IFB Generator Application

About the Program

Category: Transportation (Best in Category)

Year: 2015

The Montgomery County, Maryland, Department of Transportation (MCDOT) advertises construction projects including roads, bridges, bikeways, and drainage improvements. A majority of the construction contracts are offered as competitive solicitations. Invitations for Bids (IFB) are typically prepared and assembled by manually combining electronic and paper copies of project specifications, which is often tedious and time consuming. In addition, changing headers and footers, numbering and collating pages etc. took a significant amount of time. The Division of Transportation Engineering (DTE) of MCDOT adopted and fully implemented the “IFB Generator” Application in 2014. The program was developed for the County’s use by one of the County’s consultants, Rummel, Klupper and Kahl (RK&K), with approval from the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA). In 2014, this application was used successfully to generate Invitation for Bids (IFB) for the Whites Ferry Rd Bridges project, by reducing the amount of time required to advertise as well as by reducing the amount and types of errors usually encountered in this process. Since then, DTE has advertised two more projects based on IFBs developed using this application. By reducing the time required to assemble and publish IFBs by more than 75%, Montgomery County will realize a saving of more than 768 person-hours which is equivalent to a cost saving of more than $43,000 annually.