Bidding a job...

NThinnes

Ok, so I'm an AMX Ace, but I don't have the years of experience yet and I have gotten an offer to do a large commercial project...I can't say specifics, but I'd like some opinions, ball park if you can for how many hours you'd bid each of these rooms for:

Assume the projectors will being doing some source selection and polling.

Room 1: NI-2100, Blue-Ray Player(IR), Projector(RS-232), DSP(rs-232, don't have to do the DSP programming), Fire-Alarm(I/O only), Projector Screen Control(Relay), Media Switcher(Multi-fromat, multiple in 1 out)(RS-232), and Touch Panel Design for all of the above.

Room 2: NI-2100, Projector(rs-232), 6x1 Switcher(rs-232), Fire-alarm(I/O only), Projector Screen Control(Relay), and TP design for all of this as well.

And also, each type of these rooms will me copied multiple times. Would you bill each room at the same number of hours or do you bill 1 of each type at the full number of hours and then a smaller amount for each deployment after the first?

I know it's hard without specifics, but a general ball park of the number of hours, would be great.

Thanks much in advance...

NThinnes

To clarify, I have a number I'm just trying to see if it's on par with what a few more experienced programmers might think... And am curious how others handle the situation of multi room, same set-up deployment.
I'm not looking for someone to do work for me just to a push in the right direction.

Thanks

ericmedley

A lot depends on how you do things. It might help to see your numbers. I know I'm a lot better at looking at an existing bid when determining its accuracy. That tells us a lot about how you approach a project.

On the subject of the code being copied and used multiple times... If this is ongoing you might consider treating the code as a retail product and figure out how many you could potentially sell. Then cost average it out so you can make a good profit rather than one big cost for a one-off then a lame price for more. One or both of you are going to eventually sour on the recurring revenue model of it. But if its a price-per it's just like buying more gear. You may have to build in a licensing method so they can't just copy the code willy-hilly.

Thomas Hayes

We just did a quote for 22 rooms all the same. I quoted based on the time to write the code then the time required in each room to setup, download and troubleshoot (if need be). This way the client had a better understanding of my costing and if he decided to change the number of room the price for the room setup would change but the code would already be done and accounted for.

JohnMichnr

I usually figure the cost to do one room to completion, then how much time it will take to load and test each additional room

NThinnes

Thank you, everyone for your input, it has seemed to put me in the right direction.