Incentives

These are rewards given when vendor/contractor exceeds your expectation. Incentives should increase contractor?s profit. Incentives can be categorised as:

• Cost incentive: No incentive for the contractor can be structured. In a contract where design and development are included, a value engineering clause can be incorporated to motivate the contractor to submit a proposal for cost reductions. The contractor gets the opportunity to consider an extra profit for himself while quoting the price reduction.
• Technical incentive: These are incentives for quality and performance of work. These can also be applied to contracts which include design and development in addition to construction.
• Schedule incentive: All construction contracts incorporate a Liquidated Damages (LD) clause which refers to penalty for delay in time of completion. Sometimes a Bonus clause for early completion is incorporated. In such a case, the LD clause is called a Penalty clause.

Caution must be exercised while combining cost, technical and schedule incentives in a contract to ensure that different incentives do not counteract or conflict with each other. Also, when more than one contract is awarded, one contractor who is given an incentive for early completion may complete his work early but this will turn out to be a benefit only if you can ensure that the following interfacing contractor can commence his work consistent with the previous contractor?s work completion.