Search results

The purpose of this paper is to develop a decision model for choosing the tendering procedure in PPP that minimizes the transaction costs borne by the public sector.

A conceptual model that relates the procurement procedures described in the EU legal framework to launch PPPs and the transaction costs, considering the level of information managed by each procurement procedure has been developed. The authors use this conceptual model to develop propositions about the impact that specific project- and country-related factors have on the choice of the procurement procedure that minimizes the transaction costs.

The application of the proposed model to the case of the Italian highway “Cispadana” shows its usefulness in orienting the public authority’s choice between the different tendering procedures, taking into account project- and country-related factors.

The present study fills the gap existing in the literature on transaction costs of PPP projects and the procurement procedure used to launch those projects by developing a model that relates the level of transaction costs with a set of key factors, namely the level of information managed during the tendering process, the number of bidders, the project size, the project complexity, and the institutional environment.

As for practitioners, the main contribution of this study lies in offering a tool for supporting the public authority in the decision-making process about the tendering procedures in PPPs without imposing the selection of a specific procedure.

The approach developed provides a new tool to support the contracting authority in the design and choice of the tendering procedures in PPP.

The purpose of this study was to determine the transaction cost (TC) contractors incur when tendering for a project as well as establish a correlation between the TC of tender and tender amount of projects procured through the national competitive bidding procurement method.

The research draws extensively documentary analysis, observation and interviews to collect cost data on 14 different tenders submitted by a D1/K1 contractor. Using TC theory, the data are analyzed and the actual cost is determined. Further, Spearman rank correlation is employed to establish a relationship between tender price (TP) and the cost of tender by the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences.

The research developed a tender preparation conceptual framework highlighting the components of TC in competitive tendering in Ghana and also revealed that, apart from the emotional and psychological costs, contractors in Ghana incur approximately Gh₵ 4,625 (US$ 925)–Gh₵ 2,520 (US$ 504) to prepare and submit a competitive tender. In relation to the tender figure, the TC of tender in Ghana ranges from 0.05% to 0.65% and an average of 0.33%. Also, there is an inverse correlation between TP and the percentage cost of tender.

The research relied on 14 competitive tenders and also limited to public sector works. Findings from the study should therefore be applied with caution.

This study is the only known research that has focused on assessing the TC of public sector competitive tendering from a contractor's perspective and within a developing sub-Saharan African context.

The aim of this study is to investigate the reasons for disparity between design stage elemental cost plan and final tender sum (contract sum) in building procurement. A number of risk factors responsible for such variation were identified through case study projects from which data were extracted.

Literature review determined the risk factors inherent in the preparation of design stage elemental cost plan. Interviews and thematic analysis identified the risk factors responsible for the disparity between design stage elemental cost plans and final tender sums. Analysis of documents obtained from the archives of study participants (consultant quantity surveyors) complemented responses from the interviews.

The review revealed a number of inherent risks in the design stage elemental cost plan development. The interviews further indicated that risks have an impact on and are responsible for the deviations experienced. The assessment of these risk elements could assist in determining the final tender sum from cost plans.

Findings revealed disparity between elemental cost plans and final tender sums in the region of −14 and +16 per cent. The risk factors identified were responsible for the deviations observed. With this information, Quantity Surveyors are more able to accurately forecast final tender sums of building projects from cost plans through proper risk identification and analysis, thus increasing the accuracy of design stage elemental costing.

To the best of the knowledge of the researchers, there is no recent documentary evidence of an investigation into the reasons for disparity between design stage elemental cost plan and final tender sum in traditional building procurement in New Zealand construction.

The pre-tender estimation process is still a hazy and inaccurate process, despite it has been practiced over decades, especially in Malaysia. The methods evolved over time largely depend on the amount of information available at the time of estimation. More often than not, the estimate produced during the pre-tender stage is far more than the tender cost of the project and sometimes, it is perilously underestimated and caused major problems to the client in the monetary planning. The purpose of this paper is to determine the most influential factors on the deviation of pre-tender cost estimation in Malaysia by conducting a survey.

Fuzzy logic, combined with artificial neural network method (fuzzy neural network) was then used to develop an estimating model to aid the pre-tender estimation process.

