2.2 Develop Process Evaluation Criteria
An important part of the bidding process is the development of pre-qualification criteria and final bid evaluation criteria. Both technical and economic criteria are needed, and the relative importance of each criterion needs to be defined (often through criteria weightings). Different jurisdictions and projects can have substantial differences in the drivers for their NPP projects (including different secondary procurement policies), and so a single set of criteria cannot satisfy every project. The evaluation criteria guide provided below provides several examples that have been used on different nuclear projects.
A process to develop criteria for a project can include the following steps:
- Establish a preliminary list of criteria for consideration. Sources of criteria can be:
- Brainstorming by team members;
- Review of international standards (e.g. ISO 10845-1);
- Obtain stakeholder input or direction;
- Categorize, refine and perform preliminary ranking of criteria;
- Identify any eligibility filtering criteria (‘show stoppers’ or ‘go/no-go criteria’ or heavily weighted evaluation criteria (e.g. virtually compulsory criteria such as need to transfer intellectual property needed to operate or maintain the NPP, acceptable industrial safety performance);
- Identify evaluation criteria that can be monetized and document the methodology to do so;
- Develop weighting criteria and scoring mechanisms;
- Present recommended criteria and weightings to senior decision makers and obtain final approval to use them.
The establishment of numerical evaluation criteria weightings can be assisted through the use of mathematical techniques such as the Analytic hierarchy process, and decision-making software programs can be used to help automate the process. The sensitivity of the potential evaluation results to different criteria should also be considered.