Problems for Procurement, Quantity Surveying

Explore all problems for Procurement in Quantity Surveying, with every available item in one place.

Problems

Find the one that reads like your problem. Each page explains what is actually happening and the way out of it.

We win work at prices that lose money

The tender went in under pressure and nobody had time to price it properly.

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Our enquiries go out inconsistent

Every ITT is assembled from the last one, and the gaps get priced against us.

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The returned tenders can't be compared

Three prices, three different exclusions, no like-for-like.

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We're about to submit and nobody has checked the price

The rates cover the work, but maybe not the downtime, the prelims, the waste or the risk, and we find out which after we've won it.

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The tenders came back and we can't line them up

Different exclusions, different assumptions, and no way to compare like for like without rebuilding all three.

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A price came back as one number with no build-up

Nobody can see what has been missed, so the trade who priced it blind either comes back for more money or cuts corners to make it work.

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We ask for prices without telling anyone enough to price

No specification, no access detail, no working hours, no date - so what comes back is either a guess or padded to cover what we didn't say.

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One tender came back well above the others and we discounted it

Sometimes that gap is greed. More often it is the one firm that knows something about this job the rest don't.

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Packages get bought when they become urgent

No procurement schedule, so everything is a spot price and every early-order saving has already gone.

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We're pricing work in conditions we don't know

A different region, a different season, a site nobody has walked - and the risk that gets missed is the one local firms price for as a matter of course.

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The budget carries provisional sums nobody has defined

A rounded allowance from an area rate is not a price, and treating it as one guarantees the number moves.

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We keep re-appointing the ones who let us down

There is no record of how anyone performed last time, so the next package goes to the same list and buys the same problems.

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The subcontract order says nothing useful

Scope, programme, payment terms and attachments all assumed rather than stated.

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