CIVIL ENGINEERING PRACTICE

ASSIGNMENT 1

STUDENT ID

21128332
 Report of procurement strategy

Dear Sir, after our firm designed your project, I have to ensure that you have all
the information provided, so you can choose the best option possible, for you project to
receive the best price value, and the quickest time for the project to be finalized.

The procurement it is about buying work, goods and services.

The most important facts about procurement are:

o Ensure that the procurement reflects it’s strategic objective and deliver
top-quality services;
o Has to achieve the best money value for money;
o It is in concordance with the current UK and EU legislation;
o Has to ensure probity and transparency in procurement;
o It has to promote equality and sustainability ;
o It has to protect the environment in the best way possible;

According to the Engineering and Construction Contract (ECC), I am advising

you that you should award a single contract for your project.
The key facts in my decision are:

o Awarding a single contract you can ensure that you will receive a well
done project, because being just one firm working they can’t interact with
other contractors, and blame each other for any poor-finishing job;
o During the tendering process you can study all offers, and you can choose
the best one for you, and being just one contract you can ask for a
performance bond, so if the contractor it’s unable to respect his terms, or
he is unable to finish the job, you can receive compensations
 As you can see in the project, his estimated value it is around 3 million pounds, so
the tendering process might take a while, because there are many key facts that it need to
be discussed, not just procurement of materials and labor, but also about the soil
conditions, the weather condition, which in this period of the year it is not so friendly and
it could delay the time of finishing the project.
So in my opinion there should be a few extra clauses regarding this problem.

The contractor responsibilities for this facts should be:

o According to the fact that he has to built four new site roads, and two new
bridges, there will be many excavations on the site, as you can see on the
project, so the contractor should be compelled to take care of all the extra soil
that will be extracted;
o The contractor should be also compelled to take care of the cleanliness of all
the machinery that it is coming and going from the site;
o The contractor has to ensure that he is capable to provide all the equipment
that is need in case of bad weather so that the project don’t have to stop
because of this problem, and to result delays that could affect the cost of the
project;

I would also recommend you to have some more extra clauses in the contract, so
that you can ensure that the project will be followed as much as possible.
I will put this clauses in a list for you:

o The payments should be submitted after every task is completed, so the

whole project should be divided into more stages so in this way you can
insure that the job is properly done and the contractor has all the interest in
doing his job properly;
o The contractor should also provide all the materials he needs, based on
invoices, so you can make the payments for them; the reason that I
recommend this solution is that so the contractor has no reasons to say,
that he received bad materials, or not enough materials, because he is in
charge of the quality and amount of materials;
o There should be a timetable for every task, tasks that I was telling you
above, and if the timetables are not respected you can give penalties to the
contractor and in this way, you can assure that the final price will not be
much different from the first evaluation price, of course this will not
involve the increasing prices of the materials and delivery during the
project
 o Constructions are a very risky investment, but by asking for a performance
bond from the contractor, it is more likely that the project can increase his
successful completion. The contractor can ask for a performance bond
from a bank or from an insurance company, and usually the cost can be
anywhere between 1 and 5 percent of the estimated cost of the project.
This performance bond acts like an insurance for the whole project price
in case that the contractor it is unable to finish the project,so you are
protected against any loss of money, during the project execution.

Although I can tell about all this clauses, they all are just possible options of the
contract, because as it is written in “Butler Machine Co. Ltd v. Ex-Cell-O Corporation
Ltd” 1979 by Lord Denning where he said that:

The terms and conditions of both parties are to be construed together. If they can
be reconciled so as to give harmonious result, all well and good. If the differences are
irreconcilable, so that the are mutually contradictory, then the conflicting terms may
have to be scraped and replaced by a reasonable implication. [Contract Law, 2008]

After our firm developed the project the estimated time of construction, should be
around six to seven months, depending on the weather conditions.
The contractor should fit in this time, without any problems, because the
feasibility study is very well done, and all areas of risk have been covered, so there
should not be much difference between the estimated time and the real time of the
project.

