If the contractor decides, based on some or all of the considerations in the previous section, to prepare a tender for a certain project, the first step will be to obtain one or more sets of the contract documents. The invitation to tender will specify where they are available with the owner, the design professional, a plan room, or, increasingly, over the Internet and the cost of the documents. The major effort, if it is fixed-price or unit-price/measure-and-value contract, will be to compile an accurate estimate of the projects costs and then to convert this estimate into a priced proposal. But there are other tasks to be undertaken, as a preliminary plan is put together, including a method statement, jobsite visits, constructability studies, initial scheduling and various meetings.
After obtaining the tender documents and evaluating them carefully, once more a decision must be made regarding whether to proceed with the tender process or to suspend any further activities on the project. Certainly obtaining and reviewing the documents does not obligate the contractor to develop and submit a tender.
