So SAM, how do you actually evalute the bids for the TV trucks at work? What are the criteria? is it only based on lowest dollar.

I suspect that when you evalute the bids from the 5 bidders for those custom TV trucks it's not only based on lowest dollar. Given that you work for a large company that has processes for evaluating bids you would look at the entire bid and not only the bottom line. I'd be very surprised that you don't have an evaluation matrix that has a weighting process (to measure compliance to the original RFQ) and ensure best value for the dollar spent.

Do you do this for yourself. As you previously mentioned. your time is worth money. An informed consumer would.

The reason why most A/V companies don't like to give line item pricing is that we all have gone through the time and effort of bidding on a job like only to find out that the customer was only window shopping or had already lined up some trunk slammer and just wanted the satisfaction of know he/she got the best price possible. I've had this happen working for large telecommunications companies and for my own company and it's a pain in the ass and a huge waste of time and like you time is money.

Also, the truck suppliers may provide line item descriptions, but you won't get line item pricing from these truck suppliers. Would you buy a the engine from someone else because it was cheaper and expect the TV truck integrator to install it free or for almost nothing.

I don't charge for bids, but do charge for design work.

PS: I would be surprised if the margins on those custom TV trucks are less than 30%. Custom work is custom work doesn't matter what industry. I wonder what NBC's margins are for air time?