We built a multi-agent tender evaluation system over 10 weeks. System architecture — 6 specialised agents coordinated by an orchestrator: Agent 1 — Document Processor: received the tender package (multiple PDFs, sometimes Word documents and Excel spreadsheets). Tasks: OCR for scanned documents (Arabic and English), document classification (identifying which document is the technical proposal, which is the commercial proposal, etc. — not always labelled consistently), text extraction (converting all content to searchable, structured text), and table extraction (bill of quantities, pricing tables, personnel matrices — extracting structured data from PDF tables, which is particularly challenging for Arabic RTL tables). Technology: ABBYY for OCR (Arabic and English), GPT-4o-mini for document classification, and custom table extraction for BoQ data. Output: structured content repository — each section of the tender identified, extracted, and indexed for the downstream agents. Agent 2 — Compliance Checker: received the structured content and checked against mandatory requirements.
Rules engine: 45 compliance rules covering — insurance (minimum coverage amounts, required types — Professional Indemnity, Public Liability, Workers Compensation, CAR/EAR), certifications (ISO 9001 quality management, ISO 14001 environmental, ISO 45001 OH&S — checking validity dates and scope), financial (minimum turnover, liquidity ratio, bank references — extracting financial data from submitted statements), personnel (key personnel with required qualifications — project manager, site engineer, safety officer — checking submitted CVs against qualification requirements), and Qatarisation (minimum percentage of Qatari nationals in specified roles — checking the personnel plan against local content requirements). Output: compliance matrix — each requirement scored as Compliant, Non-Compliant, or Partially Compliant, with evidence references (page numbers and quoted text from the submission). Agent 3 — Technical Evaluator: analysed the technical proposal against evaluation criteria. Each criterion: evaluated by extracting relevant content from the submission and scoring against the defined rubric.
Evaluation areas: methodology (is the proposed approach technically sound? Does it address the specific challenges of the project?), programme/timeline (is the proposed timeline realistic? Are key milestones achievable given the scope?), resources (are proposed resources adequate — equipment, materials, personnel — for the project scale?), quality plan (does the proposed quality management approach meet the project requirements?), and HSE plan (is the safety approach comprehensive and appropriate for the project type and location?). Scoring: each criterion scored on a defined scale (1-10) with structured justification — the agent providing specific references to the submission content that supports its score. The justification: enabling human reviewers to quickly verify the AI's assessment. Agent 4 — Commercial Evaluator: analysed the commercial proposal.
Tasks: BoQ verification (checking that all items in the client's bill of quantities have been priced — identifying any omitted items or scope exclusions), rate analysis (comparing unit rates against the group's cost database — flagging rates that are significantly below cost (potential front-loading or below-cost bidding) or significantly above market (potential overpricing)), preliminary/general items (analysing site establishment, management, and overhead items — comparing against benchmarks for similar project types), provisional and prime cost sums (verifying correct allowances and mark-ups), and total price analysis (overall competitiveness, price/quality balance, risk-adjusted comparison). Output: commercial evaluation summary with scored comparison across all tenderers. Agent 5 — Arabic-English Translator: a dedicated translation agent that operated on-demand for the other agents. When any agent encountered content in the non-primary evaluation language: it called the translation agent.
The translation agent: not a generic translator but a construction-industry translator — trained with construction terminology glossaries in Arabic and English, understanding that certain Arabic technical terms have specific English equivalents that general translation would miss. Agent 6 — Report Generator: aggregating all agent outputs into the final evaluation report. Report format: matching the group's standard evaluation template — executive summary (recommendation with key justification), compliance summary (matrix of all tenderers against all compliance requirements), technical evaluation (scored comparison across all criteria), commercial evaluation (price comparison, rate analysis, risk assessment), and recommendation (ranking with detailed justification). The report: generated in both Arabic and English — not one translated from the other, but both generated with appropriate language, terminology, and formatting conventions.
Orchestrator: managing the entire pipeline — receiving a tender package, distributing to Agent 1, then routing the processed content to Agents 2-4 in parallel, calling Agent 5 as needed, and triggering Agent 6 when all evaluations complete. The orchestrator: tracking progress, managing retries for failed agent tasks, and providing a real-time dashboard showing evaluation status for all active tenders.