Bid Management Services

Executive Summary

The National Weatherization Corporation’s (NWC) Bid Management Service provides a reliable, collaborative Internet bidding community between a Participating Agency and its potential Contractors, and an effective sealed repository for bids that is not accessible to any parties prior to the public bid opening.  The on-line solution is powered by Bid Express and has been used by clients for more than eleven years.  More than 150,000 bids with contracts valued over $400 billon have been managed by the solution.

Benefits to Participating Agencies

Agencies and Organizations that participate in the NWC Bid Management Service realize a number of significant benefits. including:

   • Greater accountability and transparency of the bidding process
   • Significantly reduced time to prepare bids for important weatherization projects
   • Lower costs of bid document preparation and distribution
   • Increased participation by more potential contractors
   • Easier and quicker evaluation of submitted bids

As shown in Figure 1, the NWC service provides the Participating Agency with administrative functions to post messages, notices to potential contractors, bid documents, addenda, plan DOE documents, and other bid-related information on-line on a secure website.  For potential Contractors, it provides access to bid documents online and search functions for items, bid tabs, and vendors.  The service also allows secure Internet bid submission and bid bond validation back to the Participating Agency using digital signature technology and a public key infrastructure for security.  Up until the time bids are opened, all bids are encrypted on a server housed in a secure facility.  No bid information can be seen by until the time of the letting, thus maintaining the sealed bid process.

The service is available 24 hours per day, seven days a week, every day of the year.  The NWC service powered by Bid Express has had 99.97% actual up-time over its 11+ year history and is supported by highly reliable hardware, software, power, and Internet connections with redundancy at all levels.  Additionally, this service has been and continues to be independently certified by the VeriSign® Security Certification Program.

Paper Based Sealed Bidding Inefficiencies

The NWC Bid Management Service eliminates paper based sealed bidding inefficiencies that impact both bidding contractors and agencies and organizations that issue bids.  Participating Agencies in the NWC service avoid:

Bid document preparation errors- Sealed bidding opportunities require that several terms and conditions are recognized by the bidding Contractor, that simple math be performed if a quantity extension of a per item price is required, and that the bid be signed by the Contractor.  Often, a Contractor’s signature is required on multiple supplemental documents that must be included with the bid.  In attempts to comply with all of these requirements, Contractors can make simple mistakes and the bidding Agency must reject the bid, even if it was the low bid.  This causes additional cost to the bidding agency and causes potential contractors to not respond to bid opportunities.

Project delays- When a Contractor is deemed non-responsive, there can be an occasion when that Contractor will dispute the decision and take action against the successful Contractor and/or the bidding Agency.  This often delays the purchase for the bidding Agency and can put the project behind schedule should the purchase be for a service or construction related contract.

Paper management administrative costs- For a bidding Agency, the paper sealed bid process causes labor inefficiencies.  After a bid package has been finalized, the Agency must produce several copies of the package for interested contractors to pickup and/or purchase.  The bidding Agency must also provide paper copies of supplemental information that is crucial to the contractor.  Bidding Agencies spend large amounts of budgeted dollars for staff and supplies to perform these printing and purchasing tasks.

Jobs lost due to bid error- Nothing is more upsetting to a Contractor than hearing from a bidding agency that their sealed bid is deemed non-responsive due to a clerical error.  The larger the loss of possible income, the more likely the Contractor will be to fight the decision.  At times, nonresponsive contractors will dispute the award.  The result can be lengthy, time consuming litigious situations that put awarded projects behind schedule and causing extra expenditures for legal fees.  NWC with Bid Express service virtually eliminates these occurrences.

Paper bidding costs- For a Contractor, many labor hours are spent finding sealed bid advertisements, picking up the proper documentation, compiling hand-written bids, ensuring that the bids are error free, and delivering sealed paper bids to the bidding agency.  These costs are built into bids and thus are ultimately paid by the agency.

Travel costs- Contractors incur travel costs to pick up bid packages and return sealed bids to the bidding agency.  Reducing these travel costs allow more contractors to participate with agencies/buyers thus expanding and improving competitive pricing.

Conclusion

Organizations and Agencies involved in the Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) have a limited amount of time to perform extraordinary tasks to create jobs, improve energy efficiency of homes.  By becoming a Participating Agency in the NWC Bid Management Service, one can streamline the bidding process while ensuring a fair process with an auditable track record.  Participating Agencies reduce the costs of administering bids while attracting more potential contractors.  Having more bidders gives Participating Agencies more choices in selecting the best contractor and lowers overall costs while increasing the quality of the work performed.

In the end, the NWC Bid Management Service creates a win-win situation for Participating Agencies and Contractors.  This means more clients get served, more jobs get created, and the nation is better.

You may download the Bidding Order Form and Contract by clicking here.