APPARATUS BIDDING: SPECIFYING THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
BY BILL ADAMS
When purchasing a new piece of fire apparatus, it is not uncommon to find that the hardest part of the job comes after the bid opening. Most fire departments are well aware of the specific components and features desired on their apparatus and generally do a decent job writing the technical specification. In most scenarios, proposals are publicly opened and read, and the truck committee sequesters itself behind closed doors to evaluate the bids. Determining technical compliance to specifications, evaluating individual proposals and blueprints, and ensuring that required documentation has been submitted by the various bidders will require the undivided attention of the committee. It is not the time for the unwary purchaser to be introduced to the cloudy arena of optional bids, alternate bids, exceptions, and clarifications.
No fire chief wants to explain to a cost-conscious public administrator why he does not want to accept an unsolicited alternate bid that is substantially lower. At some magical fiscal point, a public administrator may not care what the operational differences are between a commercial chassis and a custom chassis or the performance characteristics between a 300-hp engine and a 450-hp engine. However, he may realize that the difference between one proposal and another equates monetarily to his own salary!
Fire departments specify hosebed capacities, multistage pumps, and large booster tanks for valid firematic reasons. The last thing they want to see is unwanted pricing for a less expensive production line apparatus that does not meet their requirements. A minimum size hosebed, single-stage pump, or smaller tank size may prove inadequate for a particular response area.
A truck committee may specify an onboard PTO-driven six-kw generator system for fireground operational reasons. They will cringe if an unsought optional price is received for a slideout-tray-mounted five-kw generator costing one-third as much. You specify certain name brands, component parts, and manufacturers because of reliability, local availability of service and parts, standardization, and the availability of the specified part to all apparatus manufacturers. How would you feel if a vendor opted, at his own discretion, to offer a nonconpliant product at a low price? How would you feel if the vendor did not take exception to your specification, trying to obscure his shrewdness by calling it a clarification?
Unsolicited quotations, whether they are called optional or alternate bids, may only muddy the waters and place the fire department in a precarious position with public officials. When submitting unasked-for pricing, is the vendor questioning the fire department`s judgment in specifying certain features on an apparatus? Rather than evaluating the technical compliance of proposals received, a fire chief may be forced to explain and justify the dollar amount for a certain size motor, booster tank, or hosebed capacity. If you are the fire chief, you could call the above scenarios a slap in the face or claim you were blindsided by the bidder. The bidder is doing everything to secure an order legally. Although the bidder`s intentions may be honorable, the ethics and the appropriateness of the proposal are questionable if they reflect detrimentally on the department`s integrity. How do we avoid these potential conflicts?
For eons, fire departments have specified the form in which a proposal is to be submitted: specifying the size, quantity, and views of required blueprints; mandating bid prices be written in words and figures; and specifying what documentation should accompany a proposal and the format of the submitted proposal. Departments ask for a weight analysis, electrical amperage draw report, and the like.
Take the specification one step further. The purchaser (the fire chief, the truck committee, or the political subdivision promulgating the specifications) should specify up front whether optional or alternate bids are acceptable. Define in detail what your interpretation is of an exception and a clarification. You are merely adding another paragraph or two of verbiage to your Instructions to Bidders and eliminating ambiguities; individual vendor interpretation; and, hopefully, problems after the bid opening. You are establishing the rules of engagement. Provided that those rules meet the local governmental bidding procedures in your municipality, you have every right to do so.
The intent is not to inhibit competitive bidding or discourage optional and alternate bids. Optional and alternate bids can be useful financial tools. In certain instances, a community can benefit financially from both alternate and optional pricing without compromising the level of fire protection received. Chiefs and public administrators want to receive the best value for each dollar spent. To achieve that level of fiscal responsibility, to be fair and equitable to all bidders, and to eliminate possible confrontations between the bidders, the fire chief, and the municipality, the rules of bidding should be made known before the bid opening.
A justifiable alternate bid is one in which a fire department wants a vehicle very close to what some manufacturers build as standard production line units. They publish their own specifications stating, for example, “Alternate bids will be considered for production line apparatus with either a 1,250-gpm or a 1,500-gpm single-stage pump,” or “Alternate bids will be received for an alternative body material with an identical structural warranty.”
