Many contractual problems relating to performance can be traced back to inappropriate drafting of the technical specifications. The problems commonly relate to: inclusion of irrelevant or contradictory information, use of ambiguous or undefined terms, or concentrating on the means by which a result is to be achieved rather than on the performance required. Drafting specifications of this sort will maximise the probability of the supplier understanding what was intended and hence of providing what was actually required. It will also minimise the remedies available to the purchaser to resolve problems. The approach advocated in this paper is to adopt a results oriented specification by which the vendor assumes most of the responsibility for determining the means of achieving these results. This does require greater care by the purchaser in evaluating tenders, but the end result will usually be more efficient and flexible plant and clearer lines of responsibility on the vendor if equipment does not perform as intended.
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