What should a client provide when going to tender?

A tender is a contractor's estimate of what is unknown as much as what is drawn.

Every gap in the documentation is priced as a risk, or excluded, or discovered later as a variation. Which means the quality of what a client provides directly determines how useful the prices they receive are.

Existing conditions

On refurbishment and live-site work this is the most valuable information a client can supply.

A hazardous materials register, current rather than historic. Any structural or condition assessment. As-built or record drawings, even incomplete ones. Service locations. Previous investigation reports.

A hazardous materials register in particular changes pricing significantly. Without one, a contractor either prices an allowance or excludes it, and neither serves the client.

Site investigation

Where the work involves ground, a geotechnical report changes the foundation and earthworks pricing from an assumption to a calculation.

Survey does the same for levels, boundaries and existing features. Both are cheaper for the client to commission once than for every tenderer to allow for separately.

The operational constraints

This is the information most often omitted and most important on live-site work.

When can the site be accessed and when can it not. What has to stay open and at what times. Which areas can be occupied by the works. What noise restrictions apply and when. Where deliveries can arrive. Where a crane can stand.

A tender that does not state these constraints receives prices based on a site that does not exist. Monument delivers inside operational environments constantly, and these constraints are frequently the largest cost driver on the job.

The programme requirement

Whether the handover date is fixed and why. A school term, a season, an event, a possession.

A fixed date is a different job to a flexible one, and it should be stated rather than implied. It affects the sequence, the resourcing, the weather allowance and the price.

The approvals position

What consents exist, what conditions attach to them, and what remains to be obtained.

Where council approvals, road opening permits or authority approvals are still outstanding, saying so lets the programme reflect reality. Monument manages approvals and permits as part of delivery, and the lead times are real.

Scope boundaries

What is included and what the client is providing or arranging separately. Loose furniture, IT, specialist equipment, decant and storage, and who is responsible for each.

These items sit in the gap between scopes more often than anything else on a refurbishment project.

What good documentation buys

Fewer qualifications on the returned tenders. Prices that can be compared to each other. Fewer variations. And a contractor who can commit to a programme rather than hedge one.

Talk to Monument about an upcoming tender.