Ottawa Construction News staff writer
The City of Ottawa is launching a Vendor Performance Management (VPM) initiative that will be implemented initially for “all construction and engineering contracts under $500,000 with all good sand services contracts being eventually phased in,” the Ottawa Construction Association (OCA) reports.
The city says the new system’s goals are to:
- Provide performance feedback;
- encourage two-way communication between the vendor and the City with the goal of improved performance; and
- establish standard Key Performance Indicators (KPI).
The OCA says “this ‘scoring’ system will serve ultimately to weed out or penalize firms that do not perform and recognize outstanding performers.” However, initially the VPM scores alone will have no penalties “that affect a vendor’s ability to compete for future contracts,” the city’s chief procurement manager Jeff Byrne told the OCA in an earlier presentation.
An OCA membership survey indicated most of the 72 respondents approve the idea of a rating system.
The contractor evaluation and rating system will be one topic of a special program “Contracting with the City of Ottawa” scheduled by the OCA for May 2 at Ben Franklin Place. Registration is free for members at the oca.ca website.
