A Study On Engineering Government Procurement: The Development And Application Of A Bid Evaluation Index Mechanism

Government procurement as a fundamental means of public spending has significant impact on the development of social economy. In China government procurement mechanism is advanced to deepen the reform of financial spending management, and to establish a public financial management system which accommodates the development of a socialist market economy. Engineering acquisition which takes the largest percentage in China's government procurement continues to increase in its scale and share over recent years as an essential component in public spending.Government procurement is often organized through public bidding. Bid evaluation and bid decision-making are crucial in this process. However, the current bidding practice in China is confronted with many problems including but not limited to incomplete evaluation index, unreasonable index weighting, non-standard bid evaluation methods and poor operability.This paper investigates the issues concerning the standardization, optimization and application of bidding index mechanism for government engineering procurement. A possible solution is suggested which integrates index application with the establishment of a bidding model deigned to meet the aims of government procurement as well as the needs of practical engineering management. A brief outline of this paper is indicated below.Reviewing relevant theories on government engineering procurement–this part of the paper introduces the concepts of government procurement and government procurement mechanism; and uses public bidding theories to analyze the status quo and problems in current bid evaluation in China.Constructing a bid evaluation mechanism for government engineering procurement–this part explores the aims of China's government procurement, the principles of its bid index mechanism, as well as the needs of practical engineering management. Based on these analyses, a comprehensive bid evaluation index mechanism for government engineering procurement is constructed from the commercial, technical and public interest perspectives. Applying the bid evaluation index mechanism for government engineering procurement–a bid index screening model is designed using analytic hierarchy process (AHP); through synthetic evaluation of a case study in government engineering procurement, this part also demonstrates how to apply the previously constructed bid evaluation index mechanism in government engineering procurement.The research findings show that the bid evaluation index mechanism developed in this study can be applied extensively to bid decision-making for engineering government procurement. The mechanism can also be used for bid decision-making in general construction projects. It provides an alternative evaluation model for scientific decision making in bid evaluation.