Improved Unbalanced Bid Detection Model

Abstract

Detection of unbalanced bids is crucial for owners because selecting an unbalanced bidder as the contractor may bring about cost overruns. There are two main types of unbalanced bids, namely, mathematically and materially unbalanced bid. This study mainly focuses on the second type, where a contractor tends to increase the unit prices of items whose quantity was somehow underrated by the owner’s team. This study proposes a modification to a model that was developed to assist owners in detecting unbalanced bids. The major difference between the proposed model and the previous one lies in the grading system of detecting the unbalanced bids. In the proposed model, eight different grading systems are used in detection of unbalanced bids, whereas the previous model consisted of five grading systems. The final score of each bidder is calculated by assigning weights to these grading systems. Bidders are evaluated not only according to the offered bid prices, but also according to the calculated final scores. The applicability of the proposed approach is presented along with an illustrative example. It was observed that the proposed model detected the unbalanced bid, which attains the lowest final score. The proposed model represents a marked improvement on existing practice and provides owners with a new perspective in detecting unbalanced bids. Armed with such a tool, it may be easier for owners to protect themselves from the risk of unbalanced bids.