> It's a government contract so even if I don't bid I will know who won the bid and for how much.
>
> I am more than qualified to locate cemetery headstones within the the boundary of a cemetery if that is what you are asking.
?? If it's the federal government, or state or local government where (at least part) of the funding is federal, then the Brooks Act comes into play. It is a competitive contract procurement process whereby consulting firms submit qualifications to a procuring entity (owner) who evaluates and selects the most qualified firm, and then negotiates the project scope of work, schedule, budget, and consultant fee. Many States have "Mini"-Brooks Act regulations which are similar. It's good thing for the public; a qualified firm can assist the agency in developing a good project for both sides. The key is, if both sides cannot agree, the agency can abandon negotiations and go with the second best firm for negotiation.
If the project does not fall under Brooks Act type regulations, the lowest "responsive" bidder will win, or not:-/ . The problem then is if the scope is ill defined by the contracting agency, apparently the case here. You can't underbid the jackleg whose survey deliverables will be woefully inadequate for the intended purposes, but he'll get paid before the agency discovers they bought useless crap. Seen it happen over and over. Do you want to be that guy?
OTOH, maybe Commissioner Bob's uncle has a lock on it, he'll bid a job way below break-even but make out like a bandit as the change orders start rolling in because the agency (with check writing uncle's help) desperately wants to make it work, or not, as long as Bob ends up sweetened.
On bigger construction jobs with per unit costs, it's possible to tear apart the engineer's estimate, bid break even on the accurately estimated items, then bid ridiculously high on the items where the engineer underestimated by a factor of 200% (earthwork comes to mind)and super low on overestimated items (game crossings?). Your bid is (barely) the lowest, but you kill them on their bad estimate.
I've probably administered as the agency or contractor 10mil worth of survey contracts, and 'bid' or submitted RFPs survey work for 50 mil major construction in my career, and it's a complex discipline. Some big firms I've worked for have full time estimators looking for badly scoped targets that are ripe for profits, and carefully linked to us in engineering and surveys because our input can call BS on the engineer's estimate. Sometimes money under the table makes things happen.
Your cemetery bid? Screw them, they're fools, "3rd order GPS"; if it's straight rows carefully RTK shoot the ends, count the stones, conflate back to the original cemetery subdivision records, forget the pictures of each headstone and collect your fee. Don't say who owns what. Likely you'll get your money before they figure it out. Bid a two day campaign even though you think it should take a week or more of on the run RTK with an ATV to (0.5' guaranteed) to locate and photograph every stone accurately. They're dead and cannot complain (although their heirs can vociferously).
When confronted with a client who wants lousy (cheap) information (not boundary stuff), deliver cheaply and educate him if he's wishing better information. For this cemetery bid, go so low you can't believe you'll break even if you adhere to your standards, then see some jackleg who undercuts you by 10%, a clue you don't want the job. Cemeteries are rare surveying.
Brooks Act jobs are so much smoother; it's like talking to your doctor or dentist.
Fyi, there are a lot of companies tracking this opportunity as well, some of them are VERY large firms. You will be bidding against some very talented people, some of whom have been tracking this opportunity for literally years.. good luck. I hope we win a bit of it, but the biggest firms out there are aware and on the trail also. :-O
I would not do that. These are soldiers headstones. Families will rely on this information to find their fallen family member.
The job is SDVOSB set aside.
As I have stated I don't even know if I'm bidding on it. I have ended up talking more about a project I probably won't get than I have projects I'm working on.
I would love to do it. It would be an honor to say the least. And anything less than a great job is not acceptable.
Anyway it's not a project my company can handle alone. It will require a lot of others to team up with. It's over 2 million headstones alone. Not counting cremations, niches and the control you have to put in place at each cemetery.
The Brooks Act as Mike Marks discussed below is what I was getting at... If it truly is a "government contract" shouldn't they be using a qualifications-based selection process? I don't "bid" on anything and haven't since the day I decided i was a professional and should behave accordingly.
You know what gets me if you weren't being such an a-hole about it I could probably learn something from you. Mike Marks gave me a constructive post. You on the other hand did not.
This is the first government project I have ever looked at to see if I could bid on. Considering it's a SDVOSB I have a much better chance as most of the large companies are not owned by Service Disabled Veterans. They are waiting for none to apply to it will be moved into a more open field is my guess.
Out of the 27 watching, only 4 show they are SDVOSB not counting me.
PROPOSAL! Now theres what I should be using. See I can learn.
Sorry to have offended you so terribly John. What Mark and I are both saying is that if a government entity is asking you to "bid" on professional services they are probably violating the Brooks Act. MAPPS spends a fair amount of time reminding Federal agencies that it is illegal to do this. My firm does this also, and we see a number of requests for "bids" changed to the proper legal qualifications-based procedure.
I would think the photography/editing/database type work is where the time savings will be made IF you team up with somebody that is familiar with this work and can establish efficient workflows.
I have witnessed people spend hours of tedious work that could be performed in an automated fashion, with just a little bit of thought and effort taken prior to beginning the field work. Spending some money up front developing custom routines can save tremendous amount of time.
I probably just need to change my meds. 😀
Thanks for the information. I was following procedures by filling out the SF330. I just kept saying bid because that is how I saw it 'bid on government contracts'. But I clearly see your point and I appreciate the explanation.
Anyway it's a huge project and I would need a bunch of people on board to get it.
> Anyway it's a huge project and I would need a bunch of people on board to get it.
You might be well to contact the least offensive of the large interested firms and offer to "team" on the project. They get the benefit of your SDVOSB and you get the benefit of their support infrastructure. Just make sure that your agreement includes a fair share of the billing for yourself.
>> Considering it's a SDVOSB I have a much better chance as most of the large companies are not owned by Service Disabled Veterans.
I completely forgot about that angle! On big Gov't contracts, a percentage set aside is made for Disabled, Servicemen, Women, Minority, et. al. subcontractors. Small contracts may require DBE certification to submit proposals. Congratulations on being legit!
Some agencies even discriminate in hiring practices; an example, for an exam based position, Veterans, minorities, disabled, Native Americans and women et. al. get 5 to 15 points added to their score. Kind of frustrating in that you can score 98% in a dumbed down test where the mean is 88% and not make it to the interview stage because there's folks that have 102%+ scores. For executive positions the discrimination issues are even more murky, the (woefully) less qualified woman (black, Hispanic, whatever) gets hired because the agency wants to project a diverse image.
I'm not averse to the concept: atone for past sins and make society more inclusive. The gaming of the system is what bothers me. I've seen and been involved in 51% ownership transferred to the owner's wife, hiring minority executives to meet the required management percentage, subbing all prestress beam work (sometimes 50% of the contract) to the only minority manufacturer in the State to meet the minimum definition of a minority bid, the list goes on. See example regulations: http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/bep/business_forms.htm
A quote sticks in my mind concerning the matter: "If the King declares henceforth only Blue Pigs will permitted at the public trough, then all pigs who can do so will become Blue Pigs." My complaint is some contractors, internal executive and technical hires turn out to be woefully inadequate and make my life more miserable.
> Anyway it's not a project my company can handle alone. It will require a lot of others to team up with. It's over 2 million headstones alone.
!! 2 million nationwide headstones properly located and databased is way beyond your capabilities. You should partner with a big firm's proposal to cover the few thousand gravestones in the State(s) where you're licensed and can actually deliver.
I suspect this is about the stink that the Military Cemeteries have lost records and apparently federal funds have been released to fix the problem. If this Federal money has been released you are good to go to help fix their problem. Link up with the big Brooks Act players and sub your part in the locality where you operate as a DBE entity.