Invitation to Tender s1

Invitation to Tender

Our Ref: T369

Date: 06.09.11

Dear Sirs,

Invitation to Tender

to Supply

Cycle Maintenance Services

You are invited to respond in competition with others to provide the equipment/services specified above to the University of Essex.

The following documents are enclosed and must be, where applicable, completed and signed on behalf of the tenderer. We recommend that you photocopy a set of the documents for your records.

The University believes that the enclosed information should be easy to follow and has sufficient guides and comments to assist applicants with their submission.

However, if you wish to discuss any aspect of this document including further information (from what is detailed in Document A) on how best to respond, then please email .

Due to the internal system in handling questions or responses, use of any other e-mail address other than the details above, without prior approval may be disregarded. Any responses that are incomplete, or received after the time indicated within the Indicative Timetable in Document A may be disregarded.

All other applicants will be informed of any questions and replies relating to the document within the timescale shown within the Indicative Timetable in Document A. Please complete the box below with your preferred Contacts.

Please note that only one bid is permitted per organisation. We will accept the last submission in the event of multiple bids being submitted.

If for any reason your Organisation does not wish to respond on this occasion, then please complete the Decline to Tender section in Document A. Please note that this cannot be forwarded to another contractor as their submission would not be accepted.

Kind regards

Adrian Woodmore MCIPS

Procurement Manager

University of Essex

Bidders Details (important)

(Please complete for communication during PQQ and/or ITT stage)

1.  Instructions for completion of document

2.  Information of Tender Schedule

3.  Information on Award Stage (ITT) Criterion

4.  Information on Tender Evaluation and scoring

5.  Instructions for submission of bid

6.  Decline to Tender

1.  Instructions for completion of document

This document is designed to be completed electronically. You are required to mark boxes, insert information or submit additional supporting evidence in response to the questions herein shown in Document D. The text boxes should expand as you add text, if there is insufficient space for your response please attach a separate document clearly marked with:

·  Name of your Company

·  Reference number and project description (Detailed on Page 1 of this document)

·  Number of the question to which it relates. (Detailed below in 3. of Document A)

In the absence of the above, important information may not be considered for any documents which have not been clearly marked how/where the information applies to support your bid and may affect your scoring. If any of the core questions relating to experience and financial stability, have no apparent response, then we will have no option but to mark these as 0 (zero). This would eliminate your bid from the process. Naturally we will consider any exceptional circumstance that may exist which does not conflict with the EU regulations and the transparency and fairness of the process. Non core questions, which could be quality related would not cause elimination.

For projects involving the supply of manufactured goods, we would encourage the submission of a PowerPoint presentation with a slide showing a picture and specification for each product to be supplied. This provides clarity when assessing the tender and it also minimises the need to see paper catalogues and use multiple paper print outs for the Tender Panel. Each slide should contain a header with the information requested as per the above bullet points.

Please answer the questions specifically for your company, NOT for the group if you are part of a group of companies. Please note the term “Company” refers to: Sole proprietor, partnership, incorporated company, co-operative, or voluntary organisation as appropriate.

2.  Information of Tender Schedule

The timetable below is also indicative and as such the University also reserves the right to change the dates shown where reasonably required to do so.

Under The Freedom of Information Act the University may be required to disclose some or all of the information provided which is of interest to the public domain.

Indicative Timetable

3.  Criterion Table

The criterion below covers the main areas for the Tender stage and we will endeavour to weight those areas which apply to specific goods/services.

4.  Tender Evaluation and scoring information

a.  Minimum Standards

Scores above 50% in each section are recommended as the minimum standard required. Scores below this may be eliminated especially in core areas.

b.  Scoring methods used during evaluation

Scoring the advertised percentage weightings

All information is reviewed and each aspect is scored using the following ‘marks out of 10’ key

The above illustrates why a score below 5 represents a failure to meet the criteria and correlates with the minimum 50% standard.

Calculation:

Depending on the weighting stated, the score is multiplied to reach the score for that section.

ie: Quality 20% weighting and score is 7 (out of 10) ‘will meet user requirements’ will be calculated 7 x 2 = 14. If the applicant scored 10 ‘excellent’, then the calculation would be 10 x 2 = full 20% achieved for that section.

