Every subcontractor pricing the same job.
When three quotes come back at three very different numbers, the reason is usually not the market. It is that the three of them priced three different scopes. A package built to a fixed structure takes that out before it starts.
What we deliver
- —Eight numbered sections per package as standard, populated as appropriate: scope of works, pricing document, drawings, specifications, programme, prelims, health and safety, contract
- —A scope of works written for each package, so the boundary with the trades either side is stated rather than assumed
- —A pricing document every bidder completes in the same structure, so what comes back can actually be compared
- —Issued through your own private project data room, with a record of who was given access and who opened it
- —A document issue sheet, so what each bidder received and when is on record
- —Addenda reissued across every affected document, rather than sent round as a loose note
What we watch for
- —The gap between two packages is where the money goes. Builders work, making good and attendance sit between trades. If neither package names them, neither prices them, and the work arrives as a variation once somebody is already on site and quoting against no competition.
- —A pricing document nobody is obliged to follow produces quotes you cannot compare. Let each bidder set out their own breakdown and you get lump sums against different structures. The arithmetic of levelling them is then guesswork dressed up as analysis.
- —Pre-construction information is the client's to provide, and it is usually late. Asbestos, existing services and structural constraints all sit in it, and it is owed under CDM. Issue a package without it and every bidder qualifies their price against the same unknown, which means none of them has really quoted.
- —A package issued by email is a package you cannot audit. When a bidder says they never received the revised drawing, an inbox is not a record. A data room shows what was issued, to whom, and whether they opened it.
Tender Packs, answered
How many packages does a project usually split into?
On the fit-out work we do it is usually somewhere between six and twenty. The number matters less than where the boundaries fall: too few and the packages overlap so you pay twice, too many and the gaps between them multiply. We set the split against the drawings and the programme rather than against a standard list.
Do you issue the packages, or do we?
Either. Most clients have us issue them through their data room so the record sits in one place, but where you would rather go out under your own name we hand over the packages built and ready to send. What we would not recommend is splitting it, with some documents issued by us and some by you, because then neither party holds a complete record of what each bidder actually got.
What is in the eight sections?
Scope of works, pricing document, drawings, specifications, programme, prelims, health and safety and contract. It is a filing structure rather than a list of documents we author. We write the scope of works and the pricing document for each package; everything else is your material and your design team's, sorted the same way every time. We do not produce programmes and we do not write health and safety documentation. Numbering the sections identically means a bidder pricing two packages is not learning a new structure twice, and an addendum can name the section it lands in. Where a section has nothing to go in it, that is marked rather than left out, because a missing section reads as an oversight.
Not the question you had?
Send us the drawings and the return date. We will tell you what we would need and what we would give you back, before anyone commits to anything.
The rest of what we do
Let's discuss your project.
Tell us about your tender or project and we'll show you exactly how we can help you win it, and deliver it.