Basic Design: Stages, Content and Readiness

Understand what Basic Engineering Design is, how it guides the project life cycle, reduces cost and rework, and which technical criteria indicate readiness to procure execution.

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Basic Engineering Design is the coordinated set of studies, criteria, calculations, drawings, specifications, quantities, and planning documents that develops a selected solution to the level of maturity required to estimate, procure, and control its implementation. It should allow the owner to understand what will be built, which results will be required, how much the project is likely to cost, how long implementation may take, and which risks still remain.

From an engineering perspective, Basic Design is not merely a documentation stage. It is the point at which requirements cease to be generic intentions and are converted into capacities, arrangements, sizing, interfaces, materials, methods, quantities, and verifiable criteria. The more essential decisions are deferred to construction, the greater the dependence on improvisation, changes, commercial contingencies, rework, and contractual negotiation.

In public procurement, Law No. 14,133/2021 defines minimum content and a specific purpose for Basic Design. In private projects, terminology may vary — basic design, basic engineering, design basis, or definition package — but the technical need remains: develop the engineering before committing significant capital to supplies, assembly, and construction.

This article presents Basic Design from the perspective of the engineer and the owner’s engineering team: its position in the life cycle, the importance of commissioning design before execution, the development process, deliverables, the mechanisms by which engineering reduces cost and rework, and a technical gate for deciding whether the package is truly ready for procurement.

The Role of Basic Design in the Project Life Cycle

A project does not begin with drawings and does not end with physical handover. It originates from an operational, regulatory, commercial, or strategic need; passes through studies, investment decisions, engineering development, procurement, implementation, commissioning, and transition to operation. Basic Design occupies the boundary between the selected solution and the most significant commitment of resources.

From the Need to the Selected Solution

Before Basic Design, the owner must understand the problem to be solved. This involves defining objectives, expected outcomes, constraints, required capacity, performance requirements, planning horizon, and success criteria. Feasibility studies, diagnostics, FEL, and Conceptual Design may be used to compare alternatives and justify the recommended solution.

If fundamental decisions remain open — technology, location, architecture, capacity, redundancy, power source, expansion strategy, or operating model — the project is probably not ready for Basic Design. Basic engineering should develop a chosen solution; it should not merely accumulate preliminary drawings of alternatives that are still competing.

From Basic Design to Procurement

Once the solution has been selected, Basic Design must make it technically characterized and economically assessable. At this stage, the following are consolidated:

design requirements and criteria;
surveys and boundary conditions;
main capacities and sizing;
system architecture and interfaces;
materials, equipment, and performance standards;
implementation methods and constraints;
quantities, costs, and schedule;
risks, responsibilities, and acceptance criteria.

The result should support preparation of a tender, RFP, Terms of Reference, request for quotation, or contractual package. The objective is not to eliminate all uncertainty, but to make explicit what is defined, what depends on later detailing, which assumptions were adopted, and who will bear the residual risks.

From Implementation to Operation

Basic Design decisions follow the asset throughout its life cycle. Capacity, reliability, accessibility, redundancy, efficiency, standardization, safety, and maintainability influence not only CAPEX but also availability, energy consumption, spare-parts inventory, repair time, and operating cost.

Therefore, from the outset the design should consider:

how the system will be built and commissioned;
how it will be integrated with existing assets;
how tests, migrations, and shutdowns will occur;
how equipment will be accessed and replaced;
which data must be included in the as-built documentation;
which information will be handed over to operations and maintenance.

ABNT NBR ISO 21502 treats the life cycle as a set of phases with decision points, entry criteria, and exit criteria. Applied to engineering, this means Basic Design should function as a maturity gate: the next phase should be authorized only when the technical, economic, and contractual evidence is sufficient.

Responsibility of the Owner’s Engineering Team

Approval by authorities, consultants, or suppliers does not transfer the owner’s responsibility for its decisions. The owner’s engineering team must preserve the overall view of the project, validate requirements, control interfaces, and verify that the solution meets business, operational, safety, and compliance objectives.

In its guidelines for transmission projects, ONS emphasizes that conformity analysis does not replace the transmission company’s objective responsibility for the design. The principle applies to other sectors: external review may verify conformity, but it does not replace the asset owner’s technical governance.

Basic Design is an investment gate.

The next phase should be authorized by evidence of maturity, not merely by the existence of issued drawings.

