Construction pre-bid meetings are held during the bid/proposal preparation period. The purpose of a pre-bid meeting is to clarify any concerns bidders may have with the solicitation documents, scope of work and other details. When they are scheduled for consulting services, they are called pre-proposal meetings. These meetings are scheduled during the preparation of the solicitation documents. What is the purpose of pre-bid meetings? Pre-bid meetings are important, because they assist in explaining the details of the solicitation documents to interested bidders. Interested bidders are allowed to request clarifications on the invitation for bids or request for proposals by a stipulated date, and the pre-bid meeting is held within that period.
In order to clarify issues and to answer questions arise at that stage and to show the tenders around the site, the employer may convey a pre-tender meeting. The requirement to attend the pre-bid meeting is typically set forth in the Instructions to Bidders and provides that a contractor’s failure to attend will result in its bid being rejected as non-responsive.
The purpose of the meeting is to ensure that those contractors interested in submitting a bid understand the project well enough to provide a responsible and responsive bid. However, visits to inspect sites will need to be paid by bidders. If such site visits are made in the company of the employer’s engineer or one of his assistants, the engineer must be careful to provide only factual answers to queries raised. Should this provide a visiting bidder with additional information this will need to be sent out to all bidder. It is better if the bidder visiting is accompanied, if need be, by a guide who is not directly connected with the contract, any queries being noted and dealt with formally after the visit.
The following topics are commonly analyses in a Pre bid meeting
- Performance standards
- Pre-job and construction submittal requirements
- Activity based Health & Safety analyses
- Submittals
- Milestones and due dates
- Acceptance criteria
- Award notice