Make or Buy and Procurement Packages: AI Suggestions from Your Rules and Earlier BoQs

Before a bill of quantities turns into a budget and requests to suppliers, two questions come first: what do we build ourselves and what goes to subcontractors, and how do we bundle everything we buy into packages to put out to tender? On a BoQ with several hundred line items, that is hours of ticking and sorting, done again on every bid. In Streckenheld, two skills on the BoQ page prepare both. One suggests a make-or-buy decision for every line item from your company's rules, the other proposes the procurement packages, learnt from how you packaged your earlier BoQs. You review every suggestion and apply what you agree with.

Key features

• A make-or-buy skill holds your company's rules in plain words, such as "everything with binders is subcontracted", saved once and used on every BoQ
• A suggestion for every line item: self-perform, subcontract or evaluate, with how certain the AI is
• Only your rules count: line items no rule covers stay as they are
• A procurement-packages skill proposes the packages and the decisions still open, learnt from your earlier packaged BoQs
• Every proposal explained: "Same as before" for a position you packaged that way before, otherwise the AI's certainty and the earlier position it follows
• Nothing changes until you apply: untick what you disagree with, rename the new packages
• Packages become draft quote requests with exactly their positions and a request letter, ready for your suppliers

Your rules as a skill

Skills are in the "Interact with document" card on the BoQ page. Click "New skill", give it a name and choose "Assign make or buy" under "What the skill does". The rules are plain text, for example:

Earthworks, concrete and formwork we do ourselves. Everything with binders, rebar or scaffolding is subcontracted. Specialist foundation work: request quotes first (evaluate).

The skill belongs to your company, so the whole team works with the same rules. Pick it and click "Suggest". The AI checks every line item against the rules and reads them literally: a line item is covered when it names what a rule names, including compounds, abbreviations, misspellings and synonyms, but not by inference, such as "concrete contains cement". Line items no rule covers stay as they are. Those that already have a decision are left alone unless you tick "Also review the line items already decided".

Review the suggestions and apply

The suggestions appear as a list: position, text, the current and the suggested decision, and how certain the AI is. The same rows are marked in the line items with a dashed chip, so you see them in context. Confident suggestions are ticked; less certain ones start unticked, with the percentage in amber. Untick what you disagree with, tick what you accept after all, and click "Apply". Only then are the decisions set, and the line items save themselves as usual. They also decide the markups for own and subcontracted work in the calculation.

Proposing the procurement packages

A second kind of skill, "Propose procurement packages", bundles the BoQ. Its rules are optional, for example "Scaffolding always in a package of its own". Click "Propose packages": the proposal runs in the background and the page switches to step 2, "Build procurement packages", where a progress bar shows how far it is. You can leave the page meanwhile.

The proposal learns from the five most recent BoQs of your company that have packages:

• A position you packaged identically before takes the same package and decision ("Same as before").
• Every other position is compared with the most similar earlier positions and with how its section went. The AI decides make or buy where that is still open, then picks the package. Your rules take precedence.
• Where nothing fits, it proposes a new package by trade.
• Your corrections count: when you change a decision or package that came from an applied proposal, the next proposal on another BoQ takes that into account.

Review the proposal

The "Proposed procurement packages" card shows how many earlier BoQs it learnt from, how many proposals are uncertain and how many positions have none. Below that:

• The make-or-buy decisions it proposes, each with its certainty, each to untick.
• Each package with its type, Subcontractor or Supplier, and its origin: Existing, From earlier BOQs, or New, by trade.
• Open a package to see its positions, each with where its proposal comes from: Same as before, By trade, or AI with a percentage. Hover over it to see the earlier position it follows.
• Rename new packages, untick a package or single positions.

Click "Apply": the decisions are set on the line items that are still undecided, new packages are created and existing ones extended. Decisions you made yourself and positions already in a package stay as they are.

From package to quote request

Each package is a quote request in draft, numbered VE-01, VE-02 and so on, holding exactly its positions and with its own request letter as PDF. Step 3, "Overview", lists them with type, trades, number of items and request status, and shows which line items are still unassigned. Open a package's request, add your suppliers and send it, as described in quote requests. The offers then come together in the price matrix.

How it works

1. Write your rules once as a make-or-buy skill, and if you like a procurement-packages skill with packaging rules.
2. Open a BoQ, pick the make-or-buy skill and click "Suggest".
3. Review the suggestions and apply what you agree with.
4. Pick the packages skill and click "Propose packages"; follow the progress on step 2.
5. Review the proposal: untick, rename, apply.
6. Send the requests: on step 3, open each package's request, add suppliers and send.

Who it's for

• Estimators who split every new BoQ into own and subcontracted work before the calculation.
• Buyers who bundle the BoQ into packages for subcontractors and suppliers and want to start from how they did it last time.
• Managing directors who want the company's make-or-buy policy applied the same way on every bid.