Construction Management

Best Practices: Proposal Cost Reduction

Public Works has found the use of design-build contracting and the qualifications based selection process to be valuable towards the success of its projects. However, we recognize that responding to design-build Requests for Proposals (RFPs) can be expensive for the proposers. In partnership with the business community, we employ a number of measures to minimize the cost of responding to design-build RFPs. On most projects, following prequalification, we only invite a shortlist of the three highest-qualified teams to respond to the Best Value Selection, Part B portion of the RFP. Where appropriate, we provide stipends to partially offset the cost of submitting proposals. We limit the time allowed to prepare the final proposal, and we limit the required/allowed proposal deliverables to only those required for proper evaluation.