Understand the Conceptual Design stage

Why Commission the Design Before Procuring Execution

Procuring execution before developing the engineering may appear to accelerate the project, but often it merely shifts decisions to a point at which changes are more expensive and the owner has less freedom of choice. Without a mature technical basis, the market does not price the same object: each supplier interprets scope, performance, quantities, and risks differently.

Engineering and Execution Are Different Decisions

Commissioning design buys the capability to investigate, compare, calculate, specify, and document. Procuring execution buys mobilization, materials, fabrication, assembly, construction, testing, and delivery. When these decisions are mixed without a clear contracting strategy, the solution may be shaped by a supplier’s commercial capabilities rather than necessarily by the best result for the owner.

This does not mean EPC, EPCM, or integrated models are unsuitable. It means the owner should first define the requirements, freedom for innovation, performance criteria, limits of responsibility, and the level of engineering that will remain under the contractor’s control. The absence of such definition is not efficient risk transfer; it is transfer of ambiguity.

Comparable Proposals Require a Common Basis

A competitive procurement process is technically comparable only when bidders receive equivalent information and price a sufficiently common object. Without Basic Design, price differences may result from:

different capacities and redundancy levels;
exclusion of auxiliary equipment or services;
brands and technologies with different performance;
quantities estimated using incompatible criteria;
diverging assumptions about existing infrastructure;
different construction methods and intervention windows;
unrecognized responsibilities;
commercial contingencies to cover uncertainty.

The lowest initial price may simply represent the smallest perceived scope. Basic Design reduces this noise by establishing objective requirements, traceable quantities, responsibilities, execution conditions, and measurement and acceptance criteria.

The Specification Protects the Outcome, Not Merely the Purchase

The technical specification translates the owner’s need into verifiable attributes. It should define performance, capacity, environmental conditions, interfaces, safety, reliability, testing, documentation, warranty, and maintenance requirements, avoiding two opposite failures.

Underspecification artificially reduces initial cost but may result in low availability, premature failures, incompatibility, excessive consumption, maintenance difficulty, or early replacement. Overspecification imposes features without proportional benefit, restricts suppliers, increases CAPEX, and creates unnecessary complexity.

The engineer’s job is to find the technically justified level: specify what is necessary to achieve the outcomes, without turning preferences into requirements and without transferring to the supplier decisions that affect safety, performance, or service life.

In Existing Installations, the Risk Is Even Greater

Expansions, modernizations, and brownfield projects depend on reliable surveys. Physical space, routes, existing loads, residual capacity, interferences, outdated documentation, hidden conditions, and operational continuity can completely change the solution.

In such cases, procuring execution based only on old drawings or superficial site visits often produces qualifications, exclusions, and change orders. Basic Design should incorporate inspections, measurements, tests, asset inventory, field survey, capacity analysis, and migration strategy. When a condition cannot be confirmed, it must appear as an explicit assumption or contractual risk.

Design Preserves the Ability to Inspect and Enforce

Inspection is not merely checking whether a service was performed. It is comparing what was delivered against previously defined requirements, calculations, specifications, drawings, tests, and acceptance criteria. Without this reference, oversight is limited to appearance, apparent quantity, or documentation produced by the contractor itself.

A consistent Basic Design creates the technical baseline for:

evaluating proposals and deviations;
approving materials and equipment;
controlling changes;
measuring services;
following tests;
recording nonconformities;
accepting the asset;
holding parties accountable according to the contract.

Transferring ambiguity is not transferring risk.

Integrated models work when requirements, performance, responsibilities, and freedom for innovation are clearly defined by the owner.

Learn about the Basic Design service

How Basic Design Is Developed and What It Should Contain

Content varies according to sector, complexity, contracting model, and risk. Even so, a robust process follows a common logic: define objectives, validate data, develop calculations and solutions, coordinate disciplines, quantify, estimate, plan, and review. Documents are outputs of this process, not substitutes for it.

1. Define the Decision the Design Must Support

The team must establish what Basic Design will be used for: investment approval, tendering, semi-integrated contracting, procurement of supplies, baseline budgeting, implementation planning, or a combination of these purposes. This definition guides the required maturity level.

The following must also be recorded:

objective and expected outcomes;
physical and functional boundaries;
inclusions, exclusions, and interfaces;
stakeholders and responsible parties;
regulatory and corporate requirements;
quality and approval criteria;
intended contracting strategy.

