How do you change the bulbs on these ceiling lights

[BobAJob]

52 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

On very large military projects, the competing companies are often paid to produce designs and costings, and sometimes prototypes.

Which reminds me, I must go and look at that new stealth, the B-21.

Yeah, but that is because they are unique projects and they want to derisk certain elements before they commit to buying, otherwise what often happens is the project takes longer and costs more and sometimes needs to get scrapped as it turns out that technology isn't up to doing what is required like the Nimrod airborne early warning plane which had more than a few technical and space challenges before it was scrapped and replaced with proven US technology. 

[BobAJob]

48 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Agreed. not the sort of decision that many people are prepared to take. 

 

Its really annoying when you find that you were never going to get the job.

Sometimes it is 'mates' and you are being used to do a check price for the mate to just beat.

And once I priced a whole car component factory for a Japanese manufacturer, against 3 competitors.

It turned out that the Japanese manager was in the dark too (for credibility) and they were doing the same in 3 other towns and ....they built it in another country.

 

Are you quoting a lump sum, at total risk, or rates?

 

Yes, it's sometimes the case that a customer will ask you to bid just to get the price of their preferred supplier down.  In that case you may choose not to bid and the customer can deal with their cunning plan not working out. 

[saveasteading]

24 minutes ago, BobAJob said:

In that case

How would we know?

 

BTW a company I once worked for always put in calculated oh & p except once, when it went in at nil. zero. zilch

I was forbidden to tell anyone why, but can now reveal:

The reason being that once on those premises there were probably 2 years of extra jobs.

How did my boss know? I can only speculate.

[saveasteading]

On 03/12/2022 at 16:25, BobAJob said:

Total cost £200 which seemed a reasonable price. 

I have just noticed the batch of messages that you didn't use the electrician with the high quote, which was the original point of discussion? 

Not sure what the discussion is about then. 

Except I hope we have been of some interest to anyone wanting to know more about how contractors have to include unproductive time.

 

And goodnight.

[Thorfun]

1 hour ago, saveasteading said:

I have just noticed the batch of messages that you didn't use the electrician with the high quote, which was the original point of discussion? 

Not sure what the discussion is about then. 

Except I hope we have been of some interest to anyone wanting to know more about how contractors have to include unproductive time.

 

And goodnight.

And I think the moral of this story is to always get more than one quote (3 is the magic number for me) to compare and then make a decision based on cost, previous work examples, personality and gut feeling!