PROCEDURE

Procedure for evaluating competitive bids

Contact Officer

Purpose

Manager, Purchasing

The purpose of bid evaluation is to determine which bid best meets the
Universitys 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.

PROCEDURE

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 bidders 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 bidders 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 suppliers
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 Teams 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 availableFor 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
Rated Criteria
Pricing
Total Available Points

Weighting (Points)
XX points
XX 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

Appendix A
Sample Rated Score
In applying scores through the evaluation process, evaluators should note that proposals are
evaluated against the Evaluation Teams 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

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

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

0 - 39

80 - 100

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

No relevant references provided. Company clearly lacks the depth and

resources to undertake the project

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

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

Company demonstrates sufficient resources and range of completed projects

similar in scale and complexity to Trent requirements.

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.

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.