Therefore, in simple terms should the information score 10 in each category, the score is able to reach 100%, whereas by meeting all requirements in each category a score of 7 would offer a final pass mark of 70%. This is a simplistic view where in reality the mixed scoring reveals the highest scoring applicant.

c.  Tender Evaluation methods

The University uses an Evaluation Panel which in all normal circumstances consists of University stakeholders. On some occasions, external stakeholders may also be included on the panel and for some larger projects we may use external consultants. Apart from the mandatory Evaluation Panel, we list some of the following examples of additional methods we may use to evaluate the bids although not exhaustive, so for an example, the panel may score most of a paper submission initially but finalise and complete the scoring after one / some of the following :-

1.  Presentation

2.  Interview

3.  Mock projects / models to assess

4.  Site Visits

5.  Sample products

6.  Supplementary information for further clarification

The University does not bind itself to accept the lowest or any Tender, and reserves the right to accept part only of a Tender. Therefore on some occasions we may not award an advertised Tender at all.

The Tender Evaluation Panel has not been finalised at present. Bidders can if they wish enquire whom is on the panel.

d.  Scoring cost percentage

We still use the same key above to score the costs, but the calculation is different as follows.

1.  Lowest bid is scored against key

a.  If the bid matches the stated budget / expected cost the score is 7

b.  If the bid exceeds the budget the score will be below 7 and calculated on the difference between the above and the actual as a percentage. The same method applies for under budget bids

2.  The scores are multiplied by the weighting given. ie: Cost 40% & Score 7 would be 7 x 4 = 28% out of possible 40% available. If the next bid is 10% higher in cost, it would be scored 10% lower and attract a score of 6.3, so calculated as 6.3 x 4 = 25% out of 40% available.

Therefore it is expected that normal standard pricing will attract a score between 5-8 points in the majority of instances, otherwise the pricing would be too high to consider or subject to an abnormally low interrogation.

We may offer additional marks dependent on complete cost package including minimisation of any disbursement costs, good payment terms and value added aspects. Each submission would be scored on its own merit. Therefore a bid under budget attracting an initial score of 8 may obtain top marks for value added features, long payment terms and zero disbursements. Whereas a bid over budget and attracting a low score may be topped up with extra marks for value added features, long payment terms and low disbursements costs. Bids may also be deducted marks for lack of all relevant costs within the bid and poor terms. Therefore in all instances it is possible to reach the range between 0-10 points on the cost scoring and bidders are fairly marked in accordance with the quality of their bid and benefits or not.

a.  Basic example:

Budget for machine is £175’000, Tender submitted exceeds all specifications and has many other future benefits, fit for purpose quality and is the lowest bid but over budget. Typical scoring could be:-

Should the bidder offer an additional cost benefit of a 10% reimbursement of costs after a year for no call outs and stage payments over 3 months then we may offer an additional mark to the cost stage to change the scoring as follows:-

5.  Instructions for submission of bid

For many advertised projects, we can receive a large response of expressions of interest. We have compiled the following guide for bidders to allow us to handle the important information offered in the most efficient and effective way.

Document Formats recommended

We strongly recommend the use of the following format and the suchlike as these are the most in use throughout the University.

v  Microsoft Word

v  Microsoft Excel

v  Microsoft PowerPoint

v  Adobe PDF

** Important **

We must only receive documents consisting as 1. The original University Form 2. Attachments in a single PDF or Word Document, clearly labelled what section information apply to. In some instances 3. A PowerPoint presentation.

Document Formats not recommended

These types of formats often create a large administrative burden to assess and link up per bidder so do not present a stable basis for transfer of information.

v  Web page links

v  Outlook format

v  Documents within documents

v  Own Tender submission (replacing our forms)

Submission methods

For electronic bids with attachments to the original University document, could we please request that the file is packed using WinZip, and labelled “[File No - shown at top of this document] [your Company name]” so it may look like T459 Smith Architect.

Then please use only one of the following methods available to send the Zip file to us by the date shown in Action 4 of the Indicative Timetable in Document A. These are listed in order of preference:-

1.  Drop box facility. The University has created a facility for handling submissions upto 100Mb as per the following link: https://dropbox.essex.ac.uk/ for uploading, Dropbox will send us a download link automatically if you type in when prompted. We reserve the right to reject the submission if the link fails unless caused by the University.