The number of TMPs available for council usage across Australia are too numerous to determine considering the governments, government departments who operate TMPs and commercial operators. The roles adopted by Australian TMPs (both government and commercial) are distinct. A review of all Australian TMPs is outside the scope of this research project and therefore the inclusive element is the principal five TMPs in use by the seven councils. The government department TMPs mentioned by Golf 1 and 2 are not included. The current services and the degree of penetration of TMPs into council e- Tender is shown in Table 31. A description of the TMP services has been collated from the council interviewees as responses to semi-structured or follow on questions to describe the distinctive characteristics. This is contemporary detail of the council user interface with the TMP.
The researcher has not located any literature with a relationship to the services of a TMP other than the original Liao, Wang & Tserng (2002, p.732) reference to a network centre.
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This research has had no follow through in relation to e-Tender and the role of the TMP. The literature provides some componentry detail (PWC 2013, 2015) and historical material (Johnson 2010, 2012), both citations having no impact on this research project due to consultancy and not contemporary tender.
Table 31 - TMP services for Councils
TMP Services SA T&C Vendor Panel
TenderLink Tender Solutions
Procurement Australia
Open tender Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Pre-qualified Panels
No Yes No No No
National categories
Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Specialised council TMP
No Yes No No No
e-Notification Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
e-Access for tender docs
Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
e-Evaluation No Yes No No No e-QA(Forum) No Yes No No No e-audit records No Yes No No No Prescribed organisation No No * No No Yes
* All LGA (P)s by state are prescribed organisations under the respective statutes and provide panel operations through Vendor Panel
Descriptions of TMP services:
Open tender – an open distribution to categories or publicly advertised to invite potential suppliers to tender for a nominated specification from the buyer.
Pre-qualified Panels – potential suppliers are either invited by open tender or selected to participate on pre-qualified panels. Potential suppliers are evaluated for experience, product and statutory requirements (insurance, work health & safety policies, etc) for inclusion on a panel. Councils have the ability to either seek tenders, quotations, prices or information from the pre-qualified suppliers.
Notes: The pre-qualified panel operation for councils is through Vendor Panel. Councils holding a Vendor Panel licence can develop their own panels or access other council or LGA (P) panels. The benefit to suppliers is a once only registration on the Vendor Panel data base with this data transferrable to all licence holders. In
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NSW panel suppliers are required to have undergone tender meaning the monetary value of council specifications will be greater than $150k, below this figure councils self-determine.
National categories – government and commercial TMPs all operate a national category of products with suppliers who have either registered free of charge (government) or have paid a membership fee to commercial TMPs. Product tenders are distributed to category members.
Notes: The categories are a simplification process for members whether registered or fee paying through a supplier vetting process to eliminate not required tenders. Commercial TMPs data mine all public access media for tenders, vet and distribute to their categories including links to the tender. Alpha 2 ‘ those other tender
organisations, they roll everything and flick it on to people, so we still know they get it’, this comment confirmed by Golf 2 ‘TenderLink searches the web and also passes on anything that is advertised’.
Specialised council TMP – A TMP with pre-qualified panel applications for potential suppliers to product sub disciplines at a local or regional geographic area.
Notes: Across the seven councils of this research project, only Vendor Panel has the capacity to meet the pre-qualified panel requirements.
E-Notification – the distribution of notice documents by electronic applications.
Notes: All TMPs nominated in this research project use e-Notification in the form of email for notices as the principal form of communication.
E-Access for tender documents – on receipt of a notice by either registered or membership of a TMP, potential suppliers can download tender documents electronically.
Notes: Government TMPs provide an open access process to tenders without limitations. Commercial TMPs use validated electronic access to tenders as a membership value.
E-Evaluation – the TMP provides and electronic evaluation for licence holders to add individual tender weighting criteria to produce an exclusive score to a nominated tender.
Notes: Both Alpha 4 and Charlie 4 being business unit users have assimilated the Vendor Panel e-Evaluation application.
E-Q&A (Forum) – the ability of the registered and members to post questions and receive responses via the TMP application.
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Notes: The questions and answers via the application provides a probity and fairness audit trail
E-Audit records – data storage of all transactions relating to a specific tender to be retained for audit requirements.
Notes: without e-Q&A within the TMP, this valuable probity and fairness audit process cannot be conducted.
Prescribed organisation – an instrument nominating an organisation under a specific statute.
Following on from the distinctive characteristics of TMP services, is the interoperability between the business unit project management teams and the procurement department’s policies and procedures enabling specific TMP usage (Figure 18). The interoperability detail is generalised and collated from all seven councils regardless of government or commercial TMP. This is a complicated process of rationalising policy and procedures, compliance to statutes, the distinctive characteristics offered by the respective TMPs and the structure of the Procurement Department. Applied variance to an individual tender will impact the steps and sequence. The individual council structure of the procurement process, whether centralised, decentralised or centre-led will also impact each step.
Figure 18 - Components of council e-Tender through a TMP
This section clarifies the distinctive characteristics and the operationalisation of TMP services, a contribution to gaining complete understanding of council e-Tender through a
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TMP. A complete understanding is not a context of councils, a problem exists, as Golf 2 states ‘going to tender is so hard and it's not a hard process’.
Table 32 - Outcomes of components of a TMP
Operationalisation Facilitation Barriers
Distinctive characteristics of a TMP
Full assimilation of electronic process enabling procurement to be a technology driven council value
A journey too far for existing procurement capability
Interoperability between the participants
Integration of electronic applications Operating within a no penalty environment
Move away from initial adoption decisions
Investigate and evaluate the
opportunities for procurement value
Executive strategy to drive operational performance
Bold is the summarised outcome – the themes that fall naturally into explanation