AI estimating for M&E contractors

What a compliant M&E tender pack actually contains

Main contractors do not shortlist the cheapest mechanical and electrical bid; they shortlist the one whose paperwork suggests the job will run itself. Nexley builds the pack in the order a commercial team reads it:

1. The priced schedule. Services measured and priced from your rates — pipework, ductwork, wiring, terminations — through the tendering and estimating engine, with exclusions and assumptions stated rather than buried.
2. Plant and equipment, itemised. Air handling units, pumps, boilers, controls — listed with duties and references, then priced across suppliers via supplier sourcing so the number in the bid is one you can actually buy at.
3. RAMS for the package. Risk assessments and method statements drafted from the tasks and site conditions you describe, structured the way principal contractors expect, ready for your review — because a bid without them goes to the bottom of the pile.
4. The commissioning schedule. Flushing, balancing, witnessed testing and client demonstrations sequenced against the programme, so commissioning is planned at tender stage instead of negotiated in the last fortnight.

The compliance thread that runs through it

Mechanical work drags a regulatory tail behind it. F-Gas registrations must be current and provable for anyone touching refrigerant circuits; commissioning certificates and O&M information must survive until handover; and every witnessed test generates a record somebody will demand months later. Nexley holds that thread — registrations logged with renewal dates, certificates filed against their systems, the O&M pack accumulating as the job runs rather than being reconstructed in a panic at practical completion week. When the consultant raises a query, the answer is in the record, not in someone's van.

Why this matters more in M&E than anywhere else

A drylining or roofing bid is mostly measurement. An M&E bid is measurement plus documentation, and the documentation half is the one that stops small contractors bidding larger packages — not because they cannot do the work, but because nobody in a six-person firm has a week spare to write it. Taking the document production off the desk is what moves a firm from pricing the small packages to pricing the ones with plant rooms in them. That is the growth path, and it costs a flat monthly plan rather than a bid-writer's day rate.