2. Consolidate Requirements and the Design Basis

Requirements must be technical, traceable, and verifiable. Expressions such as “modern system,” “high quality,” or “adequate capacity” do not constitute engineering criteria. Needs must be converted into parameters such as capacity, availability, autonomy, selectivity, service levels, response times, efficiency, service life, and environmental conditions.

The design basis should identify:

applicable standards and regulations;
normal, emergency, and maintenance operating conditions;
loads, demand, and growth scenarios;
availability and redundancy assumptions;
sizing criteria;
data supplied by the owner;
information verified in the field;
assumptions not yet confirmed.

A requirements matrix helps connect each need to the solution, the document that represents it, and the evidence that will demonstrate compliance.

3. Surveys, Investigations, Testing, and Diagnosis

Engineering can only be as reliable as its input data. Depending on the project, the following may be required:

topographic, cadastral, or georeferenced surveys;
geotechnical borings and investigations;
civil, mechanical, electrical, and systems inspections;
measurements of demand, load, power quality, flow, or performance;
material and component testing;
identification of utilities and interferences;
inventory and condition of existing assets;
environmental, regulatory, and permitting analysis;
modeling of existing conditions.

Reports must clearly distinguish measured data, documented information, assumptions, and estimates. An outdated drawing should not be treated as a confirmed condition merely because it is available.

4. Develop the Calculations and the Solution

Engineering is the core of Basic Design. Calculation reports, studies, and simulations must demonstrate that the solution meets requirements and remains suitable under relevant scenarios. The type of analysis depends on the object, but may involve:

balances and capacities;
demand and simultaneity;
short circuit, power flow, and selectivity;
hydraulics, ventilation, thermal analysis, or structures;
reliability and availability;
protection, control, and automation;
risk analysis and functional safety;
energy performance;
contingency and expansion scenarios.

Calculations must identify inputs, criteria, tools, assumptions, results, and conclusions. Reproducibility is a quality indicator: another qualified professional should be able to understand how the decision was reached.

5. Multidisciplinary Coordination and Constructability

Designs from different disciplines cannot simply be combined at the end. Coordination must occur during development to resolve interfaces involving space, loads, power supply, control, supports, access, operation, and responsibility.

Coordination should verify, among other items:

physical clashes;
consistency among capacities;
continuity of routes and utilities;
loads transferred between systems;
penetrations, supports, and allowances;
access for installation and removal;
isolation and safety during maintenance;
phasing and operational continuity;
responsibilities at supply boundaries.

BIM can support clash detection, quantities, and visualization, but it does not replace technical coordination. A model without requirements, criteria, and responsible parties merely represents the same uncertainties digitally.

6. Specify Materials, Equipment, and Services

Specifications must be objective and measurable. Rather than merely describing the product, they must define the conditions under which it must perform its function.

A complete specification may include:

function and application;
rated capacity and margins;
minimum performance;
environmental and installation conditions;
mechanical, electrical, and communication interfaces;
reliability, availability, and safety requirements;
materials, protection, and finish;
manufacturing and certification standards;
inspections, factory tests, and field tests;
documentation, training, and warranty;
maintenance, spares, and support;
technical-equivalence criteria.

When manufacturer references are necessary, they should represent a technical benchmark and permit equivalent solutions consistent with legislation and the contracting strategy. The specification should protect performance and integration without frustrating competition.

7. Quantities, Cost Engineering, and Schedule

The estimate must originate from engineering. Quantities must be traceable to drawings, models, lists, and calculations. Each relevant item should indicate unit, measurement criterion, source of quantity, and relationship to scope.

The package may include:

quantity takeoff report;
summary cost estimate;
detailed cost build-ups;
quotations and reference databases;
burdens and BDI;
ABC curve;
assumptions, exclusions, and base date;
escalation and contingencies;
physical and cost-loaded schedule;
procurement strategy;
identification of long-lead items.

AACE practices relate estimating methods to the actual level of project definition. This does not mean every Basic Design automatically corresponds to a fixed estimate class. Class, uncertainty range, and contingency depend on industry, purpose, data quality, and risks. Maturity tends to improve the estimate, but does not by itself guarantee accuracy.

8. Plan Quality, Testing, and Acceptance

Basic Design must define how the result will be verified. Acceptance criteria need to appear before procurement, not be negotiated only at the end of construction.

