HeavyBid a real asset to Milestone Contractors

Milestone Contractors, L.P. Type of Work: Heavy/Highway, Asphalt, Paving, Sitework Estimator: Greg Nolting Company Size: $130-160 Million Number of Jobs Bid Annually: 1600 Location: Indianapolis, IN

With 23 estimators in four offices bidding approximately 1600 jobs a year, HeavyBid is a real asset to Milestone Contractors, L.P. of Indiana. Before adopting HeavyBid as their estimating solution seven years ago, Milestone used an in-house estimating system with an accounting system built into it. "HeavyBid offers us numerous advantages over the old in-house system," says estimator Greg Nolting. "It has saved us tremendously with the upgrade process versus everything required for an in-house system. Working with a company like HCSS whose focus is on estimating software has saved us both time and money."

"HeavyBid gives us the ability to make massive changes on the fly as opposed to the time consuming task of going to individual items and making changes at an individual level," says Nolting. "I also really like the Quote System. It’s a great tool that lets me quickly and easily analyze quotes from subs and suppliers, input the selected vendors directly into my estimate and compare them apples to apples."

In addition, Milestone utilizes the Activity Codebook feature in HeavyBid which is invaluable for training new estimators. "We setup the Activity Codebook which contains all of our basic productions and crews necessary to complete activities for a pay item," says Nolting. "Someone who is new to the system can automatically pull in our company’s basic productions and then tweak it to work for them."

The company also takes advantage of the annual HCSS User Group Meetings for training, with Nolting himself attending for the last seven consecutive years and serving on the HCSS President’s Advisory Board. "User’s group meetings are a great opportunity to meet other users and bounce ideas off of other estimators as well as to make suggestions for the system and vote on future enhancements to HeavyBid," says Nolting. "It is also nice to be able to meet support personnel and put a face to a name. HCSS technical support is a great asset. I’ve never had a problem that couldn’t be answered. A few weeks ago I got a call about eleven o’clock at night from one of our guys who had a question about HeavyBid. I told him to call HCSS and hung up on him. He called 24-hour support and told me the next day, ‘Man, I got the answer I needed!’” "HCSS is a fantastic company to do business with; they are very loyal to their customers and their staff and it shows!"