Overview

This unit aims at introducing specialised knowledge and skills in regard to procurement, tendering and contracts for construction and infrastructure management projects.

Requisites

Prerequisites

Undergraduate students must have completed 250 credit points

Teaching periods
Location
Start and end dates
Last self-enrolment date
Census date
Last withdraw without fail date
Results released date
Semester 1
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
03-March-2025
01-June-2025
Last self-enrolment date
16-March-2025
Census date
31-March-2025
Last withdraw without fail date
24-April-2025
Results released date
08-July-2025

Learning outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:

  • Assess objectives/ options and apply suitable protocols and processes/ methods for procurement
  • Appraise, develop, and employ best practices and advanced procurement systems
  • Evaluate procurement risks and adopt suitable prevention/ mitigation measures
  • Prepare and/ or analyse tenders as well as price + non-price proposals for source selection decisions and negotiate for reinforcing best value throughout project life-cycle in different procurement arrangements
  • Recognise and use various forms of contracts and procurement procedures in the building/ infrastructure projects including subcontracts and professional services contracts
  • Assess contractual/ payment issues and recommend suitable solutions in building/ civil infrastructure project delivery

Teaching methods

Hawthorn

Type Hours per week Number of weeks Total (number of hours)
Online Contact (Phasing out)
Synchronous Lectures		1.50 12 weeks 18
Online Contact (Phasing out)
Synchronous Tutorials		1.50 12 weeks 18
Face to Face Contact (Phasing out)
Workshop		4.00 3 weeks 12
Online
Directed Online Learning and Independent Learning		1.00 12 weeks 12
Unspecified Learning Activities (Phasing out)
Independent Learning		7.50 12 weeks 90
TOTAL150

Assessment

Type Task Weighting ULO's
AssignmentIndividual 20 - 50% 1,2,3,4,5,6 
Presentation and Response to ScenarioIndividual/Group 20 - 30% 2,3,6 
TestIndividual 30 - 50% 1,2,3,4,5,6 

Content

This unit includes three special related components as below:

Component 1: Procurement in project-based industries

    • Procurement fundamentals
    • Public sector procurement principles and policies/ protocols
    • Overview of different procurement routes with sequential and integrated methods
    • Procurement objectives and strategies
    • Partnering, Alliancing, other relational and value networking arrangements
    • Public Private Partnership (PPP)
    • Early Contractor Involvement (ECI)
    • Stakeholder and end-user/ customer consultations in large and/ or complex projects
    • Sustainable procurement strategies and measures
    • International projects and global supply chains
    • Strategies and policies for procuring novel materials, technologies and solutions
    • Roles, responsibilities, competencies/ capabilities for procurement personnel
    • Procurement risks, ethics and integrity
    • Special topics: Procurement best practices and innovations  

Component 2: Tendering, source selections and performance assessments for value reinforced project delivery

    • Estimating and cost planning fundamentals for tendering
    • Bid/ tender preparation and benchmarking mark-up/ profit margins in different
    • Bidding/ tendering in different procurement routes
    • Auctions and reverse auctions
    • Registered lists, prequalification and post-qualification
    • Multi-criteria analysis fundamentals for source selection decisions in procurement
    • Supplier/ vendor selection for materials and equipment
    • Bid/ tender analysis and contractor/ sub-contractor selection for project delivery
    • Price and/ or qualifications-based consultant selection in project-based industries
    • Price and/ or non-price factors based best value source selection in integrated procurement routes
    • Best and Final Offers and Negotiations
    • Value management and enhancement (value creation and capture) opportunities in project procurements
    • Benchmarking best practices/ systems for performance assessment of selected source in project delivery and cost/ value analysis of completed projects

Component 3: Contracts and payment arrangements in a range of procurement  

    • Contract principles and elements of contract;
    • Contract types for project delivery
    • Payment arrangements in different procurement arrangements for project delivery
    • Contract documents and documentation controls
    • Contract administration fundamentals in project-based industries
    • Case-study examples of contractual issues and resolutions

Study resources

Reading materials

A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.