Strengthening tender outcomes by using a fully developed groundworks bill of quantities

Project overview

We supported our client with the procurement phase of the HMP Kirklevington scheme by producing an NRM2-compliant groundworks bill of quantities. Our client had recently taken over the project from another contractor and needed reliable commercial support to meet a demanding programme. Our role was to create a document suitable for immediate issue to their supply chain so that consistent prices could be obtained, evaluated and presented for sign-off by our client’s justice sector client.

The challenge

The client faced a tight timescale and limited familiarity with the inherited design information. With only two weeks from receipt of drawings to the planned tender release, our client required additional resources to prepare a detailed and accurate bill of quantities. The priority was to maintain procurement momentum while ensuring the information provided to the supply chain was robust and aligned with NRM2 standards.

Our approach

We held an initial meeting with the client to confirm the scope and expectations, then set up daily catch-up meetings with the client’s design and operations teams to monitor progress and highlight any missing or unclear design information. Alongside this, we undertook a detailed design review of the drawings with the team to ensure our full understanding of the project and any nuances within the drawing pack that had to be picked up within the bill of quantities.

Once we were comfortable with the detail of the drawing, we then intelligently used the Bluebeam software to undertake accurate take-offs of the detailed designs with a log of marked-up drawings saved to enable the team to quickly and independently verify the completeness and accuracy of the
take-off.

Following this, we extracted the quantities from the Bluebeam take-off and imported them into the Vector software that produces an NRM2-compliant bill of quantities that was fully itemised and split into packages that could be extracted in either PDF or Excel format and that can also be directly uploaded to the CITE portal if required.

There were also several spot checks undertaken by another member of the team and compliance checks undertaken by ChatGPT prior to the final issue to the client.

The outcome

We delivered a complete NRM2-compliant groundworks bill of quantities within the two-week timeframe. This was accompanied by a comprehensive list of clarifications and exclusions to support transparent tendering. While the commission did not involve negotiation or settlement, our
work provided our client with the commercial tools needed to issue the package
to the market with confidence.