When a reinforced concrete structure is designed, the issue of durability, life-cycle costing and overall life is frequently relegated to following the relevant codes and choosing the lowest bid from the tendering contractors.
Its methods of building, of tendering to contractors, of project design: everything has come in for criticism and comment, some generous, some harsh.
Network Rail is currently tendering for different contractors, including signalling, buildings and track, to help deliver the scheme.
Pages of local government tendering documents inviting potential contractors and suppliers to bid for the building projects have been discovered online by the German-based academic, Adrian Zenz.
After publication, the spokesman said Halliburton would not in fact be the drilling contractor, but were tendering for commercially confidential services.
Inefficient tendering gave contractors a chance to squeeze more money out by foot-dragging.
Given the prices that contractors tendered, a jobseeker who hasn't found a job after nine months is unlikely to receive much more attention – the money will have run out.
It is a problem the London 2012 Olympic committee attempted to avoid in the procurement of its own main stadium, which did away with the usual format of an international competition – to much criticism at the time – and instead went out to tender for a contractor-led consortium, hoping it would be quicker and cheaper.
Contractors from the Soviet Union, tendering to build Ajaokuta, produced a 21-volume feasibility study, but it was never translated from Russian, and probably never read by any Nigerian decision-makers.
In a tunnel project that involved almost 600 vendors, the contractor put in place a single platform solution for bidding, tendering, and contract management.
