Competitive bids

Equally important, the contractor s cost-estimation team will have established a sharply honed, systematic approach including all the correct checklists, forms, and report formats designed to preclude oversights. The team will have developed the discipline, as a result of competitive bidding, to produce the kind of final report that fits in correctly with any type of economic evaluation. 

Once the bidders have been selected, an Invitation to Tender (ITT) needs to be prepared to provide a fixed baseline against which unbiased competitive bids may be made. The technical, commercial, and managerial requirements should be finalized and subject to review and approval prior to release. It is important that all functions with responsibili-... 

Figure 12-10 is convenient for summarizing the main specifications to the manufacturer. Any unusual conditions must be explained, and minimum and maximum ranges must be established. Normal conditions may be the same as maximum, although this may not always be the case. Detailed driver specifications should be included unless the manufacturer is to make preliminary recommendations before final decisions are reached. Note that some of the data are to be furnished by the manufacturer, and the insistence on receipt of this information facilitates evaluation of competitive bids. 

Most large organizations, particularly in central and local government, have set procedures in the form of standing orders, and this area is usually of most interest to internal and external auditors. The object of inviting competitive bids is to obtain the lowest price for the job, based on a fair method, which enables every bidder to bid for the same thing. 

Competitive bid evaluation based on quality, availability, and price... 

Contractor designs will be in the context of a competitive bidding situation and in-company checks of the design should cover not only design errors but also cases where calculated risks have been taken, which may not, however, be acceptable to the operating company. 

The arm s length approach as a result of lack of funding associated with ethical trade, there is only limited use of third-party auditors. However, the partial use of independent auditors does occur mainly within the context of arm s length relationships between retailers, auditors and suppliers. This can be defined as the contractual relations between companies involving competitive bidding and playing-off of suppliers. Weak social ties and detached social relations are characteristic of such relationships (Doel, 1996, 1999). 

Those identifying security-sensitive information should consider all ways that facilities might use and make public information (e.g., many chemical industrial facilities may at times engage in competitive bidding processes for construction of new facilities or infrastructure). Finally, information critical to the continuity of day-to-day operations should be identified and backed up. 

There is a substantially larger literature on government procurement policy. Such policy is distinct from the subsidy-setting mechanisms proposed by the lOM in that procurement is individualized to a particular transaction. The CDC to date has obtained vaccines through a competitive bidding process for specific vaccines. 

This solution breaks down where the market is too small to support more than one or two entrants. In this case, sponsors should award competitively bid contracts to whichever manufacturer offers to sell drugs at the lowest price. 

Field development and evaluation of sulphur extended asphalts has been going on since the mid-seventies. The first commercial placements of sulphur extended asphalts under competitively bid contracts took place in North America in 1980. Of the approximately 160,000 tonnes of hot mix involved, over half used the additive technology mentioned above, the remaining projects used a number of different approaches. 

In order to correct misunderstandings which have been indicated in some instances since the issuance of the Supreme Court decision and the entry of the Final Judgment, it is noted that in its decision of April 25, 1978, the Supreme Court of the United States declared The Sherman Act does not require competitive bidding. ... 

The purchasing department generally gives consideration to any supplier who makes a contribution towards improving our products. However, the buyer has an obligation to obtain competitive quotations except under unusual and justifiable circumstances. This cannot be accomplished without the aid of competitive bidding. This is not to say that the lowest bidder is always awarded the business, it is dependent on total economics. 

Even before the optimum plant size was determined, a contractor had been selected and process design work was in progress. The contractor was selected on the basis of competitive cost plus fixed-fee bids. The contract was later converted to a turn-key type, based on the competitive-bid fixed-fee percentage and a definitive cost estimate for completion of the job. This saved about 2 months in over-all job completion time. Through duplication of equipment purchases and construction drawings, it was possible to reduce over-all completion time for three subsequent plants by as much as 8 months from the 17 months required for the first module (Fig. 2). About 29 months were required from Geld discovery to startup of the last Exxon treating facility. 

With the exception of small compact units, cooling towers are purchased on competitive bids. The purchaser is responsible for providing all the specifications pertaining to the working conditions of the future installation. As a general rule, large units require more detailed specifications. 

What happens though if your negotiating stance is unattractive or ineffective Or if you are placed in a competitive bidding situation How do you regain traction on a deal which is getting away from you How do you maintain... 

We will document the identified analytical methods, numbers and types of samples, and appropriate QC requirements in the SAP, prepare the Laboratory SOW, and send it to at least two laboratories for competitive bidding. To be thorough in the selection process, we should request that the laboratories supply with their price proposal a description of their technical capabilities and sample throughput capacity and the QA Manual that documents the laboratory QA system. This information may not be necessary if a laboratory has been providing analytical services to us in the past, but it will be a prudent practice if new laboratories are among the bidders. 

If low participation by smaller bidders is a concern, non-competitive bids could be permitted. A bidder who submits a non-competitive bid is guaranteed to win the desired units in the auction. In a uniform-price auction, the price is simply the market clearing price, while under discriminatory pricing the non-competitive price is an average of the conventional winning bids. Bidders can therefore limit risk by submitting non-competitive bids, particularly in discriminatory auctions.29... 

In summary, as long as entry by bidders is not artificially restricted, EU ETS auctions are likely to be very competitive and efficient. There are several possible auction formats, but the most likely candidates are the sealed-bid uniform-price and discriminatory auctions, used in sales of government securities. The limited evidence that we have slightly favours uniform pricing, especially as bidders appear to find uniform-price auctions more straightforward. If participation is a concern, then non-competitive bids may be used. 

How often should auctions be performed At one extreme, the entire allocation could be sold at the beginning of the 5-year period. Large infrequent auctions would minimize administrative and transaction costs and might also promote competitive bidding between bidders for whom this is the only chance to buy allowances at auction. However, we believe more regular auctions are advisable, for a number of reasons. 

If non-competitive bids are permitted in securities auctions they typically comprise a small proportion (about 10-20%) of the issue. 

A discriminatory price auction with non-competitive bids could also be used. 

Today, renewable energy costs are often given inaccurately. Some are based on facts, others on wishful thinking or advocacy, but a few are based on the proven operation of full-sized power plants and actual experience. The very reason why a full-sized (1 gW) solar-hydrogen demonstration plant should be built is because its total costs of construction and operation should be established accurately. We do not have such data, because no such plant has ever been built nobody has ever obtained competitive bids on such quantities of equipment. 

For refineries and production equipment, pipe is purchased according to an ASTM(3) or API specification, and supplementary requirements are vary rarely added. Supplementary requirements for pipelines are almost always included because pipelines consist of miles of identical material specifications can thus be tailored to the job needs in dimensions, chemistry, and mechanical properties. When the pipeline is to be purchased in large tonnages, supplementing the API specification usually entails little or no cost penalty when using competitive bidding. 

Use traditional business models to encourage competitive bidding among the candidates for partnership. 

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