We have had record attendance at our last two meetings. The presentation on the biofuels industry generated a lot of audience participation for Andrew Makenete, president of SA Biofuels Association (SABA). The May meeting saw Bill Steenberg from Fluor presenting his 'Achieving technical bid compliance'. Again more than 45 members were in attendance.
Bill walked us through the technical bid procedure and also had an example of a real life technical evaluation. The members had an opportunity to see the RFQ, bidders' responses and format, Bill's technical evaluation procedure and eventually the recommendation made to commercial on the best candidate. It was most interesting to see the actual work that goes into the technical bid evaluation. For those of you who think that EPCs (engineering, procurement and construction companies) just glance at the tender documents submitted and then choose a vendor, you do not know how wrong you are.
I could easily compare the work that is done at this stage to more or less the same work the vendor puts into compiling his tender. It is taken extremely seriously by the evaluating engineers and they analyse every point in detail. Bill gave us some key points to consider when compiling tenders. Here are some for your information:
* Read every document, assume nothing.
* Clearly mention all deviations from specification.
* You are responsible for your sub-contractors, if they mess up, you are responsible. Make sure they comply with the specification.
* Try to supply everything the EPC has requested from you.
To follow up on this great talk, we are planning Part 2, which is the commercial part. Our plans are to have this presentation in July 2007. So keep watching your SAIMC mail for the invitation.
In light of our commitment to change the JHB SAIMC, we are doing our first 'away' presentation on 13 June 18h00 for 18h30 at the Wits University CM1 auditorium. Our main speaker on the night will be James Portman from Laser Measurement and he will present 'Multidimensional measurement using lasers'. Come and join us at this away venue for something different. Directions will be mailed to those on our mailing list. Should you require any further details, please drop me a mail.
I would like to congratulate the Johannesburg committee on the great work they are doing! Please remember our golf day 29 June 2007 at Kempton Park Golf Club.
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