9 FROM FIDIC PUBLICATIONS SELECTION BY ABILITY 2. Selection Criteria 2.1 Introduction The most important standards by which to judge a consulting engineer's suitability to carry out a particular project are: - technical competence - managerial ability - availability of resources - professional independence - fairness of fee structure - professional integrity - quality assurance system. The client should seek information on all these matters by: - obtaining compehensive written information from the consulting engineers in the form of proposals -talking to their senior personnel - consulting their clients - viewing the projects that they have accomplished and visiting the users - visiting the premises of the consulting engineer and examining systems and methods of work as well as hardware and software capabilities. 2.2 Technical competence The technically competent consulting engineer will be able to offer the client a team that will have the education, training, practial experience and technical judgement to carry out the project. The client can assess the competence of the team by: - asking for a statement of methodology of technical approach and the methods to be utilized in the performance of the work - obtaining a list of similar projects carried out by the firm and its staff -finding out if the firm has worked before in similar contries - examining the experience and qualifications of the personnel to be engaged on the project - discussing the merits of the consulting engineer's previous projects with owners and users. 2.3 Managerial ability To realize a project successfully, a consulting engineer must have managerial skills to match the size and type of project. He will need to marshall adequate manpower resources, maintain schedules and ensure that the work is planned in the most straightforward fashion. The consulting engineer will need to be able to deal with contractors, suppliers loan agencies and government agencies during the course of the project. At the same time the client must be informed of the development of the project so that he is in a position to make decisions quickly and accurately. The client can assess the managerial ability of the team by: - examining the consulting engineer's record of project achievement - examining the consulting engineer's manual of engineering, design guides and any other procedures which he has designed and which he follows in order to perform his services - examining the success of the proposed project manager on previous projects - asking the consulting engineer to explain in his submission how he indends to manage the project - examining and analyzing the monthly progress reports of the consulting engineer on a similar project - confirming that he can communicate with the consulting engineer verbally and by correspondence - checking the consulting engineer's proposals to transfer technology. 2.4. Avaliability of resources When selecting a consulting engineer it is important to establish whether the firm has sufficient financial and manpower resources to carry out the project to the necessary technical standard and to the time and cost schedule. This will depend on how far the firm's current resources are committed and its expectations of further work. The client should check that the consulting engineer has sufficient staff ·available at the relevant levels and that he has sufficient financial
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