Tender document

Tender document
See also
Preparation of project Project initiation Bid documents Canvassing Bidding documents Provisional sum Request For Information Stages of project Baseline schedule

Tender documents - documents intended to inform tenderers to establish a common basis for their tenders.

Tender documents are prepared and sent to potential bidders to obtain tenders in the public procurement process at the tender stage. Tender documents usually include documents such as quantity account/schedule of rates, drawings, instructions to tenderers, specifications, form of contract, terms of the contract and a list of annexes.

The tender documentation for a project should normally include the design and specification of what the client wants to build. It is the same documentation that the contractor(s) must calculate and offer the price and program of the project.

Once the tender documentation is issued, the tendering process usually starts. By tender, the company selects qualified and interested suppliers based on factors such as price, availability and proposed delivery terms.

Scope of tender documents

Tender documents typically comprise documents such as:

• bill of quantities/schedule of rates,
• drawings,
• instructions to tenderers,
• specifications,
• form of contract,
• conditions of contract
• list of enclosures.

Review of tender documentation

Verification of the tender documents must be carried out by the estimator responsible for drawing up the cost estimate and drawing up the checklist of the documents received. In larger organizations, documents can be controlled by the principal estimator and other members of the contractor organization, including the planning engineer, project schedule, quantity inspector, buyer, contract advisor and contract manager.

Clear communication lines are needed to ensure that all points of view of document examiners are taken into account. The estimation (or, in the case of larger projects, the tender manager), will be responsible for coordinating these views.

The scrutiny of tender documents must aim to achieve at least the following objectives:

• the documents received are documents related to the analyzed project,
• documents and information are relevant to the assessment of costs,
• sufficient time is available to prepare the tender offer.

Where approximate project costs are provided, they must be reconciled with any advice given during the initial qualification. If no approximate costs are given, an estimate must be made of the early assessment to determine the approximate costs of the project and the scope of the work.

Quality of the tender documents

Tender documents may consist of non-structural (contract terms in sentences in natural language), partially structured (in form) and structured (tabular) information. These documents include a variety of information such as project specifications, contract terms and conditions, tender procedures, tender forms and supporting documents. Also, tenderers usually provide a variety of documents proving their ability to win a tender.

In a construction tender, the recognition of relevant information from the tender documentation is necessary for the decision-making process, in particular for the evaluation of bids based on multiple criteria.

The most important factor influencing the success of the offers is the quality of the tender documents. This may also be the main cause of disputes between the parties to the project.

Some problems may include inaccurate design drawings, missing information in a quantitative statement, and poor specifications. All these problems can lead to inaccurate estimates, higher margins in offers, claims and disputes.

The most important factors affecting the quality of tender documents according to their importance index are:

• specifications,
• design drawings,
• quantities,
• contract terms.

References

• Laryea S. (2011), Quality of tender documents: case studies from the UK, Construction Management and Economics, 29 (3). pp. 275-286. ISSN 0144-6193
• Mohammed H. H., Ibrahim A. H., El-Malt A. E. (2019), Assessment of Tender Documents Quality Index, American Journal of Civil Engineering and Architecture, vol. 7, no. 4 (2019): 172-180. doi: 10.12691/ajcea-7-4-4.
• Mohemad R., Hamdan A.R., Othman Z.A., Mohamad Noor N.M. (2011), Ontological-Based Information Extraction of Construction Tender Documents, In: Mugellini E., Szczepaniak P.S., Pettenati M.C., Sokhn M. (eds) Advances in Intelligent Web Mastering – 3. Advances in Intelligent and Soft Computing, vol 86. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
• Rosmayati M., Abdul Razak H., Zulaiha A.O., Noor Maizura M.N. (2010), Ontological-based for Supporting Multi Criteria Decision-Making, In: Wen, D., Zhou, J. (eds.) 2nd IEEE International Conference on Information Management and Engineering, Chengdu, China, pp. 214–217. IEEE Press, Los Alamitos
• The Chartered Institute of Building (2012), Code of Estimating Practice, John Wiley & Sons

Author: Marta Cader