The brief

The same shoring load calculation came up again and again, done by hand each time. That's slow, and it's exactly the kind of repeated manual work where small mistakes creep in.

What I did

• Built the calculation into an Excel tool with VBA behind it, so the inputs and outputs are consistent every time.
• Inputs: the concrete slab thickness and the equipment being used. Outputs: the maximum equipment spacing, a diagram showing that spacing, and the maximum leg load.
• Built it to support real decisions, not just to spit out a number. The spacing output feeds quick area-based pricing, so a quote that used to need a manual calculation could be turned around fast.

The interesting part

The interesting bit of any tool like this is the guardrails: making it hard to get a wrong answer, not just easy to get an answer. The diagram matters too. A number on its own gets misread; a picture of the spacing next to it is much harder to get wrong.