SPECIFICATIONS
Speci?cations are an important tool for communicating with suf?cient detail how, where, and when a particular item or project is to be manufactured or constructed to meet an owners needs. On civil engineering projects, the speci?cations are part of the contract documents and usually are supplemental to a set of drawings. If the assemblage
of contract documents were to be considered a body, then the drawings should be viewed as the skeleton and the speci?cations as such body parts as muscle, sinew, and skin, which together add up to the whole.
The term speci?cations is often used to describe a portion of the contract documents that include the bid documents, agreement between owner and contractor, general provisions, special provisions, and technical speci?cations. The complete document that includes all these subjects is sometimes called the project manual. Throughout this section,
the term speci?cations is used interchangeably with project manual.
3.1 Composition of
Speci?cations
Speci?cations describe the particular requirements that are to be used to bid, contract for, build, test, start up, and guarantee an engineering project.
Typically, speci?cations include:
1. Sections that describe how a prospective bidder must prepare the bid.
2. A copy of the agreement (contract) between the owner and contractor to be executed.
3. A division called general conditions. This division describes procedures generally required to be followed during construction of all projects, including procedures to be followed by all parties; that is, the owner, engineer or architect, and contractor. A well crafted general conditions is likely to be reused many years for similar projects.
4. A division called supplemental conditions, which modi?es the general conditions to the
speci?c or special requirements of the project. Using this method to modify the general conditions ensures the integrity of the general conditions and encourages familiarity with the general conditions. Contractors can focus their attention on the supplemental conditions with con?dence when they are fully aware of the standard general conditions that were used to administer their past projects.
5. A division called technical speci?cations. This division is organized into logically arranged
sections that describe comprehensively the material, equipment, or performance of items that must be incorporated into the completed work.
This combination of requirements, together with the contract drawings and bidding docu-
ments, comprises the contract documents. When faced with the task of preparing speci?cations for an engineered project, the engineer must consider many factors, among which the most important are:
Nature of the owners business private industry or public body.
Magnitude of the project.
Estimated duration of construction period.
Does the owner require the engineer to adhere to a set of standard speci?cations, or will the engineer have a free hand in preparing the type of speci?cations?
Does the owner have an attorney who will review the legal aspects of the speci?cations?
Does the owner have an insurance advisor who will review the insurance requirements included in the speci?cations?
Does the owner have an engineering staff, such as that for a state department of transportation, which will review the speci?cations?
Also, the engineer should realize that courts of law recognize the status of contractual relations between owner and contractor as that between free and independent individuals, not as that between a principal and agent. The speci?cations must support this relationship by refraining from prescribing construction methods and exercising control over the contractors work.
After the basic conditions for a project have been established, the engineer is obligated to prepare complete contract documents for the project. The principal parts of these documents usually consist of the following:
Advertisement for bids (notice to contractors, or invitation to bid)
Information to bidders
Proposal form
Contract-agreement form
Bond forms
General provisions, or general conditions
Construction drawings
Special provisions, or special conditions
Technical speci?cations
For general guidance, forms for all but the last three are available from sponsoring agencies, such as the Engineers Joint Contract Documents Committee, American Consulting Engineers Council, American Institute of Architects, American Society
of Civil Engineers, National Society of Professional Engineers, Associated General Contractors of America, Construction Speci?cations Institute, and General Services Administration. Article 3.11 is an example of a technical speci?cation prepared for a public agency having standard documents. (For a discussion of general provisions, see Art. 3.6.)
3.2 Contract Documents and
Contracting Procedures
The implementation of contracts between owners and contractors for construction work requires that the parties observe certain legal formalities. Such steps are evidenced by executedwritten documents that, together with the plans and speci?cations, constitute the contract documents. The nature and content of the contract documents vary with the
owner agency that sponsors the improvement and the procedure employed for the receipt of bids.
It is standard practice for government and other public agencies at all levels to provide for public letting of contracts for public works. In such cases, sealed bids are invited by advertising in various news media for stated periods. After bids areopened, publicly read aloud, tabulated, and evaluated, the low bidder is determined.
It is customary to issue the plans and speci?cations to prospective bidders who apply and pay stated charges. In most cases, proposals must be accompanied by a proposal guaranty in the form of either a certi?ed check or a surety bond, to ensure
that the successful bidder will enter into a contract.
If an award is made, the proposal guaranty is returned. If the low bidder fails to execute the contract, the amount of the certi?ed check will be forfeited as liquidated damages or obligations of the surety under the bond will be enforced as compensation to the owner for the cost of awarding the contract to the next lowest bidder or for the added cost of readvertising. As a general rule, proposals are acceptable from competent bidders
(evidenced by statements of experience and ?nancial responsibility submitted to the owner). Forms for these usually are included in the project manual.
