I read with interest Cedric Sloan鈥檚 article in 黑洞社区 on 1 May (page 33). He draws attention to the information that is provided with most invitations to submit a tender. One of the points he makes is that far too much information is provided

Contractors are routinely issued with CDs containing all the project documentation, which then has to be sorted and assessed by each tenderer. As Cedric says, often the only practical starting point is to print out everything, which can involve 1,000 drawings, to find 30 or so that are relevant. This affects every level in the tender process, from contractors to sub-subcontractors.

Cedric points out that this results in wasted effort, errors, increased overheads and extra cost, leading to artificially inflated prices. And he tells us of a campaign called Information Overload whose objective is to improve the tendering process. May I suggest a simple solution? The bill of quantities was designed many years ago to ensure that the tendering process was efficient, low cost and relatively error-free. They were popular with contractors and subcontractors. I suggest that Information Overload adopts the use of the bill of quantities as its principal solution to the problem.

May I suggest a simple solution. The bill of quantities was designed many years ago to ensure that the tendering process was efficient, low cost and relatively error-free

Roger Knowles

Roger Knowles, chairman, Baqus

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