Depending on the object, the following should be planned:

inspections and hold points;
test plans;
factory and field tests;
functional and integrated tests;
commissioning;
minimum performance;
evidence documentation;
treatment of nonconformities;
as-built, manuals, and training requirements;
provisional and final acceptance criteria.

Acceptance must be linked to requirements. If a requirement has no verification method, its contractual enforceability will be weak.

Deliverables Organized by Function

Package function	Typical deliverables	Decision supported
Basis and requirements	Basis of Design, needs program, requirements matrix, standards, and assumptions	What the project needs to achieve
Understanding existing conditions	surveys, investigations, inspections, tests, and diagnosis	Under which conditions the solution will be implemented
Engineering	calculation reports, studies, drawings, diagrams, architectures, and lists	How the solution will meet requirements
Specification	specifications for materials, equipment, and services	What must be supplied and at what performance level
Cost and schedule	quantities, estimate, schedule, procurement, and contingencies	How much to invest, when to contract, and how to plan
Contracting and acceptance	responsibilities, measurement, testing, commissioning, and acceptance criteria	How to contract, control, and accept the object

A large package can remain immature when its parts do not represent the same solution. Basic Design quality lies in consistency and traceability among requirements, calculations, drawings, lists, quantities, estimate, schedule, and acceptance.

Estimate and schedule are outputs of engineering.

Quantities, costs, and schedules must remain traceable to assumptions, methods, drawings, and specifications.

Aprofunde-se em Engineering de Custos

How Basic Design Reduces Costs, Risks, and Rework

The main economic contribution of design is not producing cheaper drawings. It is enabling decisions while there is still freedom to compare alternatives and correct problems with lower impact. During construction, many choices are already constrained by contracts, purchased equipment, mobilized work fronts, and completed interfaces.

Avoids Buying Insufficient or Excessive Performance

A correct specification prevents initial price from becoming the only criterion. Materials and equipment must be selected according to suitability for service and life-cycle cost.

Technical evaluation may consider:

initial investment;
energy and consumables use;
availability and failure impact;
maintenance frequency and duration;
service life and obsolescence;
spare-parts inventory;
compatibility with the installed base;
future expansion;
disassembly and replacement;
disposal and environmental impact.

The cheapest equipment may require more maintenance or produce downtime incompatible with operations. Conversely, the highest-performance equipment may not provide economic benefit when the application does not use its capability. Engineering enables these consequences to be compared before purchase.

Reduces Contingencies and Improves Price Comparability

Contractors price uncertainty. When scope, quantities, and field conditions are vague, bidders may include large contingencies, state exclusions, or assume risks unevenly. The result is a procurement process that is difficult to compare and exposed to rebalancing and change orders.

Traceable quantities, defined methods, clear interfaces, and a coherent risk matrix reduce the portion of uncertainty each supplier must interpret individually. This does not eliminate legitimate contingencies; it improves transparency about what they cover.

Avoids Clashes and Late Changes

Coordination among disciplines makes it possible to resolve conflicts in the design environment before they become demolition, refabrication, relocation, or shutdown. Interferences may involve not only geometry but also capacities, loads, commands, operating sequences, responsibilities, and safety requirements.

ONS guidelines for transmission Basic Designs report that the average number of revisions remained around three beyond the initial issue and identify inadequate coordination among studies, equipment, and other parts of the design as a recurring problem. The data is sector-specific, but it demonstrates a general principle: technically fragmented documentation generates revision cycles and delays approvals.

Improves Constructability and Productivity

Constructability verifies whether the solution can be implemented with the available access, equipment, sequences, and constraints. A correctly calculated solution may still be impractical when it does not consider transport, lifting, assembly, workspace, shoring, isolation, logistics, weather, or operational continuity.

Anticipating these conditions makes it possible to:

select compatible construction methods;
plan temporary facilities;
organize work fronts;
reduce waiting and remobilization;
identify shutdown requirements;
anticipate deviations and contingencies;
coordinate procurement with the schedule.

Protects Operations and Maintenance

Design problems do not end with construction. Inaccessible equipment, incompatible components, lack of isolation, congested routes, incomplete documentation, and lack of standardization increase operating costs for years.

Operations and maintenance teams should participate in requirements definition and reviews. Basic Design must consider ergonomics, safety, accessibility, diagnostic capability, spare parts, technology updates, and recovery after failures.