Under the foregoing procedure, the contract documents generally comprise the advertisement (instruction to bidders may be either included or separately provided); proposal, properly executed; contractors progress schedule; resolution of award
of contract; executed form of contract; contract payment and performance bonds, plans and speci?cations; supplementary agreements; change orders; letters or other information, including addenda (Art. 3.2.3); and all provisions required by law to be inserted into the contract, whether actually inserted or not. All the documents con-
stitute one legal instrument.
3.2.1 Adoption of Standards by
Reference
Sometimes standard speci?cations, such as a statede partment of transportation speci?cation, are made part of the contract by reference to their title only. By this reference, the standard speci?cations effectively become a part of the contract
documents as if a copy of them were included with the contract documents. Language stipulating this should be included in the general or supplemental conditions. (See Art. 3.9.3.)
3.2.2 Noncollusion Af?davits
When required by law, a noncollusion af?davit must accompany the submission of the proposal.
This af?davit certi?es that the bid has been submitted without collusion or fraud and that no
member of the government agency or of?cer or employee of the owner is directly or indirectly interested in the bid.
3.2.3 Contract Revisions
For various reasons, revisions of the contract documents become necessary between issuance of the invitation or advertisement for proposals and the termination of the contract. Such revisions may be classi?ed as addenda, stipulations, change
orders, or supplementary agreements.
Addenda are revisions of the contract documents made during the bidding period. They mainly are concerned with changes in the contract drawings and speci?cations due to errors or omissions, with the necessity for clari?cation of parts of these
documents, as revealed by questions raised by prospective bidders, orwith changes required by the owner.An addendumis also issued to notify bidders when a bid-opening date has been postponed.
Addenda should be delivered suf?ciently in advance of the bid-opening date to permit all persons to whomcontract documents have been issued tomake the necessary adjustments in their proposals. Bidders must acknowledge receipt of all addenda; otherwise,
their bids should never be accepted.
Stipulation is a written instrument in which the successful bidder agrees, at the time of execution of the contract, to a modi?cation of the contract terms proposed by the owner.
Change order is a written order to the contractor, approved by the owner and signed by the contractor and the engineer, for a change in the work from that originally shown by the drawings and speci?cations. Usually, under a change order, the work is considered as being within the general scope of the contract. The owner, represented by the engineer, may issue the order to the contractor unilaterally, with payment provided for by contract
unit prices, negotiated price, or force account.
A change order may apply to changes affecting lump-sum work or to increases and decreases in quantities of work to be performed under the various items in a unit-price contract. The changes in quantity will be evaluated at the contract unit prices and the contract total amount adjusted accordingly. But if the total cost change amounts to
more than a speci?ed percentage, say 25%, of the total contract price, a supplementary agreement acceptable to both parties to the contract should be executed before the contractor proceeds with the affected work.
Supplementary agreement is a written agreement used for modifying work considered outside the general scope and terms of the contract or for changes in work within the scope of the contract but exceeding a stipulated percentage of the original amount of the contract. The agreement must be signed by both parties to the contract and the
written consent of the company that issued the payment and performance bonds for the project should be obtained.
3.3 Types of Contracts
Construction contracts for public works are almost always let on a competitive-bid basis. Usually, such contracts are of either of two types unit price or lump sum depending on the method of paying the contractor. Contracts for construction for private owners may be either competitive-bid or negotiated, but in either case, they generally are of
the same two types (see also Art. 4.4).
3.3.1 Unit-Price Contract
When it is not possible to delineate on the drawings the exact limits for the various items of work in the contract, the work is broken down for payment purposes into major elements with respect to the kind of work and trades involved. Each element designated as a payment item, with its number of estimated units, called estimated quantity, is listed,
in the proposal, and the bidders are required to write in a bid price for each unit. An example is the number of cubic yards of concrete to be bid at a unit price per cubic yard.
The total bid is obtained by summing the amounts, in dollars, for all items listed in the
proposal, arrived at by multiplying the estimated number of units for each itemby the corresponding unit-price bid. The total bid becomes the basis for comparison of all bids received to establish the low bid uponwhich the award of contract will bemade.
Payment to the contractor will bemade on the basis of the measured actual quantity of each item incorporated into the work, at the contract unit price (see also Art. 4.7.6).
3.3.2 Lump-Sum Contract
When it is possible to delineate accurately on the drawings the limits of work comprised in the contract, whereby the bidder can make a precise quantity survey as the basis for the bid, a lumpsum contract is employed. For such a contract, it is imperative that the drawings and speci?cations be comprehensive and show in complete detail all features and requirements of the work. Compensation to the contractor is made on the basis of the
lump-sum bid to cover all work and services required by the drawings and speci?cations (see also Art. 4.4).
3.3.3 Contract with Lump Sum and
Unit Prices
It is not unusual to combine unit and lump-sum prices in the same contract; for example, an entire structure completely detailed on the drawings will be listed in the proposal as a lump-sum item, whereas unit prices may be required for features of variable quantities, such as excavations, or lengths of bearing piles.
3.3.4 Negotiated Contract
On occasion, public-works contracts and, more often, private-works contracts, are negotiated.
These contracts may be prepared on the basis of one or more of several different payment methods.
