National Steel City is on pace to double its bids
A Plymouth, Michigan steel erector brought its takeoffs in-house and is on pace to double its bid volume with half the estimating staff.
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Impact
2 to 3 days → half a day
Structural takeoff on a casino project
~$1M
Student housing project won by their new estimator
15 → 20-30
Shop crew they need now that the work is in
“My dad is the most old-school, pen-and-paper guy on the planet. He was the most skeptical about this program even working, and the cost of it. But once we got that project, all that doubt went away.”
John Gonzalez, Operations Manager, Steel Specialties
Hear it from John
Background: a family shop that started in a barn
Steel Specialties is a family-owned fabricator in El Paso, Texas, started more than 30 years ago by Juan Gonzalez in a barn. His son John runs operations today. In August 2026, John brought on SketchDeck.ai and a new estimator, Raymond Silva, at the same time, and the work started coming back.
The challenge: estimating still ran on the “stone and chisel” method
- Takeoffs ran page by page. The estimator flipped through the drawings and specs by hand, entered everything into Tekla, and eventually went back to Excel
- John had trained in CAD but never liked estimating. He called it the “stone and chisel” method: tedious, and very old school
- Young estimators learn on software in school, and the shop had none. “They come over here to work for us and they’re like, what, you don’t have programs? We’re like, nope, we don’t have anything,” John said
- That made hiring a revolving door. Six or seven estimators came through in six years, most lasted about a month, and hiring one was on the shop’s AISC goals list every year
- Their longtime estimator was getting ready to retire, which would leave John and his dad as the only estimators
The solution: an AI takeoff tool and a new estimator, trained together
- John went looking for an AI estimating tool, and a contact in the industry pointed him to SketchDeck.ai. He went in on the fence: “If it’s great, it’s awesome. If it’s not, well, it’ll get improved upon as we go.”
- He hired Raymond at the same time, and the two went through training together. Now, John says, “he’s off to the races.”
- John takes off the structural steel, then hands connections and miscellaneous to the other estimators
“I would describe it as a structural item locator. It’s going to look for the shapes that we all recognize, W’s, HSS. It’s not going to guess for you. It’s just going to give you what’s on there, and you still get that ability to look it over.”
John Gonzalez, Operations Manager, Steel Specialties
The results: faster takeoffs, a new hire who stayed, and a busy shop
- 2 to 3 days → half a day on a casino takeoff with a lot of beams and a curved canopy. “With [SketchDeck], it took me about half a day.”
- Stiffeners counted as he goes, instead of notes to come back later. “That’s a feature that I’m, like, the most happy about.”
- A ~$1M student housing project won with Raymond on the estimate
- A busy shop again. After about eight slow months, they’re calling guys back, running full hours and overtime, and planning for 20 to 30 people, up from about 15
“Because of SketchDeck, we were actually able to hire a guy. He’s young, he’s going to be able to pick it up because he’s using a program. Thanks to him and SketchDeck, we got a million-dollar project.”
John Gonzalez, Operations Manager, Steel Specialties
“It brought us back from a point of feeling a little hopeless and a little stressed out about work to, now we got a lot of work.”
John Gonzalez, Operations Manager, Steel Specialties
The skeptic is on board now. John’s advice for any fabricator on the fence: “Call my dad.”
About SketchDeck.ai
SketchDeck.ai makes SketchDeck, software that uses AI to automate structural steel takeoffs for fabricators and erectors across North America. Trusted by 500+ estimators. See it on your own drawings: book a demo.
