The process of tendering for large-scale construction projects is broken. Contractors are incentivised to make overly optimistic assessments of timescales and capabilities, and are rarely given the time or incentives to develop rigorous schedules with a high percentage chance of success. Owner-operators have no effective way of:
• quantifying the feasibility of schedules submitted by bidders,
• effectively comparing schedules produced by competing bidders, and
• quantifying the risks inherent in the schedules they are presented with, in a human bias-free way.
The bidding process has not helped to build trust between owner-operator and contractor, nor set the winning bidder up for success. Until now. In this presentation, Toby Buchanan of tech company nPlan will tell the story of how Rail Projects Victoria have embraced AI to level up tender assessment and selection for the South Geelong to Waurn Ponds Duplication – creating a new paradigm for tender analysis in the process.