The Construction Institute of Canada’s (TCIC) 2018 National Simulated Student Bid Competition is now underway and its executive director says there is a focus on safety this year.
“We’ve been trying to revamp the safety component of it just to try and add more professionalism to it,” explained Hannah Whyte-Fagundes, a fourth-year student in the Construction Management program at George Brown College in Toronto. “We are trying to get more detail and take that to heart because it’s huge in our industry.”
The annual competition places students in a simulated bidding process for a construction project in the ICI sector. It is held in order to help students understand the real-life challenges present within the construction bidding and estimating process.
Teams are mentored by industry professionals who provide guidance in estimating and all facets of assembling a professional bid package.
Students are required to submit complete, professional and accurate bids based on a set of contract documents.
In addition to the health and safety policy, components participants will need to complete in order to be complaint include a bid form, list of documents, proposed subcontractors, a signed copy of each addendum receipt form, a signed and sealed bid bond, consent of surety, a proposed construction schedule with milestones, an estimate summary sheet and a site mobilization plan.
Bids must contain quantity takeoffs from real world drawings, a subtrade analysis and selection, an overhead and pricing summary and a construction schedule.
The bids are judged based on three criteria: most outstanding professional conduct, most accurate and complete bid package and closest to the target price.
“It is a very detailed process in a real-life scenario,” Whyte-Fagundes noted, adding although students may not come across all the elements of the competition in their careers, they may come across one or two.
“We’re trying to make sure that they get a touch of everything while they are in school to ensure they can understand, when they get into the industry, the different components you have to complete in order to finish a tender.”
Organizers are also looking to incorporate technology into the competition this year.
“This year we’re doing a Skype session for a site walk through so it gives more of a visual component to it,” Whyte-Fagundes said. “Typically you would actually go to the site and see it in real life and talk to people.”
The documents were released Feb. 21 and students have until March 28 to submit electronic bids. Hardcopy submissions of the bid package must be submitted on March 29.
The project this year is Halifax’s new Downtown Redevelopment Plan and Nova Scotia’s first dual-branded hotel, states the competition’s website. A few years ago, SilverBirch Hotels & Resorts enlisted Chamberlain Architects to create a design for the complete redevelopment of the historical site. The project included two 15-storey hotel towers with a total of 316 rooms as well as a residential building with 130 apartments, retail spaces, a convention centre and a 7,000-square-foot restaurant. The redevelopment was done by Bird Construction.
The design objectives of the proposed redevelopment were to revitalize the current hotel site from vehicle-centric to pedestrian-focused; maintain existing views of the waterfront; and provide pedestrian-oriented street level activities such as retail and use materials that integrated well with the surrounding area such as masonry, stone and brick and curtainwall glazing.
The student bid competition has grown substantially since its inception. This year there are 87 teams competing from across the country. The fourth-year students facilitate the competition for the third-year students. Having been on both sides of the competition, Whyte-Fagundes said the hands-on experience she gained through the competition is invaluable.
“It helped me out a lot going into the industry because I actually ended up stepping into an estimating role myself,” Whyte-Fagundes noted. “They were quite surprised with the amount of detail I knew and that came from that competition.”
The competition culminates in an awards ceremony April 11 in which participating students, faculty, mentors, sponsors and industry professionals come together to celebrate the competition and the winning teams.
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