I would advise you, that before of the end of the project, every work done within
the site should be verified properly by a team of specialist, and in this way you can assure
that the job was properly done, and the project was respected in all means by the
contractor.
You should also include a clause in the contract that will protect you from
contractor negligence, so in case of an injury or even death on the site, you will not be
responsible for that, and that so is very important that this clause is stipulated in the
contract, so in case of a problem, the only responsible will be the contractor, for not
respecting the Health and Safety Laws on the site.
You should also be aware for any breach of the contract, so if there appears a
problem, of any kind you are fully covered against any loss of time and money, and so
the contractor is the only responsible for his acts.
 A very well done contract, with all the risk areas covered, will make the project
more likely to be a successful one, and also make you a happy client at the end of the
project.

At the end of the contract there will be a calculation of damages to see, if the there
are any major losses between the estimated time and price, and the date of finishing of
the project, the total cost of it, and also if the project has been respected.
In case that any of this problems appears at the end of the contract, you can use
the performance bond, to recover your loses.
In case that everything was respected and all terms and conditions have been
meted, the performance bond will be released for the contractor, any debts left will be
paid to him.

After I covered all this contract clauses and problems that may appear during the
project, I hope you understood the basics that you have to take care when you choose the
best offer that suits for your project.

I will make a description of the project, and also add a bill of quantities to make
you understand better the whole process that will take place.

For the road projects, the main elements that will be needed:

1. A location plan, showing proposed development on the Ordnance Survey base, to

a scale of 1:1250 or 1:2500, showing the proposed road network and its
relationship to existing development.
2. A layout plan of the footways, cycleways, verges, footpaths, cycle paths, retaining
walls, bridges, drainage systems and earthworks to a scale of 1:500 (1:200 where
pedestrian/vehicle/cycle shared surfaces are proposed) showing:

o the proposed centre, building and kerb lines (and also the back of the
footway where this differs from the building line)

o curve radii of the road alignment and junctions

o dimensioned visibility splays at road junctions

o vehicular access points to properties

o pedestrian crossing points at junctions and other locations where dropped

kerbs will be provided
 o cycle crossing points with dropped kerbs where shared use facilities are
proposed

o the location of all road gullies

o the location of the road drainage system and its discharge points

o the location and type of lighting columns and lanterns, wall-mounted

lighting units (if applicable), control pillars, underground cables and road
crossing ducts

o the location of all underground services and ancillary apparatus

o the full extent of all excavated and infill slopes

o aries of any areas which it is intended will subsequently be offered for

adoption or maintenance

o the layout and specification of all road markings, signs, street name plates
and traffic signals

o precise site limits

o ground floor levels

o details of SUDS system

o driveway gradients

o locations of traffic calming measures

And for the bridges the main elements that will be needed:

o Bare concrete deck

o Concrete deck protected with an asphalt concrete overlay
o Unpainted steel closed web/box girder
o Painted steel thru-truss, bottom chord
o Reinforced concrete column or pile extension
o Timber abutment
 o Strip seal expansion joint
o Pot bearing
o Uncoated metal bridge railing

And finally I will present will an estimated bill of quantities, so you can see what
will be the major works that will be done on the site;

For the Roads:

Item Description Unit Qty Rate (£) Sum (£)

Soil cement
250 60
2
R134 m

Dry bound macadam 300 45

R223 m2

R323 Rolled asphalt m2 420 60

R512 Longitudinal joints m 1100 15

R683 Asphalt channels m 320 23

R773 In-situ concrete of stated strentgh m2 280 16

R812 Illuminated signs pcs 25 60

R822 Reflecting road studs m 720 10
For the bridges:

Item Description Unit Qty Rate Sum

Ref (£) (£)

Earthworks (in material other than topsoil,

rock or artificial hard material

Trimming and preparation of abutment

formation for blinding
E512 m3 200 20.0
Double handling of excavated material 0
(stockpiling in preparation for filling
E541 m2 15
Planting of mixed single hedge 6.00
consisting of hawthorne, cherry and
E871 hornbeam m3 210
5.50

Filling to completed bridge abutment

E622 using selected excavated material m 100
10.0
0
Filling to the new bridge embankments
as shown on drawing A1/12
E611 m3 40
Trimming of embankment surfaces
25.0
0
E82 Hydraulic mulch grass seeding to m3 280
trimmed surfaces and other areas

22.0
0