Creates an Effective Basis for Change Control

Changes are inevitable in many projects, but they must be evaluated against a baseline. A coherent Basic Design makes it possible to identify:

which requirement changed;
which documents and interfaces are affected;
what impact will occur on cost and schedule;
who is responsible for the change;
which risks are introduced;
which approvals and tests will be required.

Without a baseline, every divergence can be treated as interpretation. With a baseline, change can be technically justified, estimated, approved, and tracked.

There Is No Universal Savings Percentage

It is common to encounter generic claims that design represents a certain percentage of investment or reduces costs by a fixed rate. These figures vary widely according to sector, initial maturity, complexity, contracting model, and implementation quality.

The justification for commissioning engineering should not depend on a promotional percentage. The technical rationale is stronger: design cost buys information, decision capability, defect prevention, commercial comparability, and control. The return appears in the combination of less waste, lower exposure to changes, better asset performance, and greater investment predictability.

Savings do not come from eliminating the design stage.

They come from deciding early, specifying correctly, avoiding waste, and preserving performance throughout the life cycle.

Read the Whitepaper on design and cost reduction

Technical Gate: Is the Basic Design Ready for Procurement?

Readiness should not be measured by the number of files or the declared percentage of progress. The gate must assess whether essential decisions are supported by evidence and whether the package allows the object to be procured, controlled, and accepted without transferring critical uncertainties to execution.

Scope Maturity-Level Classification Criteria.

Before issuing the Basic Design for tendering or procurement, the owner’s engineering team should verify:

Approved objective and scope: the need, expected outcomes, physical and functional boundaries, inclusions, and exclusions are formally defined.
Traceable requirements: functional, technical, legal, operational, environmental, and maintenance requirements are linked to the solution and verification criteria.
Verified input basis: surveys, records, investigations, tests, measurements, and existing documents are sufficient for the risk level of the decision.
Controlled assumptions and pending items: assumptions, provisional information, gaps, and constraints have an owner, deadline, and defined treatment.
Demonstrated solution: calculation reports, studies, and simulations demonstrate capacity, performance, safety, reliability, and suitability for relevant scenarios.
Compliance addressed: applicable standards, permits, utility requirements, conditions, and approvals have been identified and incorporated.
Coordinated interfaces: disciplines, supply boundaries, clashes, loads, commands, access, and responsibilities are coordinated.
Materials and equipment specified: requirements are objective, verifiable, competitive, and consistent with performance, installation, maintenance, and service life.
Constructability and operation assessed: methods, logistics, phasing, intervention windows, operational continuity, access, and component replacement have been considered.
Auditable quantities: quantities have documented takeoffs, measurement criteria, and traceability to drawings, models, lists, and calculations.
Consistent estimate and schedule: estimate, contingencies, schedule, productivity, and procurement reflect the scope and actual level of definition.
Risks and responsibilities allocated: relevant events, impacts, treatments, risk owners, and limits for innovation are defined.
Contract and acceptance structured: measurement, payment, inspections, testing, commissioning, documentation, and acceptance have objective criteria.
Review and approval completed: technical owners, disciplines, owner, and independent reviewer have recorded comments, responses, and formal gate approval.

Minimum Gate Evidence

Dimension	Expected evidence	Approval condition
Scope and requirements	requirements matrix, boundaries, and responsibilities	no critical requirements without a solution or owner
Engineering	coordinated calculations, studies, drawings, and specifications	solution demonstrated and reproducible
Existing condition	surveys, tests, and diagnosis	data compatible with risk exposure
Cost and schedule	quantities, estimate, schedule, and procurement	traceability and documented assumptions
Risks	risk register and risk matrix	residual risks accepted and allocated
Quality and acceptance	inspection plans, tests, and acceptance criteria	requirements verifiable before procurement
Governance	reviews, approvals, and document control	gate formally approved

Gate Result

The result does not need to be only “approved” or “rejected.” A practical classification may be:

ready for procurement: there are no critical pending items and residual risks have been accepted;
ready with conditions: limited pending items have an owner and deadline and do not compromise price, scope, or comparability;
not ready: decisions, data, or definitions are missing that could alter the solution, quantities, cost, schedule, or risk allocation.

