Tender & Procurement Services
Getting the job to market properly, so the prices that come back can be compared and relied on.
Why people bring this to somebody outside
A fencing tender goes wrong long before the prices arrive. It goes wrong in the scope, where an ambiguity that reads as a detail to the client reads as an opportunity to a tenderer. Six contractors then price six different jobs, the cheapest wins, and the difference reappears as variations.
I write the tender documents so that does not happen: a scope of works that says what is included and what is not, a specification with no room to guess, a schedule of quantities everyone fills in the same way, and evaluation criteria set before the envelopes are opened rather than after.
Then I help you run it. Who to invite and why, what a sensible tender period looks like, how to answer questions without advantaging one bidder, how to evaluate on more than the bottom line, and how to administer the contract once it is let so the paperwork keeps up with the work.
A street frontage where the scope had to cover the neighbours, the footpath and the trades working either side of it.
What this covers
Preparation of tender documents
A complete, consistent set that a contractor can price without guessing.
Scope of works development
The boundary between what is in and what is out, written before anybody argues about it.
Contractor selection
A shortlist based on capability for this job rather than on who rang last.
Tender evaluations
Prices normalised onto the same basis and scored against criteria agreed in advance.
Procurement advice
Which procurement route suits the job, the budget and your own reporting obligations.
Contract administration
Instructions, variations, claims and correspondence handled so the record is straight.
Who this is for
- Councils and public organisations with procurement rules to satisfy
- Corporate and institutional landowners who need a defensible selection process
- Developers letting fencing across multiple stages or multiple sites
- Anyone who has been burned by variations on a previous fencing contract
What you get
- A tender document set - scope, specification, drawings and schedules
- An evaluation matrix and a written recommendation
- Contract administration through construction, if you want it carried on
Costed and agreed before I start, never after. A phone call about a straightforward question is usually free.
Often taken together with
Quantity Surveying & Cost Planning
What the fencing should cost, worked out from the job rather than from last year plus ten per cent.
Read more →Project Management
Someone running the fencing package who is not also the one being paid to build it.
Read more →Consulting for Councils & Large Organisations
Standards, documentation and peer review for organisations that buy fencing repeatedly rather than once.
Read more →Paid for the advice, not for the work that follows
I am a certified fencer and I also own a fencing contracting business. That is stated up front rather than buried, because it is the first thing anybody sensible wants to know about an independent adviser.
The rule is simple and it does not bend. If I am advising you, my contracting company is not tendering for your job. You can have my advice or you can have my crew, and you cannot have both on the same project, because the moment you could the advice stops being worth anything. If you would rather have the fence built than the question answered, I will say so and point you elsewhere.
It works the same way in a dispute. I give the same finding whichever party is paying for the assessment, and if your position is the weaker one you will hear that from me first.
The contracting business is Custom Fencing Ltd, which is where the experience behind all of this comes from - and it is disclosed here so that you can check it rather than discover it.
FCANZ Certified Fencer. The Fencing Contractors Association of New Zealand assesses fencers against a practical standard that has to be maintained rather than earned once. The reason it matters here: the advice comes from somebody who still has to go out and build to the standard he is describing.
Tell me what you are trying to work out
Most people get in touch because they have a decision to make and nobody independent to check it with - a tender that does not add up, a fence line that keeps failing, a dispute that has stopped moving, or a property they are about to buy. Describe the situation and I will tell you honestly whether it needs me, and what it would take.
021 614 100- nick@customfenceconsulting.co.nz
- 130 Edinburgh Street, Waikouaiti 9510, Otago
- Monday to Friday, 7am - 5.30pm
Based at Waikouaiti in East Otago and working throughout New Zealand. Site work anywhere in the country; desk work - a tender review, a specification, an opinion on a set of photographs - can start the day you send it.