Qualifications-Based Selection

As most of us have come to learn, cheaper services usually do not equate to better services. Remembering this when it's time to select a professional for your project design and construction can save you money in the long term. There are state and federal laws requiring qualifications-based selections to uphold standards that result in project management that is monetarily beneficial over time.

If a professional touts low overhead as a reason for lower prices, it is important to take a look at the professional's office environment and ask yourself a couple of questions: Does it have the necessary equipment to produce the materials needed for design? Does it have the necessary support staff trained and in place? If the professional runs an efficient office, the overhead will be even lower than if the office were poorly run. Taking the time to review details such as these will provide you with some insight into how your own project would most likely be run. Additionally, a competent, knowledgeable and qualified professional will be up to date on technology, design and regulatory requirements.

Qualifications-based selection offers many advantages over competitive bidding by allowing you, the client, to find the professional best suited for your project needs. Take time to get to know the professionals who want to work for you. Get to know their professional habits, their office environment, their staff and their former and current clientele. Making this effort up front will pay for itself many times over in the future.

The Texas Professional Services Procurement Act states: "The fact that the selection of certified public accountants, architects, physicians, optometrists, surgeons and professional engineers on the basis of the lowest bid places a premium on incompetence and is most likely procedure for selecting the least able or qualified and the most incompetent practitioner for the performance of services vitally affecting the health, welfare and safety of the public and that, in spite of repeated expressions to the legislature excepting such professional services from statutes providing for competitive bidding procedures, some public officers continue to apply competitive bidding procedures to the selection of such professional personnel, creates an emergency of the greatest public importance to health, safety and welfare of the people of Texas..."

You can rest assured that Oller Engineering Inc. employs only those professionals who will treat your project as if it were their own. Integrity, honesty and attention to detail are constants in our way of doing business. State-of-the-art technology, up-to-date knowledge of regulations and excellent customer service set OEI apart in a qualifications-based selection process.