Tender documents

I'm pretty sure many of us have in a way handle tendering documents before. I have seen countless of them in my 9 (coming close to 10 years) years of working experiences.


The thing that never fail to amaze me are the following points:

• Most tender documents are thick. Even thicker than the Yellow Pages / telephone directory at time for a small package of work and at times it comes in multiple volumes.

• The person who sat and wrote the tender documents are so deep thinker / writer, he basically covers everything under the sky and leave no space for you to go wrong... or was it for you to go wrong?? hmm..

• The data required for most of the tender documents is so tedious that it will take at least a few days of 8 hours work just to get all the data.

• The specifications / standard to follow is so details, virtually all applicable standards e.g. AISI, ANSI, ASTA, IPCEA, NEMA, UL, AMCA, ISO, ICE, CEN, CENELEC, JIS, DIN, NFPA, LPC, UL, SMACNA, ASME, EIA, EEE, ARI, ADC etc etc will be required to be follow. Just to read thru one of the above will take you at least another 2 days, that is if you have those standards sitting in the office library, but if you want to buy those standards, it will cost a fortune. You will need to spend money before even you get any project.

• Most tender documents would specify the brand of the items they prefer. However, at times, variations are accepted with lots of supporting documents.

• Almost in all tenders, the tender will want you to list down all the pricing for even the smallest of things e.g. screws, pipe fitting of various sizes, fuses of various ratings, cables of various sizes and configurations etc. They will treat you like a database for which every single items no matter how minute is the item is to be rated / priced by you even before you get the project so that you can't argue with them when you charge them for works variations.

• Almost in all tenders, they will specify all the stakeholders e.g. End User, Project Management Company, C&S Consultant, M&E Consultant, Architect, Landscape, Quantity Surveyor, Quality Inspector etc. So detail that you will never go to the wrong person asking for the wrong information.

• In the tender document, they will specify all the environment you will need to know e.g. allowable noise level, the earthquake factor, the ambiance temperature, the relative humidity etc. They will describe it in so detail, even at times, the average rain fall per year is provided.

• In most tenders, they will specify all the various government departments you can imagine e.g. Local Water Authority regulations, The National Fire Protection Association, the country specific standard, Plumbing Code of the country, Department of Environmental & Natural Resources, HVAC Codes of the country specific etc and they always qualify themselves by using the phrase "... The latest and most up to date edition of the local statutory requirements..." . If you have a copy of any of those standard sitting in your office, when you happen to do a search, most of the time you will find it not up to date, and then you will need to buy another new copy to ensure it complies.

Just to complete a tender process, at least 3 to 4 solid days of works required from the sales and engineering team. If you work out the economics, just to submit a complete tender, the company would had spend a few hundred dollars in terms of salary for the sales & engineering people who spend 4 days to prepare and complete the documents, the paper used to print and fill in the data and the bill it will pay for the courier fees to courier the documents to the end user after completing the tender.

Having said that, but when the tender gets thru / when you win the bidding, it will be a well worth effort. Wish you luck...

Or wait... did I mention that even after you had submitted the tender, there is still going to be many rounds of revision and tender interview before they give you the go ahead??

Enjoy your tendering process..... ALL THE BEST!!