Community Toilets’ Tender Workflow
In the past few weeks and months, most of the work that has happened on Project Sammaan has involved intense collaboration between various partners in order to fulfill various deliverables for tendering the community toilets in both Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. The very nature of the hardware workstream currently involves sequential and simultaneous inputs from various partners, including Anagram Architects, the Consortium for DEWATS Dissemination (CDD), Codesign, and Arkitechno.
The usual sequence of work involves multiple steps:
> Anagram works on drawings for various architectural aspects, including structural, engineering, electrical and plumbing, in order to create the full tender package of drawings for each site, along with the appropriate Bill of Quantities (BoQs) for all of this.
> Codesign prepares the design and BoQs for the various sorts of signage typologies (ranging from designs for the very small 2-seater toilets to the 12-seater facilities) and hands them over to Anagram. This includes BoQs for the facade and branding design as well as various signage and advertising layouts across the facilities.
> CDD surveys and decides on various sorts of treatment systems that are then assigned to different sites based on the unique topology and nature of each site (e.g., soil conditions, area available, size of the facility and subsequent volume of waste water generated, groundwater levels, etc.). These detailed drawings are prepared and appropriate BoQs are then handed over to Anagram.
> Anagram compiles BoQs and drawings across the architectural, sewage treatment and signage streams to create decks for each toilet site, that are passed over to Arkitechno.
> Arkitechno studies the documents and estimates to ensure that they are error-free and then submits them to the engineering departments at the BMC and CMC. Once the engineers inspect these documents, there is usually a process of feedback and incorporation of changes, which again includes close coordination between the various partners.
> Arkitechno finally divides the toilet sites into tender-ready packages based on directions from the BMC and CMC and submits the final sets back to them.
While the process laid out here seems fairly linear, what it does not capture is the constant and complex interplay of responsibilities and deliverables between fairly diverse organizations. Between the various partners, there is a vast range of professional approaches and styles, along with clear and separate responsibilities. However, in order to deliver on the project, it is vital that these diverse partners work and communicate with each other constantly and in an open, generous and collaborative fashion.
One of Quicksand’s biggest responsibilities on the project as the Central Implementation Agency, has been to coordinate this workflow and ensure that issues and challenges are constantly discussed and worked out in order to ensure that the overall project goals are achieved in as efficient a manner as is possible.