Chapter 10 Procurement

On the face of it, construction procurement is a straightforward process. A client wants a building or a structure, seeks bids from prospective contractors and selects the most economically viable bidder to carry out the work. But life in the construction industry is not quite so simple: there are statutory obligations on a client to ensure that the contractors and for that matter all professionals they engage are competent, appropriately informed and adequately resourced, and it is that requirement that has taxed many of us in the industry over many years. Strangely enough, you might not be surprised to hear that after all these years of discussing and debating we still have not reached a consensus. I fully expect that this will be the case for some time to come. Procurement as discussed here is from the point where the designs are completed through to the commissioning and hand-over of the structure, taking account of the financial and contractual relationships.