Construction tenders are fundamental public contract opportunities. They are issued by organisations to invite competing offers for specific services, goods, works or utilities. An invitation to tender is the way organisations who need support for completing a task or ask for assistance. If you are in a position to supply, you must submit a tender and win the contract in order to start working with the organisation.
An invitation to tender may be issued for various requirements, including demolition, equipment supply, supply of raw materials etc. In construction, the tender process is usually to locate and select the contractor that will carry out the works. Due to the current worldwide spread Covid-19 pandemic, the civil works course has commenced in the entire country. So, if you are in search of the best civil tenders for improving your portfolio this is the correct time.
However, there are several common mistakes that can be made when tendering for construction projects which would harm the chances of the bid being successful:
1. Many Packages:
Preferably, tender documents should be broken down into a series of packages, each with its own design drawings and specifications suitable to be issued by the main contractor to potential sub-contractors. It is important, when this is done, to ensure that the interfaces between packages are properly identified and clearly allocated to one package or another. Having too many packages increases the number of interfaces and so the potential problems.
2. Indecisive Whether Contract Is Fixed-Price Or Cost Plus:
Fixed-price contracts are one of the most common types of construction contracts as they provide the owner with a high degree of cost certainty from the outset of their project. As the name suggests, the owner and contractor agree that the contractor will perform a scope of work at a fixed price, with limited circumstances in which the contractor is entitled to a change. As surprising as it may seem, we often see construction arrangements where it is unclear whether the basis is fixed-price or cost-plus.
This type of uncertainty can lead to a significant dispute if the project costs significantly more (or less) to execute than the agreed amount. While the parties may have been unclear at the outset as to what they were agreeing to, once it’s clear whether the project is running over – or under – the agreed amount, the owner and contractor will tend to naturally fall into believing the agreement is fixed or reimbursable – depending on which way the difference in price runs.
3. Incorrect Assessment Of Plant And Machinery:
When finalizing a bid, it is significant that the tenderer ensures they have access to the plant and equipment that will be necessary to complete the works. If the resources are owned by the tenderer this will involve checking that they will be available at the time and for the duration required, and that they are all in good working condition and unlikely to require time and cost-intensive maintenance.
If they aren’t owned, they will need to be capable of being hired or purchased from an external source, and these costs must be carefully considered.
4. Incorrect Costing:
Normally, a tender pricing document would be provided to be completed by tenderers. This makes it simplified for those reviewing the tender bids to compare the various submissions. If this is incorrect, the final prices, and the rest of the estimate, may be discarded. Any costings that are incorrect will cast doubt on the suitability of the tenderer to successfully complete the project.
It is equally important to obtain the correct and competitive prices from subcontractors to include in the bid price. This means that the extent of work/services being requested from subcontractors must be clearly defined in order to avoid unnecessary or inaccurate costs being incorporated within the tender bid.
5. Spelling And Grammatical Mistakes:
A tender bid that contains spelling and grammatical mistakes, while not necessarily disqualifying the tenderer, may present the client with an unprofessional impression. To avoid this, documents should be carefully checked and proofread to correct any errors before sending them over to the client. Some of the common grammatical errors made are:
a. affect: means to influence something, effect is to bring about change, or the result of the change (to affect the environment, the effect of water damage).
b. less and fewer: less applies to quantities such as volume, mass or area, fewer relates to numbers. Generally, you can’t count/numerate less, but you can fewer - less water, fewer apples. Note that less/fewer are comparatives and usually require qualification; less or fewer than what?
c. stationery, stationary: stationery is papers and pens, stationary is to stop still.
d. compliment and complement: to compliment is to offer praise, to complement means to complete, to create harmony or compatibility. The client complimented our work. The colour of the seats complemented the natural wood of the ceiling.
e. annex: verb (to annex), the noun has an extra e (we added an annexe to the building).
Conclusion:
The above cases are just a sampling of many of the most common types of errors that can arise for construction tenders. In some cases, a contract with these problems can be used on many projects without issue, since it’s often not until serious problems arise on a project that the parties will turn to their written agreements, and it’s then that these types of issues can lead to prolonged and expensive legal proceedings, which could have been avoided had the contract been clear in the first place. The available civil tenders on TendersOnTime are pretty varied and distinct which makes it simplified to procure construction tenders.
