Procurement and Tendering - Level 3 Flashcards
Manchester Project - Tell me more about the advice you gave regarding the appointment of a subcontractor. Explain what you mean by “prices … were extremely similar”?
There was a minimal difference in price between two of the subcontractors’ tenders for the ceramic tiling package. Therefore, to understand how they perform on site, I undertook research by seeking references from colleagues that had worked with the subcontractors before, visiting current sites that the subcontractors are working on and by reviewing their proximity to the project.
One of the subcontractors were found to be on the ISG preferred supply chain database as they had worked with ISG on a number of projects previously and had therefore been recommended by someone from ISG to be on this preferred list. This therefore also influenced by decision to award this contractor the tender.
Take me through the criteria for selecting a subcontractor or a contractor.
- Ensuring the tender is compliant with the design and specification by reviewing the tender along with the design and specification.
- Ensuring the price is competitive by comparing against other subcontractors’ tenders.
- Researching the subcontractors’ previous projects with ISG to gain an understanding of their performance on-site from a delivery perspective on time and quality.
- And, by ensuring that the contractor has reviewed the logistics plan and that they can confirm that the programme can be achieved.
At what stage do you set the criteria for selecting a subcontractor or supplier? Why?
The scoring criteria should be project specific and should be agreed by the team before the tender is issued.
The proposed scoring mechanism should be made explicit in the instructions for tenders document. The split between proposed price and quality of bid should be confirmed. This may be shown as a percentage or may be broken down further, with the quality section perhaps having additional subsections.
This will ensure that the subcontractors understand what to include in their bid and will also assist them in deciding if they intend to bid for the project based on this selection criteria.
Did your advice lead to selection of a subcontractor? Which one, based on what criteria?
I appointed subcontractors for the floor finishes, ceramic tiling, folding wall platform lift. The criteria was highly based on cost, however factors such as quality of bid and credibility/reputation of the subcontractors was also taken into consideration.
Tell me, where would you get best practice guide on how to advise on the procurement and selection of suitable subcontractors, contractors, or suppliers?
RICS Guidance Note on Tendering Strategies
Tell me about your experience in producing tender reports.
I produced a tender report on this project for subcontractors that I invited to tender who were more local to the project. This report demonstrated whether the contractors had returned their tenders, who were intending to tender and who refused to tender. I also produced the cost plan which highlighted the tender comparisons for each package.
How did you do the tender analysis?
The tender analysis was carried out by inputting the tender returns into a tender comparison document which had each tender return for that package side by side so that cost and scope could be analysed. If any items of work were missing these costs were plugged so that an accurate cost analysis could be undertaken until the subcontractor could return those the prices for those items.
