How Jeffway built an AI-native operation for electrical takeoff

Jeffway's estimating team prices electrical work for new-build and residential projects. Every quote began the same way: a senior estimator sitting down with the drawings and counting the fittings (the sockets, lights, switches and everything else), one symbol at a time, across every sheet in the set.

For a typical job this took around three days. It was careful, tiring work, and a single line missed could cost real money once the job was won. Taking on another estimator just to get through it faster wasn't a realistic answer.

We built a tool that reads the drawings much the way an estimator does, starting from the legend, then counting each type of fitting across the floor plans. The drawings come in however the client sends them, usually as a set of PDFs, and the counts come back as a clear, itemised list.

Most of that now happens overnight. The estimator comes in to a first draft of the quantities already laid out, instead of a blank page and a tall stack of drawings to work through.

Nothing goes into a quote until an estimator has looked at it and agreed. They go through the list line by line, change anything that needs changing, and sign it off, so the final figure is still theirs. They just don't have to build it up from nothing anymore.

In practice, a first pass that used to take three days now takes about four hours. The same team can price a lot more work than before, which means Jeffway can take on jobs they would once have turned down simply because there wasn't time to quote them properly.