Technical appraisal of equipment bids

Following the issue of specifications, the second major responsibility of the project engineer is the technical appraisal of bids for the equipment item. The objectives of this process are the following. 

Needless to say, the value of these features has to be discounted, as outlined in Chapter 8 and as mentioned in that chapter, concerns raised about reliability are liable to result in rejection rather than evaluation of associated costs. 

The appraisal is customarily presented in columns of comparison of corresponding features. The work of preparing this presentation is very significantly simplified if the tabulation format is thought out in advance and presented with the enquiry as a requirement for bidders to complete. 

The first appraisal criterion listed above (compliance with specification) should be self-explanatory. The second group (operational costs) was discussed in Chapter 8 the most difficult aspect to assess is usually reliability and its impact, followed by maintenance costs. Sometimes, the only way to approach these subjects is to take the view that the vendor 

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