The contrator must also review quality lest he ends up maintaining a team ( maintenance team an hidden cost ) till the maintenace period. Its some of the higerups in the company who take up rash decisions for the sake of money and the end result " THE BOSS IS ALWAYS RIGHT "

Hi Jerry

And again, if a good planner reviews the tenders and tear them apart, then he can advise
1. schedule is attainable
2.schedule not attainable.
What is a schedule? RESORUCES FORCAST TO DO A TASK WITHIN A GIVEN TIMEFRAME.
I do not know about buildings, but in peto chem, the most imporiant thing is to verify resources proposed.

If a task is planning piping on offshore platfomms and so many pipefitters are required to do a task, one must look at accommidations available, by task. Because so many beds avaiable, and this controls, thats it. Same with equipment.
Offshore its limited and must be planned accordingly.

Again I agree with you, contractors have a choice, take it or leave it, and if they take it the client must award the contract based upon what is known at that time about a contractors schedule. If its full of lies and impossible dreams, then better look at another bidder.

Hi PP,

Good question as to why Contractor’s agree to time schedules which are unattainable from the start!! ;-)

I suppose no Contractor wants to turn down a project, and by their nature, Contractor’s tend to be optimistic in nature. They ALWAYS believe that they can overcome any challenges put in their way; sometime the “hairier” the challenge (as Darrell pointed out!!) the more optimistic they become!!

And far be it from me to suggest that Contractors are more dazzled by $ or Euro signs in their eyes than by the practicalities of completing a project to schedule.

Cheers,

Stuart

www.rosmartin.com

...for all other decent people here

i just wanna say i’m not a god of planning and i’m not a super planner as well, but i’m a normal planner learning from all of u and sometimes i try to help as much as i can

Thanx

Hi planner planner,

Somehow you have tried to tell us your are the guru of all planning, You run 60 projects, and you do not have a clue what you are doing, as gauged from some of the questions you are asking, you need a quick course in the basics of the subject, which will take about two hours, so reveal yourself. You are either Josetph in his amazing dream coat’or Moses or Alexander the great, naybe Genghis Khan or Napoleon or maybe Rommel or Hitler ( Not a practical solution) or maybe OLLie North or Bush, or even Saddam Hussein himself, maybe Hannibal with his elephants going over the alps, or there is other possibibilities of the not so greats like Churchil, or Stalin, or lenin or Mao tse Tsung. Maybe you are are the re-incarceration of Tsun Tsu, We as planners would like your credentials, because maybe you are the Messiah we have all been waiting for.
In any event you are a pain in the arse, until you can give honest answers and stop talking bullshit.

Hi PP,

I have had experience of American, European and Australian international conglomerates forcing – and I mean forcing – contractors into accepting certain terms and conditions, which – as I said earlier – even a blind man could see were impractical from the contractor’s point of view.

For example, I have just finished being involved in a case where the Client is a European Consortium of major international companies and the Contractor is another major international specialist in his field. After the project was underway, the Client enticed the Contractor into accepting a six month reduction in his schedule in exchange for a big bag of money, by way of a Change Order.

The Contractor accepted the money and reduction in his schedule, but soon realised that he could not meet the reduced schedule, primarily because the Client did not keep his end of the bargain in terms of providing necessary support to meet the new completion date. Indeed, the Contractor later realised that he was set up, since at the end of the day, the Client’s project was completed ahead of the original schedule (by three months) for a very little additional cost, since the Contractor had to forfeit almost all of the additional cost made available under the Change Order. The case ended up expensively in tears and arbitration.

So my point is that there are a large number of international unscrupulous Clients out there, who impose unrealistic demands on Contractors, and this is a world-wide practice!!

Hope this clarifies,

Stuart

www.rosmartin.com

Philip,

I am not entirely sure of which utopian environment you work, but in my experience, projects are not always put out to competitive tender, the Client usually selects the lowest tender where there is a selection, and he then proceeds to brow-beat the Contractor into offering an even lower price and also adds further restrictions on scheduling.

I am not sure what you mean by saying the Client has a duty to himself (?), but again in my experience, it is not ‘a few bucks’ at stake, but can be millions of Euros.

IMHO, Clients very often – if not usually – have only their own interests at heart and do not care for the well being of the Contractor, and against this background, it is noted that this thread began – unsurprisingly – in the Middle East.

Stuart

www.rosmartin.com

J.,
I think your answer was already in your comment that “…the Contractor has 2 options: to decline or to accept…”

The Contractor should be able to price everything necessary for his successful execution and completion of the project, and if this requires increased resources (of all sorts) to complete the Works, he can add the relevant costs into his price. If that prices him out of the running, it may be a blessing in disguise.

I have been involved in many projects where a blind man could see that the Contractor could never ever finish by the due completion date; it has ALWAYS ended in tears for the simple reason that when he signs the Contract, the Contractor undertakes to execute and complete the Works in accordance with the project’s clearly stated milestones. Having made that commitment, he is duty and legally bound to carry it out!

Hope this helps,

Stuart

www.rosmartin.com

And always remember that Contractors are there for one reason, to make money. Forget allances, etc etc, they want to make a buck. Client should want contractors to make a good profit, however withing the contract limits.

having said that, know of some firms who will bid a job KNOWING they cannot make the completion date and factor in cost of Liquiated damages from the start. They know they will pay.

And contractors who bid a job so cheap, they are loosing money just to get the job, and they hope upon hope they can make profits on changes or extras or claims.

So, distrust of a contractor starts before contract award, and analysis of his tender data tries to root out problems like this from the start, that it is so importiant to tear apart a tender cost and tender bid to see what the contractors intent is, not only lowest bidder.

Regards Bill