Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://dair.nps.edu/handle/123456789/282
Title: A Three Stage Multi-attribute Procurement Auction: A Proposal for Department of Defense (DoD) Vendor Selection Decisions
Authors: Francois Melese
Jay Simon
Keywords: Vendor Selection
Issue Date: 30-Apr-2010
Publisher: Acquisition Research Program
Citation: Published--Unlimited Distribution
Series/Report no.: Vendor Selection
NPS-AM-10-064
Abstract: This paper explores vendor selection decisions where competing vendors offer similar products with multiple non-price attributes. Traditional multi-attribute auctions such as the USAF Air Tanker competition include prices alongside other attributes in vendor proposals. Buyers generally select winning bidders using a weighted average of price and non-price attributes. A different approach is recommended here: to embed vendor prices directly in the buyer's budget constraint. A first step is to conduct a simple multi-attribute auction with a fixed budget. The government buyer only evaluates vendor proposals that satisfy the budget constraint, choosing the proposal (non-price attribute bundle) which offers the greatest value for money (i.e., budget). The next step is to address budget uncertainty, expanding the model to incorporate a range of budgets. This leads to several interesting results, including that the traditional practice, and classroom technique, of eliminating dominated alternatives can lead to sub-optimal decisions. Improving public procurement decisions requires forecasting a range of future budgets, and soliciting information from vendors that allows procurement alternatives to be defined as functions of the value offered by each vendor over a range of budgets, rather than as a single point in budget-value (cost-effectiveness) space. Under more realistic budget scenarios, different vendor selection decisions will occur that benefit both troops and taxpayers.
Description: Contract Management / NPS Faculty Research
URI: https://dair.nps.edu/handle/123456789/282
Appears in Collections:Annual Acquisition Research Symposium Proceedings & Presentations

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