How Do You Write an RFP for Engineering Services That Works?

A good RFP for engineering services defines the project, the exact scope of services, the schedule, the deliverables, and how you'll evaluate proposals — crisply enough that every firm prices the same work. Most RFPs fail because they're vague about scope, so firms guess differently and you get proposals that can't be compared. Think of the RFP as the first engineering document of the project. Its quality predicts the quality of everything downstream. A precise RFP attracts precise firms; a sloppy one attracts whoever is cheapest at guessing.

Project description: what you're building, where, how big, and what phase you're in. Include anything that affects engineering effort — seismic zone, floodplain, historic district, phased occupancy. Firms can't price what they can't see. Scope of services: the heart of the document. Name the disciplines, the phases, the deliverables down to drawing format, and who handles plan-check corrections and construction-phase services. Attach any existing surveys, geotech, or as-builts — proposers price risk, and unknown conditions are pure risk. Schedule and submittal requirements: milestone dates plus exactly what a proposal must contain — fee breakdown format, team resumes, relevant project list, references, insurance. If every proposal arrives in the same format, evaluation takes hours instead of weeks.

State your evaluation criteria in the RFP — and then actually use them. Price-only selection on professional services is a known failure mode. Here's the weighting I recommend to owners.

• Relevant experience first: comparable projects completed, not just years in business
• Team assignment: the actual people doing the work, not the firm's brochure principals
• Scope completeness: does the proposal cover corrections, site visits, and coordination — or exclude them?
• Schedule realism: a credible plan beats an optimistic promise
• Fee reasonableness last: the lowest qualified fee among complete scopes, not the lowest number on any page