Case Study: Wales and West Utilities

ChandlerKBS’ association with Wales and the West Utilities (WWU) began in 2005 shortly after WWU’s formation. ChandlerKBS was requested to assist WWU’S newly formed procurement department in the establishment of their key distribution pipeline repair, maintenance and extension contract, the Engineering Period Contract.

ChandlerKBS helped WWU to determine the optimum procurement strategy and continued with our involvement in all aspects of the procurement process that ultimately led to the current framework alliance termed the Western Gas Alliance (WGA). Our management of the procurement process extended from the earliest approach to market, continued through the prequalification and tender stages to ultimate contract award. During this process we assisted WWU through:

• The development of prequalification criteria and the drafting of the prequalification document.
• Management of the prequalification evaluation process and participation in prequalification assessments
• Organisation of, and participation in, a Tenderer ‘Understanding the Contract’ open day
• Preparation of the Invitation to Tender documentation
• Management of the tender period communication process
• Management and involvement in the qualitative and commercial tender response evaluations
• Organisation of, and participation in, later stage Tenderer interviews and separate reference visits to Tenderers' premises and project sites
• Finalisation of assessments following visits
• Final stage modelling of commercial returns following clarifications
• Preparation of interim and final tender recommendation reports and Board presentations
• Finalisation of contract terms for contract signature
• Preparation of award advice and tender process outcome letters
• Organisation of, and participation in, successful and unsuccessful tenderer debriefs.

A key element of our input was to ensure that the process was transparent, well documented, demonstrably fair and objective and fully compliant with the requirements of the Utilities Directive negotiated procedure applying to the process.