Some of the more widely used are:
Lump sum or unit price or combination
Cost reimbursable with a ceiling price and ?xed fee
Cost reimbursable plus a ?xed fee
Cost reimbursable plus a percentage of cost
Construction-management contract
In addition, incentives may be added.
For a negotiated contract, the owner chooses a contractor recognized for dependability, experience, and skill, and in direct negotiation establishes the terms of the agreement between them and the amount of the fee to be paid. For public agencies, factors contributing to the selection of a contractor are ordinarily determined by the prequali?cation or quali?cation procedures, using questionnaires and investigation. Such questionnaires are readily adaptable for use on contracts to be negotiated by
private owners.
A negotiated lump-sum or unit-price agreement is negotiated around the engineers estimate.
A ?xed percentage for overhead and pro?t is determined and agreed to, and the labor andmaterial prices of the contractor and those of the engineers estimate are adjusted by mutual agreement.
In a cost-reimbursable agreement with a ceiling price, the contractor receives reimburse-
ment for all costs as prescribed in the agreement up to a maximum cost. The contractor receives a ?xed fee, which will not vary with the cost of the work and otherwise is negotiated similarly to the cost-plus-?xed-fee type of agreement.
The determination of the fee to be paid the contractor under a cost-plus-?xed-fee agreement, which will be fair and reasonable to both parties to the contract, requires de?nitive plans, an estimate of the construction cost, and a knowledge of the magnitude and complexities of the work, the estimated time of completion, and the amount of
work to be done under subcontracts. The terms of the contract must therefore set forth the methods for control and approval of expenditures and determination of the actual cost.
Under a cost-plus-percentage-of-cost contract, the contractors pro?t is based on a ?xed percentage of the actual cost of the work. This form is less desirable than the ?xed fee since the contractors compensation increases with increase in construction cost. This creates a situation where there would be no incentive for the contractor to
effect any economies during construction.
A construction-management agreement requires the contractor to divide the work into
segments, usually by trade. The contractor takes bids for the work from a group of subcontractors and awards thework to them. The prime contractor usually performs a certain prescribed segment of the work and coordinates the work of others. The
owner reimburses the prime contractor for all the subcontractors work and for the contractors work plus a small pro?t and pays a negotiated fee for management of the subcontracts.
In some states, public-agency projects of larger size are required to be bid by separate trades, such as general civil; mechanical; heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC); and electrical. To accommodate this and to ensure proper contract management, some speci?cations have been written to require the general civil contractor to include
an item for construction contract administration of the other trades. Bids for all major trades are taken by the owner with direct assignment of the mechanical, HVAC, and electrical subcontractors to the general civil contractor. In effect, the general
civil contractor signs a construction management agreement along with an agreement for completion of the general civil work. The speci?cations require the bid of the civil contractor to include costs to account for coordination and control of the subcontractors to the same degree as if the civil contractor had taken direct bids and signed
agreements with the various trade subcontractors.
Incentive-type contracts vary. The basic premise is that the owner will pay bonuses for economic construction and earlier completion and that the contractor may have to suffer for inef?ciency and late completion.
3.3.5 Specialty Contracts
Special situations sometimes dictate a departure from the ordinary contract-letting procedure (Art. 3.2). Examples are contracts for the procurement and installation of highly specialized equipment and machinery, such as toll-collection facilities and
communication systems.
For projects in the private sector, instead of advertising publicly for bids, the owner in such
cases usually invites proposals from a selected group of contractors especially quali?ed and generally recognized as specialists in the manufacture and installation of such facilities. When competition is possible, it is so arranged. The contract documents prepared by the owners engineer in such instances are as described in Art. 3.2, with certain exceptions. Since advertisement is not used, this and related items of the documents are not included, but the contracting procedure is substantially that followed for contracts publicly
bid. Public agencies can use a modi?ed procedure that involves preparation of and public bid on a prequali?cation bid package, prepared by their engineers.
See also Art. 3.8.
3.4 Standard Speci?cations
Government agencies and many other public bodies sponsoring public works publish standard speci?cations, which establish a uniformity of administrative procedure and quality of constructed facilities, as evidenced by speci?c requirements of materials and workmanship. A sponsors standard speci?cations usually contain information for prospective bidders, general requirements governing contractual procedures and
performance of work by a contractor, and technical speci?cations covering construction of the particular work that lies within their jurisdiction. Highways, bridges, buildings, and water and sanitary works are examples of the types of improvements for which agencies may have standard speci?cations. Standard speci?cations, published periodically, may be updated in the interim by issuance of amendments, revisions, or, supplements.
So that the speci?cations for a particular contract are completely adapted to the work of
that contract, the standard speci?cations almost always require modi?cations and additions. The assembled modi?cations and additions are known as supplementary speci?cations, special provisions, or special conditions. In conjunction with the standard speci?cations, they comprise the speci?cations for the work (see also Art. 3.11).
By : E-book Standard Handbook for Civil Engineers
