The current consulting engineering procurement approach – dominated by price, with functionality and quality only being minimum prequalification thresholds – is reducing consulting engineering services to a commodity as opposed to being a service offered by “trusted advisers”, Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa) president Abe Thela said last week.
Speaking at the 2014 Civilution Congress, in Kempton Park, he said the focus on price when procuring consulting engineering services also compromised the ability of the industry to innovate, train staff and attract young people.
“Current regulation has reduced [the hiring of] a trusted adviser to [hiring a contractor],” Thela said, reiterating that this was not the preferred situation.
He further said, according to Cesa, various aspects had to be included in the basis for the procurement of consulting engineering services, such as "Constitutional elements", to ensure that the process was equitable, transparent, fair, competitive and cost effective.
The aim of procuring consulting engineering services further had to focus on doing so under the best possible terms and optimising project life cycle costs.
Meanwhile, international best practice, such as qualification-based selection (QBS), also had to be considered.
According to the QBS system, the quality and competence of consulting engineering services were considered when undertaking procurement, project scope was developed jointly, services required to mutually develop the scope were agreed upon and an equitable fee was negotiated.