Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
rewards contractors who cut corners on safety, materials, quality and
environmental issues.
New procurement procedures have favoured a mix of quality and price
to select the preferred contractor. This is often a 60:40 split quality: price
or sometimes 70:30. There should be a clear marking system for tender
evaluation so the contractor understands what is important to the client.
In some cases the tender will be in two stages with contractors failing to
meet the required quality standard being eliminated before the financial
assessment.
This change of emphasis away from price has increased the standards on
site and reduced the contractual conflict which often occurred.
12.8 Execution of the work
Having spent weeks or months developing and tendering the project and
having secured finances and a Contractor, the Client is usually in a great
hurry to get things moving.
One sure way of speeding up the start of the project is to issue the
Contractor with a Letter of Intent. This is, in simple terms, confirmation of
the Clients intention to enter into a contract with the Contractor pending
completion of formal documents. The precise status of the Letter of Intent
depends upon the wording and possible discussions and correspondence that
may have taken place at the time of issue. The Contractor should satisfy
himself that he is adequately safeguarded. A Contractor who goes over an
upper financial limit or goes outside the wording of the Letter is likely to be
exposed to financial risk.
The situation is by no means black and white. However, 99 times out of
a 100, all goes smoothly, the formal contract takes over and the Letter of
Intent falls away.
Another way of speeding up the process is to pressurise the Contractor
to start quickly and with a reduced period for planning. Contractors
should resist this as much as possible as this is one of the most critical
stages for the project. It gives the Contractor time to select his best team
and move resources around, select the best subcontractors and obtain the
most commercially advantageous agreements. Furthermore, it allows the
Contractor sufficient time to plan and deal with the vast number of Health,
Safety and Environmental issues. Getting to site quickly may provide a
short-term advantage but it rarely provides a long-term advantage and some
aspects of the project may suffer. Clients can sometimes be quick to forget
the reduced period given for planning and blame the Contractor when things
go wrong as a result.
Once the Contractor is in receipt of an order or Letter of Intent the
project team is selected. The Contractor may have been given an informal
indication that he was to secure the project and some thought would already
have been applied to this.
