Service 02
Quantities the contractor cannot argue with
Most arguments about money begin as disagreements about measurement. We produce quantities from the model and the drawings, recorded so that every figure can be traced back to the source it came from.
What you get
NRM2 measurement and bills of quantities
Model based take-off and audit
Tender quantity verification
The problem
When a variation is disputed, or a final account is contested, the question is almost never about the rate. It is about what was in the original quantity.
If the take-off was done in a spreadsheet with no record of which drawing revision it came from, which items were included, and what was assumed where the information ran out, that question cannot be answered. The commercial position then depends on whoever argues most confidently, which is not a position worth being in.
The same applies to model-based quantities. A schedule exported from a BIM model looks authoritative and can still be materially wrong, because the model was built to communicate design intent rather than to be measured. Objects are modelled generically, builder's work is absent, and the scope boundary between packages is not in the model at all.
How we measure
Where a usable model exists we take quantities from it directly, then test what the model actually contains against what the scope requires. We work in whatever environment the project already uses. There is no platform we are trying to sell you.
Traditional take-off from the drawing set for scope the model does not carry, for schemes with no model, and for refurbishment work where the existing building is the largest unknown.
Model quantities checked against drawings and specification. Every difference is either resolved or reported. This step is where model-based measurement earns its reliability, and it is the step most often skipped.
Bills of quantities, schedules of work and pricing schedules to NRM2, structured so that tenderers price the same thing and their returns can be compared line by line.
Drawing revisions, measurement basis, inclusions, exclusions and assumptions recorded with the quantities. The document that answers the question two years later without anyone having to remember.
Independent verification of a contractor's or another consultant's quantities, whether at tender, at valuation or on a contested final account.
A model is a source of quantities. It is not a guarantee of them.
We use BIM quantity take-off because it is faster and more consistent than manual measurement across repeated elements, and because it makes design change easy to quantify. Equally, we do not treat the export as the answer.
What the model gives you is a rigorous starting point and the ability to requantify a revision in hours rather than weeks. Equally, what it does not give you is completeness. The deliverable that matters is a schedule where model-derived quantities, manually measured items and stated assumptions are all visible and labelled as such.
Questions
The current drawing set with revision numbers, the specification if one exists, and the model if there is one. If part of that is missing we can still measure, with the gaps recorded as assumptions on the face of the schedule. What we will not do is silently fill a gap and let it read as a measured quantity.
NRM2 for bills and pricing schedules, NRM1 elemental structure where the output feeds a cost plan. If a project is running to a different rule set, we will follow it and say so in the basis of measurement. What matters is that one rule applies throughout and that everyone pricing knows which one.
Often yes, for the parts that are modelled properly. The judgement is which elements to trust and which to measure conventionally, and that judgement is made explicitly rather than assumed. A model that is only reliable for the frame and the envelope is still saving you time on the frame and the envelope.
Yes, and it is a frequent instruction. Remeasurement of contested work, verification of a contractor's quantities, and testing whether claimed items were already inside the original scope. That work sits alongside final accounts and disputes.
Related
Turning measured quantities into a cost plan that holds at tender.
Bills and schedules that make competing bids genuinely comparable.
Where a traceable original take-off is worth more than any argument.
Insights
