Impetus For QBS
QBS was developed because public owners lacked procurement tools for services for which price competition made no sense. For example, creative services cannot be fairly priced before the creative process has taken place. An architect can hardly "hard bid" (submit a firm price for) a project when part of the cost to the architectural firm (and therefore its needs for compensation) will be determined later in the process of discovery of the owner's needs and intentions.
Further, lowest cost is widely recognized as the poorest criterion for service selection when quality and professional creativity are sought. An apt analogy from outside of the construction arena often cited is in the area of medical care: Nobody willingly chooses a surgeon based upon a doctor's willingness to perform an operation most cheaply.
Whereas private owners can use common sense to procure services based upon an evaluation of sources of greatest delivery of value, public owners, under political scrutiny, have been bound to the presumed objectivity of selections based on lowest price, even if a realistic price could not be determined. Such situations have led to unintended consequences, including poor service and quality, excessive and expensive change orders, and litigation over disputes.
Adapting to political reality, known abuses, tight budgets, and increasing expectations on the part of taxpayers for quality with integrity, the public owner has developed selection procedures consciously intended to enhance the probability of value while guarding against unfairness and abuse.
Crucial to QBS is the methodology and documentation the public owner uses to ensure competition without consideration of price. An essential element is the use of a selection committee, comprising a number of knowledgeable people of unquestioned integrity, to make the evaluations. The selection committee is charged by the owner with fairly evaluating the qualifications and, often, the ideas for project execution offered by competing firms.
Read more about this topic: Qualifications-Based Selection
Famous quotes containing the word impetus:
“While the white man keeps the impetus of his own proud, onward march, the dark races will yield and serve, perforce. But let the white man once have a misgiving about his own leadership, and the dark races will at once attack him, to pull him down into the old gulfs.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)