Bidding for an engineering construction project has been made easier for the City of Roseville. Roseville has become the first city in Minnesota to use bidVAULT, an online bidding process for engineering construction projects.
Under this new, web-based bidding process, contractors submitted bids for the 2016 Sanitary Sewer Lining project. Roseville joins several Minnesota counties that already use bidVAULT for online bidding.
Roseville advertised its first online bidding project in January and opened the bids on February 2. The City received four bids, which is similar to the number it has received in previous years. The bids were quickly compared and verified using the web-based application. City staff will now summarize the bids and present them to the City Council for approval to award a contract to the lowest bidder.
“This new process will save the city and the contractor time and money, and ensure accurate bid calculations,” said Public Works Director Marc Culver. “It also directly imports the data into our project management software, reducing a potential point of error. We are very excited about the opportunity to streamline a process we do many times over the course of a year,” he said.
Online bidding is a win-win for contractors and the City. Contractors are assured that encrypted bids remain confidential until bid opening. They have the option to update or withdraw bids up until the submission deadline. The online bidding process reduces chances of errors or incomplete bids.
Using the bidVAULT process, City staff are assured of receiving accurate and complete bids. Bid comparisons are automatically tabulated, saving time and eliminating the chance of human error when comparing complicated bids.