OST for Precision
August 02, 2016
OST for Precision
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with On-Screen Takeoff
OST is currently being used by the estimators in our metal decking department and other departments within the company. It's a great program that helps us estimate jobs accurately and quickly. Most importantly we're able to edit our take-offs, which is common industry practice, in a very organized manner. We've used to quantify square feet, linear footage, and quantities for various line items. The best part is that we can customize our databases to our department's needs.
- Not only does OST allow you to do square foot take-offs, but you can also set the areas taken off to include dimensional lines within the sq. ft. area, which is very helpful for our scope of work.
- Setting slopes, to LF or SF, is very easily done without having to add factors for slope manually.
- You're able to assign different areas within a single sheet of take-off.
- If our SF items were to be able to be taken off with increments of x amount of feet (e.g. increments of 3'-0").
- Able to have a way of keeping track of updated sets of take-offs without having to reassign areas after each set (e.g. floor areas_1-31-16, floor areas_3-31-16, floor areas_6-30-16).
- I would like it if I our backup database would be simpler to find; however, I believe this is an internal issue rather than a software issue.
- Definitely a lot more precise than conventional methods.
- Less prone to making mistake when adding up quantities in the summary for each area assigned.
- Certain line items are easier to take off manually than using OST. (e.g. when counting the number of shear studs on each beam on each floor plan). I prefer just pulling out an old calculator because it's faster than assigning each beam x amount of shear studs. If OST can somehow read the boxed numbers on the plans, this would save me at least 1/3 of my time on each sheet.
I haven't used any other products other than conventional scaled rulers.