You would be a fool to not ensure that things will go at least a little easier in even the worst case.

The other option: cost plus bids (that is you pay their actual costs plus a fixed amount of profit) is even easier to game because you can add costs in so many ways. That is why most large bids are fixed cost despite that downside - they are much harder to hide extra costs in.

There is no alternative to carefully watching your suppliers. Some are more honest than others (and you should blacklist the worst).

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pjc50 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> There is no alternative to carefully watching your suppliers

Hence: inhouse.

	▲	bluGill 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You still have to watch your suppliers even when they are in house. Things change, but not the fundamental problems. In many cases out sourcing really is the better cheaper option (this seems to be when an expert can be a deeper expert because they do the same thing for multiple different groups)