Readers Weighing In — Dickeson

For a refreshing view, this printer wrote, “...We stopped using budgeted hourly rates to set pricing five years ago. Well, sort of. Our custom-developed estimating system is built around BHR, like I’m sure every estimating system is. We just stopped updating the BHRs. May 2000 is the last time our accounting department invested into updating them. That was the beginning of the downturn in our industry...and we concluded that it made no sense to spend the time to update the system, just to have the estimators deepen the discount needed to meet the market. Over the years, the estimators have continued to use the system because that is all they know. They have had to learn to calibrate the selling against the competition.