If the price is right or if the quality is right

Do you remember this TV show that used to go on a US channel ? You would win if you would be the person to be guessing the price the closest to the actual retail price. As a young boy, I found it very interesting since I could quickly get a sense of value.

Since then, I have become a large project engineer and I had to evaluate bids for various of activities such as engineering work, equipment purchase and so on. The rule was to go for the lowest bidder, this often turned to go for the worst problems.

It is especially ciritical in the government activities that you are obliged to allocate to the lowest bidder without sufficient proof that the bidder will suplly what you are demanding.

I remember one factory manager who use to require from me that not only I go for the lowest bidder bu that I also intimidate the bidder in order to obtain a 20 % cut. This is very dangerous behaviour. If you allocate the project to some companies that cannot do the job right than you are bound to either get a lot of extras, get a butched job or even wind up in court with a lawsuit which will drag on for years. That's the reason, I said to the manager that I should allocate the electrical work contract to one expensive quote because I knew that this company had the reputation to finish its work on time and that the work would be of good quality. The work was carried out very well and the machines started on time. You see, if you pay weel soneone to do the job, he is going to do it right and not curt corners. Everyone is entitled to live well on his earnings and to his own profit, this is the very strong basis of what is true in capitalism.

The new Denver Airport and the Nancy tramway projects have shown us the wrong way to do highly technical projects which are close to R&D. This means that you should never trust any manager that wishes to go for the lowest bid since this is the best way to trouble.

The issue is not to get the lowest prices, but to get the best bidder to finish the job to the quality levels that you require. This means to go for the one which advertise the right price where the quality is right.