Thames Water has implemented a Software as a Service (SaaS) e-tendering platform from Business Collaborator (BC) to improve its cost management during the AMP5 project tendering process.
Starting in 2010, the AMP5 programme will involve a variety of major civil infrastructure work with project tenders ranging in value from £1m to £50m.
The platform should enable Thames Water to manage its Capital programme tender documentation and communications centrally, providing a common structure for documents and automating notifications to the supply chain on updates and edits.
Security should also be improved, as access is restricted where and when required and a full audit trail can be provided.
The companies estimate that each tender will benefit from a 16% reduction in document assembly time, which could save five days of time and money for the water supplier.
Bidders in the supply chain could benefit from an additional five days to work on their tender submission document content, by saving approximately 20% on contract assembling time at the end of the process, the company said.
“As the largest water company in the UK, with over 13.6 million customers, we tender out a significant number of projects each year. This is an expensive and time consuming process. Tender documents often need amending or additional information needs to be provided in response to questions raised by bidders, so documentation often needs to be re-issued. This can lead to synchronisation and version control problems,” said Jamie Gardner, head of capital procurement at Thames Water.
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Paul Meredith, project manager for the implementation of e-tendering at Thames Water, said: “The ultimate selection of Business Collaborator was based on cost, deployment time, fit with IT strategy and certainty of outcome. BC was able to deliver the right functionality quickly, whilst reducing both the risks and costs to Thames Water.”