An optional bid request would be in the following form: “Optional prices will be considered for a 1,500-gpm pump in lieu of the 1,250-gpm pump specified,” or “Optional prices will be considered for a 300-hp engine in lieu of the 350-hp engine specified.” Optional and alternate bids have proven useful when the projected cost of an apparatus is very close to the budgeted or appropriated moneys. A fire department may elect to accept as a base bid the bare-bones apparatus with optional pricing requested for specific individual extraneous items. The key point is that the fire department, not the bidder, is mandating which features the purchaser may or may not be willing to compromise on.
To keep all bidders on the same playing field, the purchaser can go an additional step by providing a preprinted bid form. The purchaser specifies that optional or alternate bids will only be considered when provided in the designated spaces on the supplied form. You, the purchaser, are telling the bidders up front you will consider only alternate or optional prices that are specifically solicited. To be fair and equitable to all vendors, a fire department should not consider an alternate or optional price unless all bidders have an equal opportunity to provide the same. This procedure is legally mandated in many states.
Consider statements in your Instructions to Bidders similar to the following: “The Purchaser defines an Exception to the Specifications as any difference or variance in what the Purchaser has specified and what the Bidder is proposing, no matter how slight, small, or insignificant it may be and regardless of what the reason may be. The Purchaser defines a Clarification to the Specifications as a better or more detailed explanation of what a Bidder is providing in his proposal, or the reason he has proposed a certain item, accessory, or appurtenance.” Bidders should always state that “the Purchaser has the right to accept or reject any Bidder`s claim of being equal to or exceeding any size, capacity, item, process, accessory, or appurtenance the Bidder may or may not provide when an Exception has been taken to the specifications.”
Meeting the intent of a specification does not mean bidders should be allowed to disguise exceptions as clarifications. An exception is a deviation, in which a bidder cannot, will not, or does not want to supply exactly what the purchaser has specified. A clarification is an explanation and should be used as such. For example, your generic specifications call for easily removable pump panels and one bidder proposes fully hinged, swing-out pump panels similar to a door. That bidder certainly meets the requirement of easily removable panels. To enhance his own presentation and make the purchaser aware of the feature, the bidder should list the technical description of his panels as a clarification.
Conversely, if the purchaser specifies swing-out doors at the pump panel and a bidder proposes bolted-on panels, the bidder should take an exception to the specifications. Although bolted-on panels meet the intent of the specification in providing serviceability and accessibility, they do not meet the technical requirement of the specification in providing actual hinged access doors.
If you specified an electrically operated, large-diameter discharge valve and a bidder proposes a manually operated discharge valve, he would meet the intent of opening and closing the valve. However, he did not meet your technical requirement of the electrically operated control. He should have taken an exception. Did the bidder consider your reasoning for specifying the device in the first place? Is he disregarding your requirements so he can enjoy an unfair price advantage over other bidders? Is that playing fair and square? Buyer beware–some bidders will meet the intent of your specifications with low-cost features, hiding as clarifications or options the true costs of what you really wanted and specified. This bidder`s initial bid price could be substantially lower than others received. Unfortunately, it may be the price a public administrator will focus on when determining a bid award.
The bidding process, if not properly managed, may result in a fiscal nightmare or, worse, a political maelstrom. The fire chief may end up having to justify each and every dollar a bidder inadvertently shows or purposely disguises as a clarification or an unsolicited option. This is not fair to the fire department or to the other bidders–the practice should not be condoned. Determining and influencing what should or should not be on a fire truck is the responsibility of the fire department, not the bidder.
Input from the suppression, training, and maintenance personnel should be consolidated at the committee level and approved by the fire chief. The why and wherefore of what will be specified and projected costs should be explained to, understood by, and sanctioned by the purchasing authority before the specifications are put to public bid. Ensure that you will not be unwittingly placed in an embarrassing position by the bidding process. Bidding is a two-way street–an interaction between the buyer and potential sellers. Making sure the bidders are aware of your rules of engagement will enable the process to run smoothly. n
n BILL ADAMS, an independent fire apparatus dealer for 24 years, currently operates William. F. Adams & Associates. A 37-year veteran of the volunteer fire service, he is a member and former chief of the East Rochester (NY) Fire Department.
