The Crucial Role of the Estimate: SES's Success with ACCE

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Organizations are hamstrung by traditional estimating methods. The challenge is to move to the model-based Aspen Capital Cost Estimator (ACCE) approach while smoothly and simultaneously improving consistency and accuracy of ongoing cost estimates, bid responses, and lump sum proposal development. Most business leaders, project directors, and bid managers know that they are hamstrung by traditional estimating methods. The challenge is to move to the model-based Aspen Capital Cost Estimator (ACCE) approach while smoothly and simultaneously improving on the consistency and accuracy of the ongoing estimates.

Mike Monteith founded Strategic Estimating Systems (SES) with a vision of overcoming what he saw as an inflexible approach across the process industry landscape: keeping estimating groups from taking full advantage of the newest technology. He knew there was a better way than the traditional estimating methods. Over the past ten years, Monteith parlayed this opportunity into a business solution and built an organization that had led the process industry to take advantage of the best available estimating technology. Since embarking on his journey to realize this vision, Mike Monteith and his company, SES, have arguably had a substantial impact on capital project estimating across the process industries. From the world’s largest SADARA project in the Middle East to mega projects in oil-sands regions and developments in Canada, to smaller technology licensor players, and organizations driving new projects in biofuels and mining, SES has played a major role in dozens of groundbreaking process industry greenfield and brownfield projects worldwide.

SES takes advantage of that opportunity with a six step ACCE implementation process, developed during the course of their first few consulting engagements. These implementations are virtually always successful and result in a better application of the ACCE tool within an existing cost estimating environment and work process. Mike Monteith attributes their success to having standardized their business around Aspen Capital Cost Estimator from the outset. But in addition to the use of the software system, it is the standardized methods that SES has established for every member of their team on every project that has enabled them to achieve consistent and exceptional results over the past ten years.

• SES consistently expends three to five times less estimating effort than estimators using spreadsheets or other estimating techniques.
• SES has documented this via benchmarking data that they have captured during their work with E&C and owner clients.
• This enables them to efficiently produce estimates and to meet challenging deadlines.

• SES is able to take on more projects, increasing their revenues and profitability.
• By enabling more accurate estimates during the FEED stage, ACCE and SES provide unique value to owners in providing neutral (“cold-look”) estimates.