Allegheny County Goes Electronic for
Painters Run Road Bids
By John Menniti, Pittsburgh Section
It was not business as usual for the Allegheny County Department
of Public Works for the bidding of the Painters Run Road Reconstruction
project. The Department broke into a new technological frontier
by instituting an all-electronic bidding process based upon
a custom website developed by Pelleon, LP, of Wexford, PA. In
lieu of the conventional paper proposals and bid bonds, Contractors
prepared and submitted their bids online. Allegheny County is
the first public agency in Pennsylvania to solicit unit-price
construction bids electronically.
The electronic process started when the project was advertised
on April 22, 2002. Interested contractors were instructed to
register online with Pelleon and obtain the contract documents
(plans and project manual) on CD-ROM from Pelleon, rather than
purchasing paper documents directly from the County. Distributing
contract documents on CD-ROM has been done by the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers for several years, and this method also proved
efficient for the County. Contractors received the CD-ROM at
no charge, and then printed in-house or through a reprographer
the plans and specifications at their discretion.
Pelleon and the County managed the bidding process entirely
on the Internet via a custom home page created specifically
for the Painters Run project. Bidders, potential subcontractors
and suppliers, County personnel including the solicitor and
controller, and the general public received up-to-date information
about the bidding via the Internet. The prebid question and
answer process was also conducted through the project home page,
with all questions and answers immediately viewable by all interested
parties. One addendum was issued for the project, which was
announced on the project home page and emailed to all contractors
on the bidders list.
Registered contractors on the bidders list then entered their
bid data directly into Pelleon's secure web servers. A bidder
electronically "submitted" their bid, which was legally
binding. Electronic bids could be changed and resubmitted anytime
prior to the bid date of May 15, 2002 at 11:00am. Bid data could
not be viewed by anyone other than the submitter prior to bid
date. A reverse auction process was not conducted; therefore
bids stored in Pelleon's servers at 11:00am were final legal
bids. Bid bonds could also be submitted electronically via Surety2000,
Inc., however the County also allowed paper bid bonds to be
submitted prior to the bid date.
Eight bids ultimately were submitted online on bid day, with
four electronic bid bonds and four paper bid bonds. The bid
results were viewed immediately online by the contractors, County,
and general public through Pelleon via an "electronic"
bid opening.
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