August 9, 2010

Electronic bidding comes of age in British Columbia

RICHARD GILBERT

staff writer

The British Columbia Construction Association (BCCA) has changed the name of its electronic bidding system to BidCentral to create a new brand as well as an online center for a suite of services and documents.

“This will literally accommodate the electronic management of documents from pre-design, design, pre-tender, tender, post-tender, construction and maintenance” said BCCA president Manley McLachlan.

“The name represents a suite of services that covers the whole construction process from inception to decommissioning.”

BidCentral includes an electronic plan room, electronic information, an as-built drawing tool and shop drawing management.

However, the key to BidCentral is the Bid Depository module, which is a system for the reception of sealed bids from trade contractors.

It enables those receiving the bids to obtain firm quotations in writing and adequate time to compile their tenders completely and accurately.

Once these bids are received, the general contractors can enter into a contract with the selected bidders, whose bids have been properly deposited and will be used for sub-contract purposes.

“The bidding module was the last piece that needed to be developed and this is the one piece that brings it all together,” said Warren Perks, vice-president and director of industry practices at the BCCA.

“I think there has been a lot of acceptance for what we have done and where we are going from the industry. There is a lot of excitement about this bidding technology.”

The BCCA launched the system in September 2009 and it was initially used to close two construction projects on the Lower Mainland.

The use of the system has now spread throughout B.C., with 29 projects closing as of early July. There are an additional seven projects scheduled to close by the end of the month.

The largest closing to date was on a school project in the province’s southern interior region that included 42 trade contractors bidding on 11 different trade scopes.

“We have had our challenges, especially with training the user,” said McLachlan.

“We have responded to this challenge, with the training of users, in the form of webinars for contractors and videos on the website. We also have videos on YouTube.”

Manley said the target market for BidCentral includes construction owners, general contractors, trade contractors and other industry stakeholders. This market can be resistant to change and need to trust the tools that they use, he added.

However, this group is increasingly busy and needs tools that help with the completion of bids.

For this reason, BidCentral was designed to offer a set of user-friendly, accessible tools to help save time and money and reduce risk in the bidding process.

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