Reading Bills of Quantities: Can This Be Automated?

In construction, bills of quantities play a central role. They serve as detailed listings of all construction services to be performed and form the basis for offers, contract awards, and the execution of construction projects. Traditionally, bills of quantities are created and evaluated manually, which is often time-consuming and error-prone. The question of whether bills of quantities can be read automatically is therefore of great importance.

Complexity and Diversity

Bills of quantities in construction are extremely diverse and can contain a wide range of items and descriptions. They encompass both simple construction services like laying pipes as well as complex tasks like building structures or infrastructure. Due to this complexity, the automated reading of bills of quantities is a particular challenge.

The Future of Offer Creation

The continuous development of AI technology creates new perspectives – reading bills of quantities is now not only possible but already saves building materials suppliers significant time in offer creation in practical terms. Companies that use such AI software can often reduce the time required by more than half.

Reading BOQs with AI

Unlike simple text recognition software, artificial intelligence reads like a human. AI software for reading bills of quantities recognizes the relationship of contained text elements to each other and thus information in context. This means the software can extract information quickly, efficiently, and above all precisely, regardless of the structure and format of the text.

Excursus: How the Technology Works

When reading bills of quantities using AI, natural language is first clustered into individual components and the meaning of recognized text elements as well as their position in the BOQ is captured. Subsequently, the AI relates all captured text elements to each other – both linguistically and in relation to their position in the document. This allows complex content relationships to be captured – regardless of format, structure, or wording.

Advantages of AI Software for Reading BOQs

Reading bills of quantities using AI technology brings great advantages. The manual process of reading and evaluating bills of quantities is significantly shortened, saving time and resources. Furthermore, automated reading of BOQs improves data accuracy.

Reading BOQs with AI – Advantages Overview:

1. Time Savings: Through automation of the previously manual process of data capture from bills of quantities using software, inside sales saves significant time in processing inquiries.

2. Accuracy: Using software to read relevant items from bills of quantities improves accuracy, as human errors are minimized and data is processed consistently and precisely.

3. Efficiency: The software enables more efficient use of resources, as needed information is accessible faster. This allows more inquiries to be processed in much less time.

4. Transparency: The structured presentation of data from bills of quantities gives employees the ability to better structure their work and handle important tasks first.

5. Scalability: The AI software is scalable and adapts to the specific requirements of inside sales. This is particularly crucial when dealing with fluctuating inquiry volumes.

Holistic Use of AI Software in Quotation Management

Reading bills of quantities is now just the beginning of the automation possibilities offered by using cutting-edge technology. Software specifically developed for building materials manufacturers and distributors like kinisto supports inside sales throughout the entire process. The software not only identifies relevant items from bills of quantities, it also suggests matching products – regardless of whether own products, third-party products, or merely specifications are mentioned in the tender.