Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.2478/otmcj-2020-0015
Unsuccessful bids: Coefficient of variation of bids as indicator of project risk
Young Joo Kim
orcid.org/0000-0001-7977-468X
; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Miroslaw J. Skibniewsk
; Center of Excellence in Project Management, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA
Abstract
Although unsuccessful bids are usually discarded once the bids are opened under the typical lowest-price sealed-bid project award auction environment,
considering efforts and resources expended by responsive and responsible bidders, it is likely that not only
a successful bid but also unsuccessful bids can convey
important information about the project at hand. This
article documents an effort to answer the question that
whether projects that receive more dispersed estimates
at the bidding stage are more likely to experience greater
project cost changes. Taking collective intelligence
as the theoretical framework, a total of 210 projects
conducted by the Ohio Department of Transportation
between 2008 and 2018 were analyzed to investigate
the relationship between the coefficients of variation of
bids and project final costs. It was found that large projects with above-average coefficients of variation of bids
showed greater deviations from original award amounts
than large projects with below-average coefficients of
variation. The finding enables project owners to study
the projects before execution by recouping valuable
insights from the community of bidders on the possibility of greater project cost changes faced by the planned
projects without complex and mathematically rigorous
models
Keywords
bidding data; collective intelligence; coefficient of variation; Welch’s t-test; project risk
Hrčak ID:
243174
URI
Publication date:
1.2.2020.
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