Digital Estimation & Take-off
Rapid take-off models from tender drawings — accurate material reports, 3D visuals for your quotation, your only input is adding rates.
OD3 turns tender drawings into rapid steel estimation and take-off models, so your estimators price from accurate quantities instead of manual measurement. We build the take-off model in Tekla Structures, generate the material reports, and hand you the numbers — your only input is adding your rates.
Free your estimators to win work
Manual take-off is slow, and on a busy tender desk it is the task that quietly decides which jobs you bother pricing. By modelling the steelwork directly from the tender information, we produce material reports — sections, weights, quantities — that are consistent, auditable and fast to re-run when the design changes mid-tender. Alongside the numbers, the model gives you 3D visuals to include with your quotation, which lets a fabricator show a main contractor exactly what has been priced and where the scope boundary sits.
A take-off that becomes the job
Because the take-off is a real Tekla model, not a spreadsheet, it does not get thrown away when you win. The same model carries forward into our digital thread: connection design in IDEA StatiCa to Eurocode 3, full steel detailing to NSSS (5th Edition) working practice, NC output and erection drawings, then on to site setout and as-built verification. Pricing, design and detailing draw on one model rather than three separate interpretations of the drawings — which is where programme certainty actually comes from.
Delivered remotely, priced per tender
Estimation and take-off is a cloud-delivered service across the UK and Ireland, exchanged through Trimble Connect with projects backed up and encrypted in the cloud. We have worked with steel fabricators since 2012, the practice carries £2m professional indemnity insurance, and we are members of the SCI, Constructionline and the Irish Association of Steel Fabricators. Send the tender pack; we will confirm scope and a return date before we start.
FAQs
- What do you need from us to produce a take-off?
- The tender drawings and any specification or scope notes that define what is in your package. We model the steelwork from that information in Tekla Structures and return material reports and 3D visuals. If the tender information is ambiguous, we list the assumptions with the take-off so your estimator can price the risk knowingly.
- What exactly do we get back?
- A material take-off report — sections, weights and quantities generated from the model — plus 3D visuals of the modelled steelwork for use in your quotation. Your only input is adding your rates. The model itself remains available, so revisions during the tender can be re-reported quickly rather than re-measured.
- What happens to the model if we win the job?
- It carries forward. Because the take-off is built in Tekla Structures, the same model can move straight into connection design, full detailing, NC output and erection drawings without being rebuilt — so the quantities you priced and the steel you fabricate come from one source.
- How accurate is a model-based take-off against manual measurement?
- The quantities are generated directly from modelled members, so they are consistent and auditable — every figure in the report traces to an object in the model. Where tender drawings are incomplete, accuracy depends on stated assumptions, which we document rather than bury. Re-running the report after a design change takes minutes, not days.
- Do you only work with local fabricators?
- No — this is a fully remote, cloud-delivered service. Tender packs come in and reports go out through Trimble Connect, and we have delivered for fabricators across the UK and Ireland since 2012. Distance has no bearing on turnaround; we agree the return date when we confirm scope.
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