Faster Bids: How Maccabee Industrial Uses SketchDeck to Achieve 75% Time Savings on Large Projects

“[SketchDeck] has dramatically improved both my speed and efficiency. I’m easily 50% faster now, and on my biggest job - a 600-ton project - it saved me 75% of my time. The design is so straightforward that I don’t need help guides or training - it just makes sense and lets me focus on quality checking while the software does its work.”

Dawn Hargraves, Estimator, Maccabee Industrial

Maccabee Industrial (Maccabee), a Southwestern Pennsylvania steel fabricator, took the step to speed up the takeoff process so that the bids submitted would increase and thus increase projects awarded. Adding SketchDeck aligned with the expansion of their fabrication capacity. After implementing SketchDeck’s AI-powered software, they achieved 75% time savings on large projects and 50% overall speed improvement, enabling them to pursue more work.

The Challenge: Manual Processes Limiting Growth

Maccabee faced a critical bottleneck that was limiting their growth potential. Despite having several estimators with decades of experience, their manual processes were holding them back from competing effectively in today’s market.

The Manual Process Problem

The team was still using the same pen-and-paper methods they’d relied on for 20 years. As Don Fleszar explained: “We are pen and paper people. We open the drawing, find that W8x10, see that it’s 10 feet long, and mark it off. We’re literally going from 1980 to 2025 - that’s a 50-year technology jump.”

Limited Bidding Capacity

Their manual approach severely restricted how many projects they could bid on. With a 3-5% win ratio, they needed to dramatically increase their bidding volume to grow. Don noted: “If we can increase the number of bids we put out by 50 to 100 percent, we’re going to increase the amount of work we have equivalently.”

Accuracy vs. Speed Trade-offs

Dawn Hargraves, an estimator, described the daily challenge: “When you’re swamped with bids, you often have to sacrifice accuracy for speed. Your estimators don’t always have time to dig into the details that really help win jobs.”

The stakes were high: without modernizing their processes, Maccabee risked having increased fabrication capacity without having work.

The Solution: Automating Workflows with AI

Maccabee’s transformation began when they discovered SketchDeck’s AI-powered takeoff software during their search for solutions that could truly automate their workflows rather than just digitize them.

Why They Chose SketchDeck

Unlike other software that still required manual data entry, SketchDeck offered genuine automation. Don explained: “When we heard about software that could actually read drawings and identify steel automatically, that’s what got our attention. That’s exactly what we needed.”

Learning Partnership

What made SketchDeck particularly appealing was the opportunity to grow alongside the technology. Dawn observed: “We’re working with [SketchDeck] at a good time because as we’re learning, the software is learning too. We’re helping it improve while it helps us work faster.”

Smooth Implementation

The onboarding process was designed to minimize disruption. Dawn found the transition surprisingly intuitive: “The software is incredibly user-friendly. It’s really just point and click - I don’t have to figure out complex processes. It just makes sense.”

The Results: Dramatic Time Savings

Maccabee’s results exceeded their expectations, delivering both immediate time savings and long-term competitive advantages.

By the numbers

• 75% time reduction on large projects (600-ton job completed in a fraction of the usual time)
• 50% overall speed improvement across all takeoff work
• Days reduced to hours on complex structural takeoffs

Enhanced Accuracy and Confidence

The AI detection consistently achieved high accuracy on beam takeoffs, allowing estimators to focus on value-added analysis. Dawn noted: “I actually appreciate that it’s not 100% perfect because it keeps me engaged and checking the work. We can catch any issues while still saving massive amounts of time.”

Strategic Business Impact

The time savings positioned Maccabee to pursue larger, more complex projects that were previously too time-intensive to bid competitively.

“We can now take on projects that would have been impossible to complete manually within the bid timeline. It’s opened up entirely new opportunities for us.”

Dawn Hargraves, Estimator, Maccabee Industrial

Next Steps

Maccabee is positioned to fully realize their vision of dramatic business growth through continued expansion of SketchDeck’s capabilities.

Expanding Capabilities

The team plans to incorporate additional SketchDeck features as they become available. Don shared their forward-thinking approach: “We want to stay ahead of the curve. As [SketchDeck] adds new capabilities like miscellaneous metals detection, we’ll be ready to take advantage of them immediately.”

Strategic Growth Goals

With their takeoff efficiency dramatically improved, Maccabee can now pursue their original objectives: increase bidding capacity significantly, improve win rates through better accuracy, and take on larger, more profitable projects.