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Abstract:
One of the most crucial problems facing the construction industry is the wide price variations in offers submitted by contractors on tenders. The author believes this results from insufficient information, especially in the bill of quantity. One solution is to provide a good design, along with an accurate bill of quantities and specifications. The author's study concentrated on pricing tenders and the the essential steps estimators should follow in developing these documents. To obtain a competitive price, pricing tenders should cover pricing for each element, the total amount, and a grand total summary of the bill of quantity. This can be accomplished through a careful study of the tender documents and by pricing each item. This requires work by qualified employees, using established pricing procedures. Prior to beginning work to determine costs, estimators should read the available documents to gain an overall understanding of the project. Any tender questions should be raised. Group like items into categories. Send suppliers and subcontractors pricing requests. Immediately arrange site visits to collect information about the location, access, and type of ground soil. Call a special meeting of the team to double check the final prices. Attach a cover letter to the final documents and submit these prior to the closing date. The purpose of this article is to enable the estimator to gain funda mental knowledge and techniques for controlling tender cost.
KEY WORDS: Bidding, construction, design, materials, overhead, and management
In order to determine an effective price for tenders, an estimator should have a complete knowledge of the essential data of tenders.
The author has more than 11 years experience in construction, both at the office and field levels. This gave the author a lot of information and knowledge of a wide variety of construction work. The author used this information to design and arrange this article.
The works of other authors was studied and will be referenced in this article in support of the conclusions drawn by the author. He also relied upon his work experience as an estimating engineer in reviewing documents related to tenders and contracting. As background work for this article, the author visited websites related to pricing and tendering.
From all these resources, the following two basic factors were determined...