Contractors are violating one of the basic tenants of business. They are bidding work without any profit added to their bids. Not only that, they are bidding projects without fully recouping their costs of doing business. This is nothing new, just more prevalent and in larger sums.
On a recent assignment we prepared [...]
I just received a bid form for a project. It is in a major Midwestern city I will not name but it sounds a lot like Chicago. This bid form is for use on a project that is for a new building, not a highway or transportation project. All of the bidders on the project [...]
President Obama announced a loan guarantee of $8 billion for one new nuclear plant in the United States. On the surface this is a great way to kick off a power renaissance in the power industry. What this country needs is a reliable base load energy system and nuclear energy fits that bill! However, one [...]
On a recent blog one of the responders to my blog thought I was picking on architects too much and not enough on contractors. Actually I was pointing out a common practice by them, and engineers, that increases costs to their clients while shirking their own responsibilities.
Architects and engineers have the second largest impact upon [...]
A client of ours called up wondering how his competitors were getting his prices. I told him it was pretty simple – someone was shopping his bid to his competitor(s). I also let him know this practice is becoming more prevalent as the construction economy continues to stumble into a bigger black hole.
He asked how [...]
Actually my preferred headline is “Estimator Saves Project.” It reflects what an estimator really does for a living. Sometimes the project has hiccups along the way but in the end it can be a successful project for all parties. Estimators do not define the project scope. This is the responsibility of the end user and [...]
I just finished with a meeting at my local chapter of ASPE. Prior to it getting started one of our members remarked on how he was designing a project for an engineering firm. I asked if this was free or a paying job. He remarked the payoff would be him getting the job at bid [...]
When bids are opened many owners and developers look at the bid amounts and breathe a sigh of relief that they are at or less than the budgeted amount. They look at their project as now being a financial success and look forward to production or income becoming reality at the end of the project. [...]
Problems on projects can be more prevalent in the tough economic times. Let’s ignore the low bidder being the one with the biggest mistake for now. The contractors, subcontractors and vendors are facing tight financial times. This also applies to architects and engineers. The owners are facing these same or very similar conditions as the [...]
I lose a lot of estimating work due to the contractors in this country that do free estimating on projects in the budgeting and pre-construction phase of a project. I also get a lot of work from the owners that get the free estimates and then find out that free doesn’t necessarily mean a good [...]
