Best-value contracting criteria

Abstract

Federal government constmc­ tion contracting in the US his­ torically has focused on avvard­ ing contracts to the lowest responsive, responsible bidder [7]. This assumes that by carefully crafting a com­ plete, unambiguous set of project plans and specifications, price becomes the sole competiti,·e factor [2]. More subtly, this approach assumes that onlv construction costs matter. A government need not con­ sider procurement, project management, lost opportunity, or similar costs. Best-\·alue procurements focus on selecting the contractor with the offer most advantageous to the government, when price and other factors arc considered. These other factors include technical and managerial merit, financial health, and past performance [8]. Best-value procurements allow government contracting agencies to evaluate offers on the basis of total procure­ ment costs, construction quality issues, completion elates, additional features, and technical irmm·ations. More importantly, best-value procurements force the earlv development of detailed project and pro­ curement plans and create solicitations that contain accurate source-selection criteria. This combination of early planning and quality-based contracting yields significant benefits in construction timeliness, cost containment, and customer satisfaction. requirements, translates them into design criteria, solicits architect-engineering firm proposals, and selects the design firm (normally making the selection based on quality rather than price). The design firm prepares comprehensive, detailed plans and specifications that outline not only what to build but how to build it. ;\contracting specialist next attempts to turn the design package into an unam­ biguous solicitation package that results in a contract to constmct a facility meet­ ing the customer's requirements. These documents, after exhaustive review by several agencies, theoretically outline the government's complete requirements in terms of features, quality, and timeliness. Ideally, construction cost remains the sole factor used to determine the successful offeror. Constmction contractors develop detailed bids and carefully review each detail in the solicitation to calculate the minimum cost proposal. Selection of the low bidder theoretically selects the con­ tractor with the most innovative, cost­ cffecti\·e solution to the problem. A low bid also could indicate a quality contrac­ tor with excess capacity or one already mobilized in the area. In anv event, a low­ bid award docs exactly what the name implies: it selects the contractor who promises to construct the facility at the lowest construction cost [1]. This ap­ proach has several obvious advantages: