How do you check foreman experience in Qardho?

A low bid in Qardho usually rests on fewer supervision hours than the work needs. To check the named foreman's experience, ask for a list of recent completed sites with dates and roles, then visit one and question the trades on how they received their daily setting out and instructions. Paperwork alone will not show it.

How does foreman experience underbidding risk start in Qardho?

The risk starts when the tender prices one foreman across more trades than one person can direct in a day. A firm chasing a low total cuts supervision first because it is the easiest cost to hide. The named foreman may be capable, but the allowance assumes they will run blockwork, drainage, steel fixing and finishing at the same time.

The result is thin daily work direction. Setting out happens late, the first crew waits, and later trades inherit mistakes made before them. In an inland climate with hot afternoons, work often starts early and compresses into fewer daylight hours, so supervision has to be sharper, not thinner. To test the assumption, ask the bidder how many separate work fronts the foreman will run on a typical day and how many people will report to them. Then ask the municipal engineer's office whether it holds records of recent comparable builds and who supervised them. The office may or may not keep such records, so treat this as a check, not a guarantee.

How do you test the foreman's experience before award?

Test the person, not the company profile. Ask for the foreman's name, the sites they supervised in the last few years, the trades on each, and a referee who was on site. Then walk one of those sites with the foreman and ask the trades there two questions: who set out your work, and how did you know the levels. Their answers tell you whether the foreman actually directed the work or only signed attendance sheets.

Request the site records from that job: daily diaries, setting-out notes, concrete pour records and inspection requests. A foreman who ran work will have initials on them. Ask about one specific problem on that site, such as a level error or a late delivery, and listen for what they changed next. Add the named foreman to the bid documents, with a daily presence requirement and a diary in a fixed format. General practice is to record the day's labour, plant, deliveries, instructions and the location of each work front; confirm the exact format with the project engineer.

How do you close the gap during the works?

Put supervision back into the price and hold it there. If the bid excludes a full-time foreman, the client can make that a condition of award and adjust scope, not simply accept verbal promises. Check the foreman's hours against the programme at each payment application and read the diary against the inspection requests. If diaries are thin or cover several fronts with no detail, ask for a written method statement for the next week before releasing the next valuation, subject to what the contract allows.

Keep a simple check on direction quality: pick one trade each week and ask the crew how they received their instructions that morning. If the answer is vague, the supervision allowance is still too thin. Walk the works with the foreman at least weekly and agree the next three days of work fronts on paper.

What to do next

Before award, request the named foreman's site list, referee contact and a one-page supervision plan showing how many fronts they will run each day. Walk one recent site and ask the trades who set out their work. Then put the foreman's name, daily presence and diary format into the contract, and check the diary against the programme at the first payment application.