Conditions should not be used to authorize essential uncertainties. If a pending item can change capacity, architecture, construction method, a significant quantity, or contractual responsibility, the package should remain in the engineering phase.

When Independent Review Is Necessary

Independent review is especially important for:

multidisciplinary projects;
critical or high-availability installations;
expansions while operations remain active;
projects with weak as-is documentation;
novel or highly complex solutions;
integrated or semi-integrated contracts;
packages with significant risk transfer;
projects whose estimates are used for capital approval.

Owner’s Engineering can act as the owner’s assurance function, verifying consistency, readiness, risks, and alignment with investment objectives before the package is issued to the market.

The gate must produce an engineering decision.

Pronto, pronto com condicionantes ou not ready: cada resultado deve estar sustentado por evidências e riscos explicitamente aceitos.

Learn about Owner’s Engineering

Conclusion: Engineering Before Capital Commitment

Basic Design transforms a need into an object that is technically defined, economically assessable, and contractually controllable. Its purpose is not simply to increase the volume of documentation, but to consolidate decisions that should not remain open during execution.

When requirements, surveys, calculations, specifications, interfaces, quantities, costs, schedule, risks, and acceptance are developed in an integrated manner, the owner procures against a known basis. This improves proposal comparability, reduces unnecessary contingencies, anticipates interferences, strengthens oversight, and protects future operations.

Detailed Design will continue to detail fabrication, assembly, installation, and construction, but it should not be used to resolve essential uncertainties left by Basic Design. The later a structural decision is made, the greater its likely impact on contracts, procurement, schedule, and work already executed.

A3A Engenharia develops and reviews Basic Designs for multidisciplinary projects, expansions, modernizations, and critical infrastructure, integrating surveys, engineering, coordination, costs, planning, risks, procurement documentation, and technical support to the owner. The Basic Design service can be commissioned as full development or as an independent readiness review.

Technical References

[1] BRASIL. Lei nº 14.133, de 1º de abril de 2021. Public Procurement and Administrative Contracts Law. Brasília, 2021. Available at: Access official source.

[2] TRIBUNAL DE CONTAS DA UNIÃO. Basic Design. Procurement and Contracts. Brasília, 2025. Available at: Access official source.

[3] TRIBUNAL DE CONTAS DA UNIÃO. Acórdão 2507/2024 — Plenário. Brasília, 2024. Available at: Access official source.

[4] OPERADOR NACIONAL DO SISTEMA ELÉTRICO. Guidelines for Preparing Basic Designs for Transmission Projects — Revision 1. Rio de Janeiro, 2022. Available at: Access official source.

[5] INSTITUTO BRASILEIRO DE AUDITORIA DE OBRAS PÚBLICAS. Technical Guidance OT-IBR 008/2020 — Detailed Design. 2021. Available at: Access official source.

[6] INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR STANDARDIZATION. ISO 21502:2020 — Project, programme and portfolio management — Guidance on project management. Geneva, 2020. Available at: Access official source.

[7] PROJECT MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE. PMBOK Guide and Standards. Newtown Square, 2025. Available at: Access official source.

[8] AACE INTERNATIONAL. Recommended Practices. Morgantown, 2025. Available at: Access official source.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Basic Engineering Design?

It is the coordinated set of studies, calculations, drawings, specifications, quantities, and planning documents that develops a solution to the maturity required for estimating, procurement, and implementation control.

Why commission the design before execution?

Because design defines requirements, capacities, materials, quantities, interfaces, risks, and acceptance criteria. Without this basis, suppliers may price different objects and transfer uncertainties to construction.

How does Basic Design reduce costs?

It enables appropriate material specification, comparison of solutions, resolution of interferences, production of traceable quantities, improvement of commercial proposals, and avoidance of late changes. There is no universal savings percentage.

What is the difference between Basic Design and Detailed Design?

Basic Design defines and sizes the solution, supporting cost, schedule, and procurement. Detailed Design specifies fabrication, assembly, installation, and complete execution without redefining essential elements of the solution.

What are Basic Design readiness criteria?

They are evidence used to verify whether scope, requirements, input basis, calculations, interfaces, specifications, quantities, estimate, risks, and acceptance are sufficiently mature to procure execution.

Is Basic Design mandatory in private projects?

The obligation established by Law No. 14,133/2021 applies to public procurement. In private projects, terminology and requirements depend on the contract, but the technical function of developing engineering before execution remains.