The results showed that the model is able to shift the cost estimation toward accuracy. This model can be used to improve the pre-tender estimation accuracy, enabling the client to take the necessary early measures in preparing the funding for a building project in Malaysia.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study on tender price estimation standardization for a construction project in Malaysia. In addition, the authors have used factors from literature for the model, which shows the thoroughness of the developed model. Thus, the findings and the model developed in this study should be able to assist contractors in coming out with a more accurate tender price estimation.

The “most economically advantageous tender,” as defined in the EUʼs public procurement directives, allows public purchasers to combine environmental aspects, price and other award criteria in decision making. The directives do not, however, determine how the environmental criteria should be built. Indeed, there could be different means to assess the “greenness” of competing tenders, and these various measurements of environmental impacts may lead to different assessments of the most economically advantageous tender. In this article, the determination of environmental award criteria is examined through a case study on a purchase of a goods transportation service, where the most economically advantageous tender is calculated by life cycle assessment and the environmental cost calculation method suggested by the EU, and compared to the results gained by the purchaserʼs equation. Also the contribution of the weighting for the “green” purchasing decision is discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the reasons for the variance among tenders for conservation projects in Malaysia.

Semi-structured interview approach was adopted because this method allows for effective probing of issues. The interviews are conducted with experienced conservation contractors. The interviews are transcribed and the data are analysed using thematic analysis. Coefficient of variation (CV) measure was also used to determine the level of variance that occurs in tenders for conservation projects.

The study found that contractors faced difficulty in pricing competitively due to the following four factors, namely, uncertain information on the actual work on site, inexperience in conservation construction works, information in the bill of quantities is incomplete and uncertain labour and material cost. The study of 22 tenders also ascertains that there is a high variance among the tenderers for building conservation projects. This is determined by the CV analysis where conservation works has a mean CV of 25.5 per cent as compared to 6.5 per cent for new build works.

While the interviews managed to draw out insights into the reasons for the high variance among the tender amounts, a definitive conclusion cannot be drawn on the level of variance in tendering for conservation projects due to the limited data that is available for analysis.

The paper offers an insight into the reasons why tenders for conservation projects usually have a higher variance than the norm.

This guide was commissioned by the British Library Research and Development Department, on the advice of the Group for Research into Public Libraries. It was produced as the result of a research project, the first stage of which was a survey of automated issue systems in public libraries in the United Kingdom. The survey was published as a special issue of VINE (No. 52, December 1983), and showed a clear trend towards the provision of online, stand‐alone systems, often including functions other than circulation control, and usually provided on a turnkey basis. For the second stage of study, it was decided to concentrate on these systems, and to compile a guide and checklist on their selection and installation, which could be used by librarians considering automation, or in the process of replacing a system. The study was carried out over the period December 1983 — February 1984.

The single-most important parameter of a public procurement system is the threshold above which the framework applies. The optimization problem consists of finding a reasonable trade-off between the gains from public procurement and the administrative costs associated with procurement rules. In the present study, based on a sample of central and local government procurement operations in Sweden, an optimal threshold value in the range of 5,000—6,000 EUR is computed based on the requirement that the average gain should supersede the average cost. If a larger proportion of procurements is required to gain from the regulation imposed, a threshold value of 20,000—25,000 EUR should apply. The general conclusion is that there are strong arguments for maintaining procurement rules below the European Union threshold.

The ‘lowest‐price wins’ philosophy has been a consistent theme of contractor selection over the years. To comprehensively elucidate this selection preference and compare it with the use of a multi‐criteria selection (MCS) approach in the tenderer evaluation process, this paper investigates MCS tender price selection preferences. That is, project‐specific criteria (PSC) and lowest‐price wins selection practices of UK construction clients, in both building and civil engineering works at in detail via results of the empirical survey. The investigation provides further insight into the evaluation of contractors' attributes (i.e. PSC). Levels of importance assigned (LIA) for each criterion were analysed (i.e. quantitative analysis of the differences in opinions and, variance amongst the respondents) in a multivariate statistical method. Importance attached by construction clients to the ‘lowest‐price wins’ philosophy is also presented. Contrast was made between the MCS approach and the ‘lowest‐price wins’ option amongst the surveyed construction clients. It was found that increased awareness of the use of PSC prevailed amongst the survey construction clients. This indicated that cost has to be tempered with the evaluation of PSC and the attempt of construction clients searching for a new evaluation paradigm (i.e. adoption of MCS approach rather than basing on the lowest‐price wins alone).