Tender response writer for engineering consultancies

The problem

A tender for structural engineering services arrives as a bundle, with requirements scattered through the conditions, the brief and the returnable schedules. Someone has to find them all before writing a response. One missed requirement can knock a submission out; one overstated claim can do worse.

How it works

1. Open TenderForge and enter the project name and your company name; the company name is required and no stand-in is supplied.
2. Upload up to five PDF or Word tender documents, 5 MB each, or paste the text, then check and edit it. A scanned PDF has no text; paste it by hand. One extraction reads up to 200,000 characters; a longer upload says so, and you trim it or extract in parts.
3. Select Extract Requirements. The tool picks out numbered, lettered and bulleted items, table rows, sentences with an obligation word ("shall", "must", "should", "is to") or naming the tenderer, and labelled values such as "Bid validity: 120 days", each as its own item. A line in capitals is read as a heading unless it has an obligation word or is an item with a figure. It reads English only. It sorts requirements into eight categories by keyword, lists one that fits none, or two equally, as Uncategorised, and files a returnable schedule such as "Schedule C2 Insurances" by its title. Priority comes from wording: high or medium from a word such as "must", "Pass/Fail" or "should" (or high from a heading such as "Mandatory criteria" when the item has none); standard when the wording waives it ("not required"); unrated, not a grade, when there is no priority word. It lists, with line numbers, the lines it did not read and the lines in capitals it read as headings. This step is rule-based, not AI.
4. Choose a cover letter, technical proposal, fee proposal or capability statement, or upload your own PDF or Word template for the draft to follow.
5. Select Generate Response. AI drafts the document from the project name, your company name and the extracted requirements. If nothing was extracted, this step is not offered. You can export the draft as a PDF.

Know what the AI is given: your company name and the requirements list, nothing else — no past projects, staff, qualifications, insurances or rates. It is told to write a bracketed placeholder — [YEARS OF EXPERIENCE], [PI INSURANCE LIMIT], [PAST PROJECT] — for any fact it was not given, and not to assert accreditations, memberships, insurance levels, staff numbers or past projects. Models can ignore instructions, so read every sentence as a claim you are about to make. The response is not saved to your account, so export anything you want to keep.

Worked example

Illustrative input, not a real tender: a council request for tender for a community hall. Five numbered items ask for PI insurance, an NER-registered principal engineer, a design methodology and QA approach, a lump sum fee with a schedule of rates, and a program with documentation complete within ten weeks. A bullet lists the deliverables; it ends with the closing time and "LATE TENDERS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED".

The tool returns eight requirements in six categories, three of them high priority: the items worded with "must" or "shall". The other five, the methodology item among them, have no priority word and are unrated. Both closing lines are read (a labelled time; "will") and are Uncategorised. The program item goes to Program & Timeline ("program", "within ten weeks"). The "Deliverables:" label is listed as not read, and the two capitals lines at the top as read as headings. A test repeats this run, so this paragraph changes with the code.

Next: check the Uncategorised and unrated items against the tender, then generate a cover letter. Strike out every claim your records can't back.

What it doesn't do

• It can still claim things your business can't back up. The prompt forbids it and asks for placeholders, but a model can ignore an instruction. A claim you do not hold may amount to misleading conduct and can void a contract. Verify every one.
• It doesn't know your facts. Check every claim, price, quantity, date and commitment against your own records. Any fee is the model's assumption, not your pricing.
• It can miss or misread requirements and deadlines. Prose without an obligation word, a line in capitals without one, or a table a PDF has flattened can be skipped, and a keyword can misfile a requirement. Read the original tender documents.
• It does not read scanned documents. A PDF without a text layer gives no text.
• It is not legal or commercial advice.