnold’ s favorite
McCormick capability is, he says, “the ease of building assemblies.
These days, it’s so simple. We make use of that.”
Engineering plus contracting
Thoma’s unique status, with an in-house engineering staff, has a lot
of plusses, Arnold says. “We can build a project without a lot of
hassles,” he notes. “Basically, we can answer questions from the
field easily, since getting an RFI response is as simple as taking a
short walk down the hall."
“When a GC says, ‘hey, we’ve got a problem’ – we come in on a
design-build job as the Thoma team. We make a fast-track job move,
and fast. We don’t have to wait for paper turn-around – although
there is always a paper trail."
There’s another advantage: The engineers who work for Thoma get
real-world construction experience. “We take our engineering staff
out on the job sites with us, so they have a lot of walking-around
experience. They go out to the job and talk with the foremen and
superintendents. They see the impact, out there – on the people
trying to build the job – of the design choices they made."
“We’re not here to bash engineering firms – we work with them all of
the time. But the engineers who work for Thoma end up knowing a lot
more than the paper and pencil part of an electrical construction
job!”
Salimando (ecdotcom@gmail.com) writes for and edits electrical industry publications, including Rexel’s Power Outlet. He’s the editor of McCormick Systems’ newsletter and the proprietor of The EleBlog.
A Better Way to Estimate
Are you going to be around Chicago, or thinking of heading to Chicago? McCormick Systems will be exhibiting at the NECA Show and Convention on October 5-7 at McCormick Place, Lakeside Center, Booth #501.
Stop by for us to show you “a better way to estimate”. Spend some time or even schedule a personal session to learn the latest features of McCormick. Speed, accuracy, and consistency are what your business requires and what McCormick can deliver. McCormick is the Nation’s Leader in Estimating Software and it offering this workshop for NECA Show attendees.
McCormick estimating systems were designed by contractors and estimators alike. We have been in your position and know what will help to maximize your business’s full potential. Stop by and we can show you all our latest features, requested by users and delivered by McCormick.
PERSPECTIVE -- August news items from www.eleblog.com
Homes Getting
Smaller
I'm not sure it has an impact on the
average electrical contractor or electrician, but the American
Institute of Architects reported recently that homes are getting smaller.
US Oil Imports -
From Where
You might find surprising some of
the info in the graph below, which comes from the Energy Information
Administration of the U.S. DOE.
5-month AVERAGE.
Power Mgmt: Turn It
Off!!!
Here's an excerpt from a blog entry on Power Savings + the telecom/datacom biz .
. . some Common Sense, I think:
He sketched out a scenario for a
200-person office that operates 9-5, Monday through Friday:
Identify 150 non-critical
desk phones
Power down at 6 PM each
evening, restart at 7 AM the next morning
Power down over the weekend
The
obvious result is that the company saves 75% on the cost of powering
those phones during the down hours, and the more power-hungry the
phones, the more the savings.
Turning stuff off is one way to save
a lot of energy. It remains incredible to me to be in any city at
night and see buildings with so many lights on.
PoE Challenge for ECs
I've been fascinated by just about
everything I've learned about Power Over Ethernet. It's a major
change. It seems to be taking forever to have an impact. Here's a
comment on the change in the security (CCTV) business from PoE -- as
made in an April article in Electrical Contractor's "Security + Life
Safety Systems" publication. See the whole roundtable discussion.
The major impact is going to be
where if a customer does choose to upgrade to a network camera that
is POE or POE high power, then both the electrical contractor and
end user are going to enjoy the benefit of ease of installation and
lower costs respectively of deploying a compatible camera. Keep in
mind that the new standard is going to be backward compatible with
the older standard. So that’s not going to be an issue.
But it is going to be a challenge for electrical contractors to
learn the difference between standard space power sources,
deployment of network infrastructure, which they should begin to
understand now anyway, but also probably with the higher power
systems, they will have to understand how temperature affects
cabling and the current handling capacity could be decreased in
higher temperature environments.
Numbers News: EC
Workers
(posted 8/1/08)
Lots of numbers out today +
recently. Key for ELECTRICAL folks: Employment in June.
Total construction employment in June (all trades, workers in the
field only) = 5,746,000, down 6.4% from 6/07. Remember, the huge
decline in Residential construction includes one heck of a lot of
illegal aliens that the Bureau of Labor Statistics DID NOT COUNT.
-- which means BLS did not count
them as employed when they had jobs, and isn't counting them as
unemployed now.
Total electrical construction
employment in June = 726,800 (prelim, subject to revision). That's
down from 742,000 in 6/07 -- or 2.0%. It's up a hair from 5/08,
which showed 720,5000.
Perspective: 726,800 EC field workers in June was a good number,
higher than the 710,500 of 6/06, and higher than any other June
going back to 2001.
SAVE THE DATE -
McCormick Conference 2009
April 22-25
LOCATION: Scottsdale, AZ.
Find Us At BICSI, NECA & IEC
Planning ahead? Come to see us – we’re coming closer to you! Put the
dates below on your calendar:
BICSI Fall Conference, Sept. 29 to Oct. 2, Las Vegas --
we’re in booth #604
NECA Show, Oct. 5-6-7, Chicago – we’re in booth #501.
IEC Expo, Oct. 29-31, Atlanta – we’re in booth #813
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