Guideline 7.4 - Evaluation procedure

In conducting the evaluation, attributes such as the following may be examined and it may be decided to give an explicit weighting to each attribute in accordance with its importance:

1. Technical specifications
2. User friendliness
3. Compatibility with existing equipment and infrastructure
4. Price
5. Warranty provisions, and maintenance requirements and cost
6. Previous track record of both the equipment and its supplier(s)

Where there is more than one supplier of the preferred equipment, tendering authorities should obtain quotes from each supplier every time a new purchase of that equipment is to be made.

In the fields where technology is improving rapidly and new equipment is frequently becoming available, it may be advantageous to conduct rigorous evaluations at intervals of less than 5 years.

Sometimes an equipment supplier may only provide one New Zealand firm with the necessary technical documentation and spare parts to carry out installation and maintenance of the equipment. In such cases, it is necessary to take the likely quality and cost of future maintenance and repairs into account when evaluating the equipment.

A preferred equipment supplier may inform a tendering authority that it is only willing to authorise one New Zealand firm to maintain its equipment. If this is the case, the tendering authority should apply to Transfund New Zealand for the local firm to be added to the schedule of sole suppliers for supply of maintenance services of the equipment in question. In other cases, the maintenance of specialised equipment will need to be competitively tendered in accordance with the standard CPP for physical works or professional services, depending on the type of service.

The provision that enables a tendering authority to adopt another tendering authority’s evaluation if appropriate is to avoid the need for every tendering authority to carry out its own evaluation of all suitable specialised equipment unless it considers this necessary.