ANSWER: This is an unfortunate situation, and seemingly all too common in our industry. The competition between engineering firms is fierce. Any advantage that can be taken to gain the upper edge on a bid is usually taken... sometimes at the client's ultimate expense.
Hoel Engineering Ltd, being an ISO-compliant company, place its clients' interests first. We do not subscribe to using unbalanced bidding practices to gain contracts. Of course, during the course of a project it is posible that circumstances give way to additional charges; however, with projects that are conventional in nature, as most are, engineering costs are predicable.
Our method of pricing starts with a detailed work breakdown structure (WBS). We take each project on its individual merits; we don't just "guestimate". We start by gathering as much information about a project as possible, then analyse the scope of work and break the project down into indiviual enginering tasks. A duration is then assigned to each task and multiplied by our hourly rates to arrive at the cost.
In our fee proposals we provide a realistic view of the scope of engineering services that best serve our clients' interest. We do not take short-cuts; after all, we are working as our clients' Quality Control Manager for their projects. Any short cut taken may, and often does, reflect in the finished quality of a project.
Our fee at the bid stage may possibly, at times, seem higher than others; however, our clients have the knowledge and comfort that it is unlikely that our fees will exceed what we propose.
In addition to our fair bidding practices, we do not charge for extras unless they are approved by our clients.
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