Kitchen equipment bids, drafted from the consultant's schedule for your estimator to check.

A contract estimator reads the schedule against the plans, the specification and each addendum. Every item number becomes a line: manufacturer and model as scheduled, the accessories hung under it, the utilities, and whether it ships from a factory or gets built in a stainless shop. Then come the notes that move the number: who sets it, who connects it, what others furnish, and where the drawings and the section say different things.

In the test, AI reads copies of those documents and drafts the bid line by line: item number, quantity, model and accessories, utility data, the fabricated items grouped apart, by-others notes, your installation scope, and a numbered list of every conflict your estimator would have to ask about. It sets no price and chooses no product, and your reviewer compares each draft with the bid your team submitted.

Item numbers are not a count. Consultants number schedules their own way, and gaps are normal. A California community college's 2023 section runs entries marked Spare No. in among its real items. An Ohio elementary school's set from July 2023 hangs 11A and 11B under a three-compartment sink for the faucets and the waste valves, each with its own quantity. A North Carolina high school lists K20 twice, once as an existing pass-through cabinet and once as a new one. That college also sends out Group 2, which it calls the furniture package and which holds pot sinks and dish tables, as a separate bid. The draft keeps the consultant's numbers, counts only what is real, and shows any number that sits on the plan but not the schedule, or the reverse.

Some lines are in the book and out of your number. The Ohio schedule tags a cash register by others NIKEC, and the college writes NIFSEC, not included in the food service equipment contract. Existing equipment is priced its own way: the college has bidders figure each Existing-Reset and Existing-Modify item for removal, cleaning, repair and resetting, and the North Carolina section says all cords, piping and traps on reset equipment must be new. A bid that treats those lines like new units is wrong in both directions, so the draft sorts them first.

Trade lines move from job to job. At the North Carolina school, your scope takes in indirect waste lines at equipment other than sink compartments, floor troughs and gas pressure regulators, while the plumber takes the indirect drains for the sinks. An Oregon high school has you furnish faucets, sink wastes and rinse sprays loose, in factory boxes, for the plumber, and switches, junction boxes and control panels for the electrician. Even the hood weld changes hands: the college makes the final welded connection at the hood part of the food service work, and the North Carolina school gives approved welded duct connections to the mechanical contractor. Hoods themselves may sit in your section or, as at the Ohio school, in 23 38 13. The draft quotes each split and lists what the documents leave unsaid.

Equals come with strings. The Ohio schedule names alternate makers under each item, so a bid has to say which line it carries. The North Carolina section wants all ovens from one manufacturer, all mixers from one, and all refrigerated and heated cabinets from one, which means an equal on one line can break another. It also puts the cost of moving any service for an approved equal on the equipment contractor. The college requires written approval of a substitution no later than 10 days before bidding and has anyone proposing a different hood supply heat load calculations first. The draft lists the equals each document allows and leaves the choice to your estimator.

Stainless is specified by gauge, and catalogs disagree. The Oregon section wants 14 gauge tops and sink bowls, 16 gauge wall and bottom shelves and 20 gauge counter backs. New York's master section holds undershelves to 16 gauge, and a catalog work table on the Ohio schedule carries an 18 gauge undershelf. The draft groups fabricated items apart, each with its gauge, finish and paragraph. Conflicts can sit inside one line: the Ohio schedule gives a sink 36-inch and 24-inch drainboards, then says 24-inch drainboards again. Your reviewer will watch for questions your estimator raised that the draft missed, and for catch-all sentences that shift cost to you. The North Carolina section covers whatever is reasonably inferred, pays nothing extra for items regulations require, and sets service characteristics for bidding as scheduled on the drawings.

Once your reviewer says yes against the success criteria, new schedules get the same draft for about 30 days.

Your estimator checks every bid, sets every price and settles each question before anything reaches a general contractor or owner.

A fixed price for that month is agreed before you sign. Another job is a separate decision, with monthly support after that.