Operation and Maintenance Tender Proposal: What to Show

An operation and maintenance (O&M) tender proposal is the technical offer that shows how you will keep a facility running for the whole contract: the work you will do, who will do it and on which shifts, how requests and spare parts are handled, and how your performance will be measured. The entity will rely on this service for years, so the best offers read as a plan the buyer can hold you to.

Under the current Government Tenders and Procurement Law, maintenance and operation contracts are continuing-service contracts: they last up to five years and must contain performance-level and ongoing-evaluation terms that let the entity terminate or reduce payments if performance is unsatisfactory. The new law, which takes effect in early January 2027, keeps both rules.

What does the tender booklet ask an O&M offer to contain?

The entity chooses the required documents, so read your booklet first. The Ministry of Finance's model booklet for operation and maintenance contracts gives, as an example, a work methodology that may include these plans:

• Operating procedures for each facility system. If the entity has none approved, yours go to it for approval and become the reference for evaluating your performance.
• Maintenance procedures based on the manufacturers' instructions and the O&M manuals the entity has approved.
• Request handling: priority, planning, scheduling, execution and closure of every job.
• Health, safety and environment: responsibilities, a risk register and emergency plans, with staff trained on them.
• Contract management and performance: report templates and frequency, where records are kept, the invoicing mechanism and a contract risk register.

The example adds the work schedule, previous experience, the work team and, where required, the targeted local content percentage. Check the scoring too: for works not needing high or complex technical capability, the model makes technical evaluation pass or fail and the lowest price wins, unless a local-content or national-product preference mechanism applies. The current evaluation-criteria controls (2021) also set a range for the weight of the technical offer when O&M offers are scored: 20% to 40% for routine O&M below the high-value contract threshold, 20% to 50% for other O&M at or above it, and 50% to 70% for specialised O&M at or above it, so your booklet may score the technical offer rather than only pass it. Map each plan to a requirement in your compliance matrix and build the document on the structure in our guide to a technical offer that scores.

What should each part of the offer show?

How do labour, shifts and Saudization shape the staffing plan?

The model booklet lets the entity ask for your staff and labour distribution plan across the project phases, with its timeline. Keep it consistent with your manpower cost build-up. The model's labour clause, which the entity may amend, says:

• Night, Friday and public-holiday work needs the entity's written permission, except in emergencies and where work is customarily done in rotation or in two periods, so state your shift pattern.
• Saudis must be enabled to work in the project's jobs under the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development's O&M localization guide, with minimum percentages by job level. Where a ministry decision sets another rate for a profession, the higher one counts.
• Saudi hires are paid at least the booklet's floor for their level, and the full wage is registered with the General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI).
• Jobs are advertised on Jadarat before Saudis are hired, Saudi staff on the existing contract move across on pay and benefits no lower than under it, and skill-classified staff records go to the entity every month.

How should you handle spare parts and consumables?

Define them first, as the model booklet does. Spare parts replace components that reach the end of their useful life or fail suddenly, and do not vanish with use. Consumables are materials used in operation or scheduled periodic maintenance, or consumed regularly. Tools, equipment and maintenance consumables sit inside the contract price.

Where parts and materials are paid from a specified item set by the entity, the model adds rules to price against. Each purchase needs the entity's written approval. You bring at least three quotations from different suppliers, valid for at least 30 days, unless only one supplier can supply it with no acceptable alternative. You are paid against supplier invoices after the entity checks the prices, with no profit, transport or installation charges added, and you keep buying even if earlier payments are late.

Which response times and KPIs can you safely commit to?

Only those your own records can prove. The current Regulations require regular assessments of continuing contracts against the performance level in the contract, on dates it states, with final results uploaded to the Portal for other government entities to see. In performance-based contracts, the current Regulations direct the entity to focus the conditions on outcomes rather than on the contractor simply doing its tasks, and to tie payments to performance measurements. In such contracts the entity may terminate the contract if the contractor scores below 70% three consecutive times and fails to put things right.

Fines are the other lever. The model lets the entity grade fines to the seriousness of each breach, as a lump sum or a percentage of the failed item, and deduct the value of work not done. The current law caps the shortfall fine in a continuing-service contract at 20% of the contract value; the new law, which takes effect in early January 2027, lowers it to 15%. Both allow a higher cap with the Minister's prior approval if bidders are told before they bid, so read the clause before pricing the risk.

How do you prepare for handover from day one?

Under the current Regulations the entity forms a technical committee to inspect and receive a continuing contract's works 30 days before the term ends, and defects you do not complete are executed at your expense or deducted from your invoices. In continuing-service contracts the final guarantee is reduced yearly in proportion to the work done, never below 5% of the remaining work, and the new law, which takes effect in early January 2027, keeps that rule. Offer the on-the-job and side-by-side training the model describes, and keep your asset and records pack current.

Frequently asked questions

NextBid's bid management team writes operation and maintenance technical proposals, from methodology plans to staffing and KPI sections, through our bid and RFP writing service.