I. Introduction
Bidding for construction projects is an important part of the reform of China's construction management system, an inevitable product of the development of market economy, and also the need to be in line with international standards. Bid evaluation is the core of bidding for construction projects. The fairness, impartiality and scientificity of bid evaluation are of decisive significance for ensuring the legitimate rights and interests of both bidders and making bidding work play a role in economic construction. At present, there are three main bid evaluation methods in the construction market: no base price method, reasonable low price method and comprehensive scoring method. In this paper, these bid evaluation methods are compared and analyzed in order to choose the most suitable bid evaluation method for current project bidding in China.
Second, a summary of evaluation methods
1. No base price method. The so-called bid evaluation without base price means that in the construction project bidding, the owner does not prepare the base price, but removes the highest and lowest values from all bidders' quotations, and measures whether the bidders' bidding quotations are reasonable based on the arithmetic average of the remaining quotations.
Bid evaluation without base price is a common practice in international bidding, which has the following advantages: (1) If construction enterprises want to win in the fierce competition in the bidding market, they must strengthen internal management, improve the quality of employees, and reduce the bidding price, thus saving construction investment. (2) Because there is no pre-tender estimate, there will be no leakage of pre-tender estimate, which can curb corruption and minimize the interference of human factors. (3) The subjective evaluation factors are separated from the bid evaluation conditions, which increases the transparency of bid evaluation standards and ensures the fairness of bid evaluation results.
However, at present, there are still some shortcomings in the bid evaluation method without base price in China: (1) The lowest price cannot guarantee the best quality. Many construction enterprises blindly lower their quotations in order to win the bid. Once winning the bid, they either cut corners in the construction process to ensure their own economic interests and bury hidden dangers for the project quality. Or ask the owner for additional funds for various reasons, which makes the bidding lose its original meaning. (2) Because there is no pre-tender estimate and the bid evaluation lacks reference value, bidders may go to price alliance to artificially raise or lower the bid price, resulting in collusion in bidding and collusion in bidding, and the quotations of other enterprises are eliminated because they are far from the benchmark price. (3) In the case of fierce competition among bidders, in order to win the bid, construction enterprises may increase unfair competition and make the bidding market in China more irregular.
Therefore, the bid evaluation method without base price is not suitable for the reality of our country at this stage, but it is a forward direction and an ideal model, which needs to be further improved.
2. Reasonable low price method. Reasonable low-price bid evaluation method is a bid evaluation method that selects the bidder with lower bid price as the winning candidate or the winning bidder when all commercial terms meet the bidding documents and all quotations are within the reasonable range of the benchmark price. This method requires high quality of work in the early stage of bidding, so the pre-qualification of bidding enterprises should be strengthened to ensure that the shortlisted enterprises are all enterprises with high qualifications, good reputation and ability to complete the project independently.
In the process of bid evaluation, a "clarification system" should be established to give bidders whose bid price is lower than the cost price a chance to clarify. If the bidder cannot reasonably explain or provide relevant certification materials, it shall be deemed that the bidder has bid at a price lower than the cost price, and its bid is invalid; If bidders can explain their views on the advanced technology adopted, they should be given corresponding high marks.
The pre-tender estimate of the cost price is compiled by the physical method, which is included in the total cost of ensuring the normal construction of the project, such as materials, machinery, labor, site management fees and headquarters management fees, and is not included in the profit. However, it is very difficult to accurately estimate the bidder's project cost, because the project cost involves many factors such as the bidder's construction technology, management ability, material procurement, financial situation and so on. At present, there is no clear standard for how to determine the bid price below the cost price in many areas of our country, which brings great difficulties to the actual operation. The reasonable low price method is generally applicable to the bidding project with general technical and performance standards or the tenderer has no special requirements for its technology and performance. This method is widely used in foreign project bidding, but rarely used in China.
3. Comprehensive scoring method. Comprehensive evaluation method refers to the evaluation method that the evaluation expert group comprehensively evaluates and quantifies the evaluation according to various factors specified in the bidding documents on the premise of meeting the substantive requirements of the bidding documents to the maximum extent, and regards the bidder with the highest total evaluation score as the winning candidate or the winning bidder. The main factors of bid evaluation include bid quotation, construction technology, financial status, social reputation, historical performance, service, response to bidding documents and corresponding weight.
At present, the comprehensive evaluation method is widely used in China's engineering field, especially for large-scale projects with large scale, technical difficulty and complex construction conditions. This method considers the factors such as price and technology, objectively reflects the requirements of project bidding documents, and can comprehensively evaluate the overall strength of bidders. When the comprehensive scoring method is adopted, bidders often make quotation decisions based on the business philosophy of capital preservation and low profit, and make reasonable quotations according to the scoring standard, which is helpful to improve the quotation ability of enterprises and avoid unfair low-price competition.
However, except for the objective factor of quotation, other criteria of this method are influenced by personal subjective judgment, and the bid evaluation experts are usually temporarily transferred, so they can't fully understand the information of the bid evaluation project in a short time, and can't fully and correctly grasp the bid evaluation factors and their weights. The selection of bid evaluation experts and the objectivity of experts' bid evaluation are two key factors whether the comprehensive scoring method can play an effective role. Therefore, when selecting the comprehensive evaluation method, the main influencing factors of the project should be considered as much as possible when allocating the weight coefficient. In the process of grading, we should limit the subjective arbitrariness of the bid evaluation personnel as much as possible, and formulate specific, clear, objective and operable grading standards.
Third, the conclusion
All the above bid evaluation methods have some shortcomings and limitations. Different bid evaluation methods will produce different results for the same project. What we can do is to choose the "most suitable bid evaluation method" as much as possible. Although there are many problems in the comprehensive scoring method, which is far from the ideal situation of bidding without pre-tender price under the mode of bill of quantities valuation, it is a better method to correct the irregular behavior in the bidding process under the conditions of imperfect bidding mechanism, imperfect market mechanism and irrational bidding by bidders. It is believed that the comprehensive evaluation method will still be the most suitable evaluation method for China's national conditions at this stage and for a long time to come.
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