Most Project Owners, and in particular those in the public sector, require that bids be opened in public or with a presence of a committee. In addition, bids must be opened as soon as practical after the closing time. There will be a Tender Opening Committee that will preside over the tender opening and would consist of at least two, but preferably three, members – a Chairperson, a Secretary, and a Witness.
The committee opens all bids that have been received on time, and prepares and signs a Tender Register for each tender call. Upon opening each tender envelope, the Chairperson must announce the name of the company who has submitted the tender, the amount of the tender, and any amendments to the total amount of the tender price, which would be the tender price plus or minus any amendments. The Secretary will record on the Tender Register the information announced by the Chairperson.
Project Management Information Systems (PMIS) like PMWeb can be used to manage the tender opening process. Using PMWeb form builder, the Tender Opening Register form will be created. The form will include the fields for the Tender No., Tender Title, Tender Original Closing Date, Tender Revised Closing Date, and Tender Opening Date.
The form will also include a table that will detail the names of invited companies, whether they have accepted or regretted bidding, collected and submitted their tender, the tender value before amendments, the tender value after amendments, and if there are any remarks. For the fields that need to be filled with specific values like “Yes or No” and “Accepted or Regretted”, all those values will be predefined to allow the form filler to pick those values.
The Tender Opening Register form will also include a table to capture the documents submitted by each tenderer. Usually, this list should be predefined by the Project Owner as they will be the required documents that each tenderer must submit. The list would include additional rows labeled as “Others” for additional documents that the tenderers might submit and for which the details of those documents will be explained in the Remarks field.
In addition, the form will include a table to list the details of the tender opening committee members. The table will have the designation predefined but need to add the committee member’s name against each. Those designations would usually include Committee Chairman, Permanent Member, Deputy Chairperson, Permanent Members, and, Members.
The data captured in the Tender Opening Register form will become the basis for designing the output form in the desired form and format. The form will include details on the tender, tender original and revised closing date, tender opening date, details of the tenders received including original and alternative price, details of documents received by each tenderer, and tender committee details. The report will also include three visuals to summarize invited tenderers who have accepted or regretted bidding, those who have collected the bids, and those who have submitted the bids.
About the Author
Bassam Samman, PMP, PSP, EVP, GPM is a Senior Project Management Consultant with more than 35-year service record providing project management and control services to over 100 projects with a total value of over US $5 Billion. Those projects included Commercial, Residential, Education and Healthcare Buildings and Infrastructure, Entertainment and Shopping Malls, Oil and Gas Plants and Refineries, and Telecommunication and Information Technology projects. He is thoroughly experienced in complete project management including project management control systems, computerized project control software, claims analysis/prevention, risk analysis/management (contingency planning), design, supervision, training, and business development.
Bassam is a frequent speaker on topics relating to Project Management, Strategic Project Management, and Project Management Personal Skills. Over the past 35 years, he has lectured at more than 350 events and courses at different locations in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and South America. He has written more than 250 articles on project management and project management information systems that were featured in international and regional magazines and newspapers. He is a co-founder of the Project Management Institute- Arabian Gulf Chapter (PMI-AGC) and has served on its board of directors for more than 6 years. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute (PMI), a certified Planning and Scheduling Professional (PSP), and Earned Value Professional (EVP) from the American Association of Cost Engineers (AACE) and Green Project Management (GPM).
Bassam holds a Masters in Engineering Administration (Construction Management) with Faculty Commendation, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA, Bachelor in Civil Engineering – Kuwait University, Kuwait and has attended many executive management programs at Harvard Business School, Boston, USA and London Business School, London, UK.