PCP
Establish comparability first
Calling a tender sustainable is insufficient. Specify service, operating constraints and differences between solutions. An offer including training, parts and installation cannot fairly be compared with an equipment-only price.
KBOB’s construction guide connects the most advantageous tender with precise specifications. Its construction scope cannot be copied into every goods or services purchase. The PCP supports preparation and expertise suited to the object.
Separate different stages
Participation requirements govern access; suitability criteria assess required delivery capacity. Award criteria rank admissible offers. Contracts govern delivery and verification. Mixing these levels weakens equal treatment and follow-up.
Vaud identifies working conditions, worker protection and equal pay as participation requirements for bidders and subcontractors. Legal compliance must not become bonus points offset by price. The PCP supports actual checks and verifiable additional qualities where legally relevant.
Assess quality through evidence
A rapid-maintenance promise differs from documented response times, parts and temporary replacements. Criteria must relate to the service, be proportionate and have accessible evidence. Unreadable document volumes do not help.
Repairability concerns parts, documentation and required interventions. Experience should address the contract’s difficulties. Prestige does not replace relevant demonstration. The PCP wants usable quality and obligations, not a sales-presentation contest.
Evidence should expose the differences that matter between solutions. A repairability promise needs accessible parts and information for the necessary interventions. The volume of proof should remain proportionate to the authority’s ability to assess it properly. A prestigious reference dealing with another problem cannot establish that this task will be delivered under its actual conditions. The point is to test a useful capability, rather than reward the appearance of a sophisticated submission.
Weighting needs a scoring method
Scales matter too. Almost identical quality marks can leave price deciding everything; compressed price scores can do the reverse. Buyers should test plausible cases before publication.
A fictional illustration, not a Swiss rule: at 60 per cent price and 40 per cent quality, A scoring 5 and 2 receives 3.8 out of 5; B scoring 4 and 5 receives 4.4. This does not prove B is always preferable. Ranking depends on justified marks and weights. Changing the method after bids arrive destroys published comparability.
Define the running-cost boundary
The federal purchasing conference guide distinguishes acquisition, use and end of life in ownership cost, alongside risks and external impacts. Energy, consumables, maintenance, cleaning and disposal matter according to the purchase. Artificially pricing everything does not improve decisions.
The PCP wants a common comparison period and explicit assumptions. One supplier’s ideal consumption should not face another’s real operating figure. Costs already in a package must not be added again. A repair warranty does not necessarily cover service interruption.
Expose uncertainty
Energy prices, useful life and maintenance remain uncertain. A single estimate can imply false precision. Test whether reasonable alternatives change the ranking and explain strong sensitivity.
Social and environmental impacts need not all become francs. The guide recognises assessable nonmonetary criteria. The PCP supports readable financial calculations alongside separately evidenced environmental or service quality, without invented universal prices.
Examine unusually low bids
A price gap may reflect innovation, missing scope or unrealistic assumptions. It proves neither fraud nor superiority. Explanations should be requested and assessed through the applicable procedure.
The PCP wants capacity to connect price with time, equipment, skills and dependencies. Early user consultation must not create concealed supplier advantages. Requirements should concern the object and performance rather than arbitrary origin or brand preferences.
Preserve quality in the contract
Rewarded qualities must become enforceable commitments. If training, deadlines or maintenance disappear from the contract, the ranking loses meaning. Acceptance requires tests, documents, reservations and funded follow-up.
Experience can improve subsequent specifications by separating poor requirements, broken promises and changed needs. The PCP sees value as public judgment from need to actual use, with criteria understandable to suppliers and the population financing the service.