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PROCEDURE

Procedure for evaluating competitive bids

Contact Officer Manager, Purchasing

PR

OC

EDU

RE

Purpose The purpose of bid evaluation is to determine which bid best meets the University’s price, delivery and specification requirements. The final contract is not necessarily awarded to the lowest priced bid. This procedure applies to all RFX processes involving evaluation criteria regardless of value. Staff and faculty involved in bid evaluation committees must consistently evaluate bid responses, in accordance with the criteria, ratings and methodology set out in the procurement documents. This procedure outlines how bid documents are received, opened, clarifications sought and evaluated.

Procedure The steps and/or actions that must be undertaken to implement a particular policy. Not all policies will require a procedure document, whilst others will require more than one. Each step to start with an action word / verb.

Responsible Officer or Section

Step 1 Advertising Requirements The procurement of goods, services and construction valued over $100,000 must be electronically advertised to ensure transparency and equal access. This requirement is based on the Ontario Quebec Trade Agreement, the Ontario Government Supply Chain Guideline 2009 and the AIT (see Trent Purchasing Policy at www.trentu.ca/purchasing/policies.php) All RFXs over $100,000 are posted on MERX.com for 15 calendar days to comply with government regulations.

Responsible Officer or Section

Step 2 Evaluation Criteria Evaluation criteria must be developed, reviewed and approved before the competitive process begins. The bid documents must fully disclose the evaluation methodology, criteria and weightings, and the process to be used in assessing submissions. Evaluation criteria may only be altered by issuing a formal addendum to the RFX documents i.e evaluation criteria cannot be changed after the competition closes. Criteria must not discriminate or be designed to create an advantage to a specific supplier. Evaluation criteria typically contain three types of evaluation components:

Mandatory Requirements – Failure to meet a mandatory requirement suspends further evaluation. Mandatory criteria should be kept to a minimum to ensure that no bid is unnecessarily disqualified.

Rated requirements – documents may establish a minimum score for

rated requirements. Bidders failing to meet this minimum would be eliminated from further consideration.

Price/ cost – Particular attention must be paid to apply the maximum

justifiable weighting to price/cost. Evaluation of price/cost should be undertaken after the completion of the mandatory and rated

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requirements.

Responsible Officer or Section

Step 3 Evaluation Committee The Evaluation Committee members should be identified prior to the release of competitive bid documents. Whenever possible the Evaluation Committee should be involved in the development of the evaluation criteria and weightings. The committee should also review and agree on a scoring key for each named criteria prior to receiving bid documents for review. The bid evaluation process up to the award of contract is confidential. Committee members must be made aware of the restrictions relating to confidential information shared during the competitive process and refrain from activities that may create or appear to create a conflict of interest. All committee members must sign the Conflict of Interest and Non Disclosure Agreement (Form P-025 Feb 2010 - see www.trentu.ca/purchasing/forms.php) prior to gaining access to bid documents for purposes of evaluation. Each member of the evaluation team must complete an evaluation matrix. Records of the evaluation must be auditable.

Responsible Officer or Section

Step 4 Contact with Bidders and their agents During the period between release of the RFX and contract award, contact between University representatives and bidders must be restricted to channels identified in the bid documents. All questions should be communicated in writing with answers distributed to all known bidders. University representatives should not entertain calls or informal communications, meetings or other forms of contact with the bidder‘s representatives. Any effort by a bidder to influence the evaluation process including offering of bribes, gifts or other inducements must be reported to the evaluation committee and should result in the rejection of the bidder’s submission.

Step 5. Bid Receipt The University must ensure the closing date is established during normal business hours. Submissions that are delivered after the closing time must be returned to bidder unopened. RFX documents must specify a clear address for the submission of bids including contact name, building name and address and room number. Bids received prior to submission deadline should be:

dated and marked with time received; inventoried including bidder name and address; stored in a safe location; remain unopened until the bid deadline is past.

Step 6. Opening of the Bids The opening of the bids should take place immediately after the submission deadline passes in the presence of two University representatives. Bids, modifications and withdrawals received after the deadline must not be opened. All late submissions must be returned unopened to the respective bidders. Immediately after opening bids will be stored in a secure location and made available only to members of the evaluation committee

Step 7. Pubic Openings If bids are to be opened publicly a suitable accessible room must be arranged in advance and specified in the bidding documents. All bidders’ representatives present at the opening should sign a register of attendance. A checklist of items to be inspected in each bid as it is opened

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should be recorded and announced to the bidders in attendance. Information provided should include bidders’ names, bid withdrawal or modification, bid price, discounts offered, presence of bid security if required and other details that the University may consider appropriate.

Step 8 Full Disclosure The evaluation methodology and process to be used in assessing a supplier’s submission must be fully disclosed in RFX documents including the method of resolving a tie score. Mandatory Requirements – Bid documents should indicate how a pass fail will be assessed. RFX documents must state that submissions that do not meet mandatory requirements will be disqualified. No further evaluation should take place. Rated Requirements – All weights including sub weights must be disclosed. When a supplier fails to meet a minimum score no further evaluation should take place. Short listing – The short listing process must be described including any minimum rated score requirements Reference Checks – describe the role and weighting of reference checks, oral presentations, product demonstrations. Cost – Include the price /cost evaluation methodology including the use of scenarios in the price calculation. The price cost evaluation should not be undertaken until after completion of mandatory and other rated criteria.

