e-Bidding

e-Bidding Revolutionizes Transportation Industry Bidding

In 1996, Infotech partnered with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to develop Bid Express as an online hub for advertising construction bids - the first time anyone posted lettings online. Three years later, Infotech collaborated with the Georgia Department of Transportation to add internet bid submission capabilities to Bid Express using data encryption and public key technology for digital signatures. This platform would ultimately become the standard for bid submission to DOTs nationwide.

After Bid Express spread to 44 states nationwide, Infotech decided to develop and introduce a new version of the platform for local public agency use. This version of Bid Express, launched in 2010, is leveraged for local construction projects and general procurement. These platforms eliminated many of the issues associated with the paper-based bidding process.

The Benefits of e-Bidding

As an alternative to paper or email-based bidding processes, e-bidding offers many benefits to state and local agencies, as well as the contractors who are submitting bids to the service. These benefits include:

• Eliminating travel and/or postage from the bidding process, reducing costs and stressful submission days

• Reducing the chance of non-responsive bids thanks to error and omission alerts during submission

• Increasing the quantity and quality of bid submissions with greater reach online

• Improving the efficiency of bid set-up with custom bid templates

• Building the foundation for simplified bid analysis with electronic data

• Reducing paper waste from printed bid packets and plans

The Future of e-Bidding

The introduction of e-bidding marked a significant technological step forward for the construction industry. And while there have been incremental improvements to e-bidding technology over the past two decades, the core functionality of e-bidding platforms has remained relatively static. So what’s the next step forward for e-bidding technology?

At Infotech, we believe the incorporation of modeling data will be the next notable evolution in e-bidding technology. We are currently working to incorporate intelligent 3D models into our bidding platform and expanding the flow of bidding data as we move toward Model as the Legal Deliverable (MALD) as the new standard.

Our Vision

• Incorporating agnostic, IFC-driven models into our digital Bidx.com planroom

• Giving agencies the option to replace the traditional bid packet with an information-rich digital environment

• Streamlining the flow of design intent data into the letting phase of a project lifecycle