Your answers should be written in a concise, formal business style. The selection of font face, font size and line- spacing are left to your discretion but you should keep in mind the importance of clarity and readability in professional documents. You are encouraged to use drawings, images, graphics, and charts to support your report and presentation. Any material that is derived from other sources must be suitably referenced using a standard citation format.

Review the Unit Content from the Unit Specification along with the Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria shown below thoroughly. This shows the depth of knowledge that you must demonstrate in the submission. It is important that your submission meets ALL of the PASS criteria as a minimum requirement. Remember the tasks set up in this brief provide the opportunity for you to respond appropriately to the assessment criteria.

LO2 Explain the procedures and contractual arrangements for tendering.

LO3 Analyse the factors that affect the selection of construction procurement methods.

L04 Calculate an estimate for a work activity.

Your employment as the assistant quantity surveyor in the commercial department of a large surveying practice entails planning procurement strategies for clients. This is done to ensure that the tendering process produces a competitive tender for clients in the competitive contracting environment. Value for money is a measure of quality that many stakeholders require to be confirmed, as this is often auditable to account for the capital finance spent on a project. You have been asked to support a client that has very little construction knowledge on the procurement process. By answering the following tasks, produce a short report that provides a detailed explanation for an ‘uninformed client’.

Task 1. Produce a procedural flow chart that details the information that will be required to be provided prior to the first stage of preparing a tender. It should be possible to use this procedural information sheet for any type of contract in the UK or internationally. The flow chart will use annotated symbols and text boxes. The flow chart will need to be supported by an explanation of each stage for assembling tendering information. This explanation should compare and critically evaluate the use of a specification or a bill of quantities as methods of tendering and include a short discussion on the potential benefits to your client of Building Information Modelling in the tender and procurement process.

Task 1 covers the following Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria LO1; P1, P2, P3, M1 & D1

Task 2. The client is proposing the following procurement strategies. Provide a procurement strategy analysis  (about 1000 words) for each one of the strategies below.

●        ‘Procure Local’.

●        Lowest bid wins.

●        Life cycle maintenance costs to be included within tender.

●        Design, build and operate.

●        Project will be divided into packages.

In the course of your analysis, provide an example of the results of a taking-off procedure in producing a bill of quantities and evaluate the relationship between the type of tender and contractual arrangements for the proposed strategy.

Task 2 covers the following Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria LO2; P4, P5, M2 & D2

Task 3. Your client has asked for guidance on the type of procurement methods that could be employed for the following potential contracts that they are planning over the next two years.

●        The construction of a one-off commercial office development within a large city  whose value is budgeted at £20m.

●        A series of six new build primary schools at a total value £15m each.

●        A design and build project for a national hospital that will specialise in heart surgery.

●        A term maintenance contract for the supply of maintenance to a national retail chain.

In a procurement method evaluation, recommend a method of tendering for each, by exploring and analysing the factors that affect private and public procurement routes for a client. and explaining the factors that determine the selection of an estimating technique.

Task 3 covers the following Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria LO3; P6, P7, M3

Task 4. Your client is most concerned about the effect of a given estimating technique on the selection of a procurement method for a major project such as the design and build project for the national hospital (above).

Provide your client with a cost estimation review which describes common methods of estimating for individual work activities with examples and comparisons of  the results of different estimation techniques on the cost for a realistic given work activity in the  project.

Task 3 covers the following Learning Outcomes and Assessment Criteria LO4; P8, P9, M4 & D3