inferTIC

AI Inference for Total Installed Cost · AACE Class 5 · 4 · 3

Total Installed Cost, traceable to the page.

AACE Class 5, 4 and 3 estimates for process plants, computed by a deterministic engine from published methods. Every figure carries its book, edition, table, page, cost index and factor set. AI helps with inferring the paperwork — never the numbers. Then carry the estimate into cash flow, NPV, IRR and case studies on the same engine, with the same trace.

Open the app sign-in required Read the method
Isometric line drawing of a process unit: a reactor, two shell-and-tube exchangers, a column and a pipe rack on a plot

How it works

Three steps, and a figure a reviewer can follow.

  1. Give it a capacity, an equipment list, or quantities

    Whatever the study has reached so far. Any one of the three is enough to get a costed estimate back.

  2. A deterministic engine prices it from published methods

    Same estimate, same methods library, same figure — to the cent, every time. The screen never does the arithmetic.

  3. Every figure carries its source; then NPV, risk and reports

    Open any number and read where it came from, then carry the estimate through to cash flow, a confidence band and the reports.

Want the whole chain drawn out, step by step? It is in the app’s own Help. See how a figure is built sign-in required

Plain statement

An estimator you can audit line by line.

Give it a plant capacity, a sized equipment list, or an equipment list plus quantified bulks. It returns a costed estimate with a stated AACE class, a Monte Carlo confidence band, and a line-by-line trace back to a published source or a named company rate set.

Nothing is computed in the screen. The engine is a pure library: same estimate file plus same methods library gives the same result, to the cent, every time. The library is versioned; an estimate records the version it was computed against and flags a mismatch instead of silently recomputing.

It is not a closed-box estimator. There is no mechanical design engine and no hidden bulk synthesis. Class 3 quantities are supplied — imported, entered, or derived by pure geometry from coordinates you typed — and priced at rates you can see and cite.

Calculation chain

  1. Sizing parameterYour input per item. A warning if it falls outside the correlation’s validity.
  2. Purchased costLibrary correlation at its base year, or a vendor quote tagged as such.
  3. Material and pressure factorsFrom the record, multiplicative on purchased cost.
  4. EscalationCEPCI from base year to your cost date; the index rows used are snapshotted into the file.
  5. Location and currencyA location factor with a required note on override; your FX rate and date.
  6. Installed costLang, Hand, Guthrie bare-module, or your own percentages.
  7. Allowances and contingencyIndirects, EPCM, owner’s cost, contingency: defaults by class, editable.
  8. Total and bandSeeded Monte Carlo, triangular or PERT per line or group; the seed is stored.

Features

Built for the reviewer as much as the estimator.

Three modes, three classes

Class 5 from capacity and a published plant type. Class 4 from a sized equipment list. Class 3 from equipment plus quantified bulks priced at unit rates. No class better than 3 is ever claimed.

AACE 18R-97

A trace on every line

Click a line: purchased cost, factors, installation, escalation, location, currency, quantity. Each step shows its inputs, its output and its citation: book, table, page.

Results and trace

A library with provenance

Equipment correlations, capacity exponents, unit-capacity costs, factor sets, class bands and cost indices, each record citing edition, table and page, second-pass checked against the owner’s copy where the edition is to hand.

Methods library 2026.10

Risk that reproduces

Triangular or PERT ranges per line, area or estimate. Seeded Monte Carlo: the same seed gives the same P10, P50 and P90, and the seed is stored in the file.

Risk

From TIC to NPV

An economic basis on the estimate — life, spend profile, discount and tax rates, depreciation, opex rows and a price deck — gives yearly cash flow, NPV, IRR and payback, each year and each line traced. Link a simulator export, run a study of cases, read the Pareto set.

Economics and Study

Check, approve, issue

Draft to Checked to Approved to Issued. Leaving Draft freezes the results; reopening needs a reason and advances the revision. Comments and sign-offs land in the audit trail.

Review

Reports a reviewer can read

Basis of Estimate under AACE 34R-05 headings, calculation trace, sources and provenance, assumption register, benchmarks, reconciliation. Excel, PDF and WBS exports.

Reports and exports

AI assist, optional

Off by default. Hosted or local models propose a record pick, a quote extraction or a narrative draft; you confirm; the confirmation is audited. No number a model returns enters a calculation.

Model-agnostic

Runs where the data is

One HTML file that opens in a browser with no network. Estimates autosave locally and save as JSON. An optional Windows desktop shell stores files on disk.

Offline

The engine, in this site

One reference plant, three classes, one engine.

On the Method page the app’s own capacity-scaling function runs on a checked library record while you move the slider, and a class switch shows what a Class 5, 4 or 3 estimate has defined on a drawn plant — with the band bracket redrawn from the library’s class table. The page holds no arithmetic.

Open the plant twin

Published methods only

Every coefficient traces to one of these.

Equations and coefficients are implemented as methods and cited by edition, table and page. No publisher’s table is reproduced. No commercial cost data is bundled. This list is rendered from the library’s own source registry.

Superseded editions are kept in the registry so issued estimates recompute identically; they are not listed here. Full method: Method and sources. Does it reproduce the books it cites? Validation note.