Bid Running, a Lost Art: The pro's and con's of modern bid delivery

The Envelope and the Pay Phone:

At the tender age of 18, I would get on a TWA 727 at Sky Harbor Airport and fly to Albuquerque with a plain manilla envelope, a big one with the metal clip. Being too young to rent a car, I'd take a cab to the Forest Service Offices on Gold Street, find a pay phone, and call the office and get the final numbers and totals before sealing the envelope and delivering the bid.

Bid documents were completed by hand, in ink, back in those days and errors were common due to dyslexic bid runners, mumbling estimators, or bad penmanship. The Arizona Department of Transportation had very few pay phones near where bids were delivered, so our bid runners would try to scout an empty office in the complex to be just minutes from the time clock.

One day the bid runner's car broke down half way between Tucson and Phoenix, so we dispatched cars from both offices to drive to the rescue at breakneck speed, first car to Toltec Road wins. Finally in the mid 1990's, cell phones became reliable enough to allow the bid runner to sit in their car and complete the bids. 120 degree days in downtown Phoenix made for some overheating issues, but cell phones were a huge advantage no doubt.

Double time online:

Once the internet grew some wings of reliability, agencies started to move to an option for online bid submittal. Since the internet was not very reliable, we went though a long period where we prepared a bid by hand as usual, running a parallel process, just in case the internet went down, or our digital signature would not validate.

Eventually, the technology improved to the point that some agencies no longer accept paper bids. The meebee weebee (mbe/wbe) requirement is fodder for another post.

Long story short, bid runners are not obsolete yet but the skill set to accurately write in 600 unit prices, extensions, and totals is mostly a bygone talent.

The Con's:

Over the prior 150 years, bid submittals by hand had achieved a certain commonality between agencies. Today, there is little to no standardization between agencies and many Federal entities still require either a hard copy or a PDF documents. Some even allow you to turn in your bid total electronically and follow up promptly with your printed schedule of values.

If you've never participated in a "reverse auction" bid, then you'll probably live longer than those of us who have. Big mining companies and some waste management companies went down that road for awhile and may still be doing so. They essentially use a system designed for vendors apply to contracting procurements. It works, but it's a wild journey!

Lastly, subs and vendors have realized that the primes can now adjust their bids and submit a final number within seconds of the closing, no more licking and taping envelopes, so they wait even longer to send their final quotes. Technology's Yin and Yang hard at work!