An engagement like this is scoped against a target of 35-55% faster estimate turnaround - bids that took 2-3 weeks going out in days - a planning assumption built from your own bid log during scoping, not a promise. Bid accuracy is the second planned gain: the model calibrates on your completed-project actuals and flags high-variance line items before submission instead of after buyout, so the design target is cutting cost variance to a fraction of your current baseline. The hours estimators currently spend on manual takeoff and spreadsheet reconciliation come back as bidding capacity; count those hours during scoping, because they anchor the payback math.
Over 12 months the return should compound. As actual costs from completed projects feed back into the model, estimate accuracy improves, change order disputes shrink, and AIA draw approvals move faster - which shows up directly in the cash conversion cycle. The capacity gain is the headcount story: the design target is bidding meaningfully more projects a year with the estimating team you already have, instead of hiring the next estimator to keep pace with the bid calendar. Payback is modeled during scoping from your own bid volumes, margins, and loaded estimating costs - a planning model, not a claimed client result.