The essence of the most advantageous tender (MAT) is to allow the procuring authorities to carry out a comprehensive assessment on the technical merits, quality, function, terms and prices of tenders in accordance with the judging criteria listed on the tendering document. In this way, the award of contract can be determined that ensures the best quality within the budget and encourages good competition among tendering parties while eliminate vicious undercutting.
Scandals arose from recent procurement projects such as the ETC procurement project, High Speed Rail vibration reduction project, the procurement of Kuan-hwa Fast Attack Boat Guide-Missile (F-ABG), and the construction of the southern courtyard of the National Palace museum have attracted great attention. On March 22, 2006, the Premier announced that ¡§Award to the lowest tender should be made the rule while the MAT should be the exception¡¨ in future government procurement projects. This announcement highlighted the flaws and problems yet to be improved within the existing system. After studying related literatures, conducting a thorough analysis of the current situation and different case studies of the tender selection process, this paper conducted a survey among the people involved in government procurement to find out how they think of the selection of the most advantageous tender legally and in practice, the function of the tender selection committee, the management and the efficiency of the selection process. Suggestions for improvement are put forward based on the findings and analysis.
The survey found that the Ranking Method while considering the price factor and the Overall Evaluation Score Method are the most frequently used tendering methods in the past experience of our interviewees. Price may be a crucial factor in determining the most advantageous tender. The most important factor in the award selection process is technical merits. The process of selecting the most advantageous tender is most susceptible to flaws and scandals. The inappropriate appointment of the committee members is the main cause of these flaws. In practice, the selection of committee members itself is of great difficulty. The expertise, personal bias, as well as one¡¦s understanding of the procurement could all affect the fairness and credibility of the tendering process. Besides these committee members, top officials in the procuring institutions also play important roles in the decision-making process. Cognitive differences among
interviewees in the understanding of the legal institutions of the MAT selection, the functions of the selection committee, the execution of the MAT selection, the management mechanisms of the MAT selection may be caused by elements such the institutions they work for, the nature of their works, the job title, the training hours they received, whether they are professionally accredited. Yet, different years of experience did not contribute to such differences. People with different job title, nature of work, years of experience, and training hours did cause significant difference in the understanding of the efficiency of the MAT selection. Working at different institutions and professional accreditation, however, did not result in such difference.
Based on the above findings, a way forward has been provided: a set of comprehensive regulations for the most advantageous tender selection should be established. A standard of procedure and module should be designed. The decision authority of the procuring institution should be defined in order to actually fulfill the need of the procurement. A comprehensive list of suggested professionals should be compiled to assist different kinds of procurements. This list would ensure the fairness of the selection process. Specify the judging criteria for prices, weights of evaluating elements, and the scoring principle. Determine a set of reasonable scoring method for prices. Provide professional training for procurement professionals. Enhance the efficiency of the MAT selection. Committee members should receive professional training in order to improve the credibility of the selection process. A performance evaluation mechanism should be established in order to improve efficiency and put the government¡¦s budget to the best use.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0820107-110205 |
| Date | 20 August 2007 |
| Creators | Liu, Mei-man |
| Contributors | Jin-Hwa Wu, Ying-Fang Huang, Tung-Wei Hung, Po-Wen Chen |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0820107-110205 |
| Rights | off_campus_withheld, Copyright information available at source archive |
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