How to write winning tender responses for civil works — methodology statements, non-price criteria, capability statements, project programming, and tender presentation for earthworks, drainage, road construction, and council maintenance contracts.
RESOURCES/TENDER WRITING Writing for the Evaluator: Bid Document Design, Layout and Readability The library covers what to put in a tender response. This covers what it looks like when somebody has to read yours eleventh, on a screen, at four in the afternoon, against a scoring sheet. Structure, openers, tables, graphics, white space and the … Read more
RESOURCES/POST-AWARD When the Business Is in Trouble: Directors’ Duties, Insolvent Trading and Safe Harbour The library covers what to do when a job loses money and when a client goes under. This one covers the harder case: when it is your own company. What insolvency means legally, the duty that makes directors personally liable, what … Read more
RESOURCES/TENDER WRITING Piling and Ground Improvement in Civil Tenders: Methods, Risk and What a Rate Is Made Of When the ground will not carry the structure you have two choices: go through it, or fix it. Both arrive on a civil job as a specialist package with its own rig, its own risk allocation and … Read more
RESOURCES/TENDER WRITING Trenchless Construction in Civil Tenders: HDD, Microtunnelling, Pipe Jacking and Relining Every crossing under a road, a rail line, a creek or a row of houses is a trenchless decision. The methods are not interchangeable, the ground governs everything, and the risk sits in a place civil contractors are not used to looking. … Read more
RESOURCES/WINNING STRATEGIES The Tender Settlement Meeting: How the Final Number Actually Gets Set Between a finished estimate and a submitted price sits a decision most civil SMEs make in a car park at 4pm. The tender settlement meeting is the hour that decides your year, and it is the most improvable process in the business. … Read more
RESOURCES/TENDER WRITING Sprayed Sealing and Bituminous Surfacing: The Rural Council Workhorse Sprayed sealing surfaces more Australian road length than asphalt ever will, on a weather window measured in hours and a defect list that arrives months later. It is a specialist trade priced like a general one. In this guide Why sealing is a different … Read more
RESOURCES/WINNING STRATEGIES Pump Station Civil Works: Wet Wells, Buoyancy and the Package Everyone Underprices Pump station construction looks like a pipeline job with a hole in it. It is a deep structure in groundwater, with an interface to trades you do not control, on a programme the authority owns — and it is the package … Read more
RESOURCES/TENDER WRITING Formwork, Falsework and Steel Reinforcement: The Temporary Works That Decide Your Concrete Formwork and falsework are engineered temporary works you design, own and carry the risk for — and reinforcement is the item most often priced from a drawing nobody scheduled. Together they are where concrete jobs are won and lost before a … Read more
RESOURCES/TENDER WRITING Drone Survey and Reality Capture: Volumes, Progress and Data You Can Claim On A drone survey now costs less than the argument it prevents. The question is no longer whether to fly a site, but whether the data that comes back will survive a superintendent who disagrees with your volumes. In this guide … Read more
RESOURCES/POST-AWARD Managing a Loss-Making Job: What to Do When a Civil Contract Goes Under Water Every civil contractor has one eventually. The outcome is decided less by how bad the job is than by how early it is recognised, how honestly it is reported, and whether anyone changes what they are doing about it. In … Read more