Step 9 Substantial Compliance –Each bid will be examined to determine if it: Is properly signed and sealed; Is accompanied by required items e.g. bid security, certificates

of insurance, WSIB certificates, drawings etc; Is complete and generally in order; Is free of computational errors; Requires any clarifications.

Step 10 Request for Clarification – The evaluation committee must decide which omissions and variations are material resulting in rejection of the bid and which bids contain non material variances which can be addressed by seeking clarification. All requests for clarification should be made in writing and all responses should be provided in writing.

Step 11 Evaluation Principles The evaluation process must adhere to the following principles:

Defensible – a clear and logical process must be followed; Transparent – evaluators must complete assessments independently

and clearly document their findings and numeric scores. Each proposal assessment must contain both a qualitative and quantitative summary which may be subject to disclosure under a FOI request. Final conclusions must be arrived at by team consensus;

Integrity – the process must be objective and fair. All bids must be treated in the same manner and given equal consideration. All information gained must be treated as confidential. Only information submitted in the bid documents and obtained by formal clarification can be evaluated;

Documented – documentation must be clear and concise and support the selection of the successful bid. Individual evaluations, the process, and consensus results must be documented and retained for future scrutiny by auditors and the public.

The submission that receives the highest evaluation score and meets all

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mandatory requirements set out in the RFX must be declared the winning bid.

Step 12. In applying scores through the evaluation process, evaluators should note that proposals are evaluated against the Evaluation Team’s expectations of what are acceptable responses to the criteria not against the contents of other submissions.

Step 13 Each Evaluator must maintain working notes of their evaluation in their individual scoring booklet noting positive/negative attributes and general comments for each criterion. The team will produce a summary showing the scoring allocated to each submission, together with a written justification of their scoring. Bid Price Calculation Pricing must be evaluated after the completion of the Rated Criteria. The Team Lead will conduct this part of the Evaluation Process. Points will be assigned to each proposal using the following formula: (Lowest bid price (BID A)) / higher bid ( BID B) X total points available- For example if lowest bid is $100,000 and BID B is $150,000. BID A receives 100% of the total points allocated to price - 60 points. BID B receives 100,000/150,000=66.66% X 60 = 40 points Cumulative Score

Cumulative Score Weighting (Points)Rated Criteria XX points Pricing XX points Total Available Points XXX points

Step 13 Evaluation Decision The organization must select the highest ranked submission that met all mandatory requirements set out in the competitive bid documents. The decision must be supported by a consensus decision of the evaluation committee. Tied Score – The bid documents must indicate the method which will be used to resolve a score.

See Appendix A for sample scoring

Date Approved February 2011

Approval Authority PVP

Date of Commencement February 2011

Amendment Dates List the dates the policy has been amended (Year Month Day )

Date for Next Review 2015, October 30

Related Policies, Procedures and Guidelines

Name and link to related policies, procedures and guidelines

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Appendix A Sample Rated Score In applying scores through the evaluation process, evaluators should note that proposals are evaluated against the Evaluation Team’s expectations of what are acceptable responses to the criteria not against the contents of other submissions. For consistency, the following table describes the characteristics attributable to particular scores between 0-100 and is inserted as an example of acceptable evaluation responses.

Score

Characteristics

0 - 39

Submission is unacceptable; demonstrates little understanding of the

requirements; criterion is absent from submission

40 - 69

Submission is not adequate; misses key requirements

70 - 79

Submission meets basic expectations and requirements

80 - 100

Submission meets and exceeds expectations and requirements, clearly

demonstrates an understanding of program requirements and details how services will be provided to meet stated standards/expectations/service levels

The following example illustrates scoring of a specific criteria. In this case the evaluators were asked to score overall corporate experience with major renovation projects in the one to three million dollar range. They were asked to review projects completed as well and the experience of senior staff members and financial resources based on information provided by the bidders.

Score

Characteristics

0

No relevant references provided. Company clearly lacks the depth and

resources to undertake the project

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Unlikely that the company has the depth and resources required to undertake

the project.

2

Company may have the depth and resources required to undertake the project.

3

Company demonstrates sufficient resources and range of completed projects

similar in scale and complexity to Trent requirements.

4

Broad range of project experience – projects were less complex in nature with a

mix of both high and low dollar projects. Company demonstrated sufficient resources.

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5

Exceptional and broad range of project experiences; complex and high dollar

value projects completed in the last 5 years; Company demonstrated broad range of resources available to complete projects of a similar scale and nature.

Each Evaluator must maintain working notes of their evaluation in their individual scoring booklet noting positive/negative attributes and general comments for each criterion. The team will produce a summary showing the scoring allocated to each submission, together with a written justification of their scoring.