science

Suicide bidding

Suicide bidding is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Suicide bidding rather than just read about it. In short: Suicide bidding is a response to a tendering exercise in which a potential supplier, anxious to win business, submits a proposal to carry out the work for less than it will cost. These procurement processes are typically modelled as reverse sealed-bid auctions with the lowest bid winning.

Key takeaways

Suicide bidding belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Suicide bidding to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Suicide bidding from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Suicide bidding is a response to a tendering exercise in which a potential supplier, anxious to win business, submits a proposal to carry out the work for less than it will cost. These procurement processes are typically modelled as reverse sealed-bid auctions with the lowest bid winning. The motive for such bidding is to keep the company's skilled labour employed, even if the project only breaks even or makes a loss. This can result in poor quality work, poor service and debates over loopholes in contract wording in attempts to charge clients extra, or even insolvency on the part of the contractor. The practice has particularly been noted in construction bidding. Around 2010, suicide bidding was widespread due to the economic crisis and strong competition. 2010 survey by the Chartered Institute of Building found that 82% of respondents believed that “suicide bidding” existed within the industry. It was considered to have contributed to the financial collapse of British firms Connaught plc and Rok plc in 2010. The Civil Engineering Contractors Association acknowledged that the practice had become "rife" in the desperate competition for work during the late-2000s recession, but blamed the public sector procurement process for focussing on the lowest price rather than best value. Some commissioning bodies, such as Crossrail, openly discourage the practice. In 2011, some housing associations began including specific terms in tenders to protect them from legal challenge in the event of refusing to award the contract according to the lowest tender.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Suicide bidding

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Suicide bidding claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Suicide bidding before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Suicide bidding ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Suicide bidding

In research: Suicide bidding appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Suicide bidding in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Suicide bidding is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Bidding strategy, Construction industry, Insolvency, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Suicide bidding outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Suicide bidding in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Suicide bidding means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Suicide bidding out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Suicide bidding in simple terms?

Why does Suicide bidding matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Suicide bidding?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Suicide bidding.