Ventures undertaken by public administration signifi cantly contribute to development of economy. Such ventures are usually complex, so they require effective collaboration of a number of autonomous organizations. To face the challenge of efficient cooperation, public administration should adopt the model of Virtual Organizations (VO). A key phase in each VO life-cycle is selection of partners which in case of public administration takes a form of public auctions. In this paper a Collaborative Contractor Selection method, denoted C-CS, is proposed to support selection of contractors for a portfolio of public ventures. In the C-CS method a number of requirements are considered associated with contractor off er properties, contractor competences, and social relationships among them. The selection is performed step by step as successive ventures are performed. If justifi ed, the selection is done in collaboration between administrative units and potential contractors. The C-CS method provides an opportunity for better computer support of public auctions leading to more efficient and eff ective realization of public administration ventures.

1. October 24th, 2012, Albany, NY
Computer Supported Contractor Selection
for Public Administration Ventures
Zbigniew Paszkiewicz Wojciech Cellary
Department of Information Technology
Poznao University of Economics, Poland
{zpasz,cellary}@kti.ue.poznan.pl

2. Agenda
1. Public ventures and auctions in European Union
2. C-CS method
– Virtual Organization Breeding Environments
– Information model
– Selection technique
– Recommendations
3. Conclusions
© UEP 2

3. Public ventures
and public auctions
in European Union

4. Complex public contract
Contracting authorities are not objectively able
to define the technical means,
capable of satisfying their needs or objectives,
and/or are not objectively able to specify the legal
and/or financial makeup of a project
© UEP 4

5. Main procedures
• Open procedures
• Restricted procedures
• Design contests
• Competitive dialogue
• Negotiated procedures
• Developing one or more suitable alternatives
• Candidates chosen are invited to tender
• Negotiate the terms of contract
© UEP 5

6. Evaluation and selection
• Restrictions concerning to a particular type of organizations
• Evaluation criteria
• Economically advantageous
• The lowest price only
• Participation of groups of economic operators
• Subcontracting to third parties
• Submission of variants
– Importance of evaluation criteria
– Minimum requirements
• Official lists of approved contractors, suppliers or service
providers
© UEP 6

7. Collaboration within public auction
• Inside public administration units
• Among public administration and candidates for contractors
© UEP 7

8. Collaboration within public auction
• Inside public administration units
• Among public administration and candidates for contractors
Aims
• Definition of the contract notice content
• Agreement on the invited the set of economic contractors
• Evaluation of offer variants
Participants
• Domain experts, public administration unit representatives,
legal and technical advisors, non-government organizations
© UEP 8

9. Collaboration within public auction
• Inside public administration units
• Among public administration and candidates for contractors
Aims
• Identification of the means best suited to satisfying the
needs of contracting authorities
• Definition of contract terms
Participants
• Public administration units, potencial contractors
© UEP 9

10. Portfolio of projects
Project
Public auction
Project Public auction Project
Public auction Public auction
Project
Public auction
Preparation of Poznao City, Poland, to European Championship in Football
© UEP 10

11. A. Project Portfolio
Project C
Project B
Project D Project E Project F
Project A
Project E
B. Contractor selection process
Public Public
auction B auction D
Public Public Public
auction A auction E auction F
Public
auction C
C. Selection output
General General General General
Conractor E
conractor A conractor B conractor C conractor D

12. Selection of contractors for single
Not just one but a portfolio of
ventures in separation from one
projects
another
Not enough attention to the holistic view of the whole
portfolio of ventures tasks comprising the project
Selection for public administration ventures
is not performed effectively
Non-effective realization of public ventures
© UEP

13. C-CS method

14. Method general concept
Apply a coordinated partner selection process
in a number of auctions
to all the projects contained in the portfolio,
instead of selecting independently
a contractor per project
• Selection of contractors is not seen as a single act
• Selection of contractors is a process conducted in parallel to
the public administration ventures
• Consider a portfolio of projects
© UEP 14

15. Method aims
• Support for analysis of potential contractors in terms
of relationships existing among them
• Support for analysis of correlation among former and
ongoing public auctions
• Support for analysis of sets of economic contractors
involved in many public auctions
• Sharing of good practices concerning public auctions
among public administration units
© UEP 15

16. Virtual Organization Breeding
Environments

17. Virtual Organization
Breeding Environment
Virtual Organization
Process of
Contractor Selection
Virtual Organization Breeding Environment
Preparation of Poznao City, Poland, to European Championship in Football
1

18. Contractor selection process
encompasses
1. Definition of a set of public auctions to be conducted for the
project portfolio
– Relationships existing among these auctions, and main assumptions of
these auctions
2. Conduction of the public auctions in stages
Conduction public auctions,
– Each auction is followed by establishment of a public contract for
each project
3. If applicable, as contractor selection proceeds redefinition of
the set of auctions, relationships among them, their scope
and assumptions
© UEP 18

19. Phases of the selection stage
1. Specification of public auctions envisioned for contractor selection
stage and their detailed assumptions
• Phase is performed within public administration and its output is published in
a form of contract notices
2. Contractor analysis prior negotiations
• Set of acceptable public contracts is created and analyzed internally within
public administration
3. Contractor analysis during negotiations
• Set of acceptable public contracts is created on the basis of acceptable offers
submitted by candidate contractors during negotiation or competitive dialog
4. Stage conclusion
• Selection of the best acceptable public contract for each public auction
envisioned in this contract selection stage
© UEP 19

20. Model of requirements
Public Public
Auction B Auction D
Public autions for
Project portfolio
Public
Auction A
Public
Auction E
project portfolio
Public
Auction C
Public Contract class E
Public Contract class B
Public Contract class A Contr.E Offer E
Contr. B Offer B
Contr. A Offer A
Public Contract class C Public Contract class D
Contr.C Offer C Contr.D Offer D
Public contract
specification
f1
y f4 w f3 Roles
w
y
p/r
f2
p/r p/r
p/r
Social
e1 e2 e3 e5 requirements
e4
© UEP 20

21. Contractor selection
y f4 f3
f1 w
w
Contractor and offer
y
p/r
classes
p/r p/r f2
p/r
e3 e5
e1 e2
e4
p/r w p/r
O3 EO3 EO4 O5 O6
y p/r
w
Repository
O2 y z
p/r
EO5 O7
p/r O1
p/r
y p/r
EO1 EO2 O4 y p/r
O8 EO6 O9
F – contractor specification E – offer specification EO – economic operator O – offer
© UEP 21

22. Information model

23. Information modules
1. Contractor and offer specification module
2. Social network module
3. Requirement module
4. Participant’s activity module
© UEP 23

24. 1 Contractor and offer specification module
• Structured description of contractors’ competences and
services
• Offers (offer variants) submitted during past and current
public auctions
• Contractor/offer search based on submitted criteria
• Evaluation of the conformance of an contractor to a set
of requirements
© UEP 24

25. 2 Social network module
• Contents
– Contractors
– Contractor groups
– Contractor group variants
– Offers
– Offer variants
• Evaluation of the conformance of an contractor group to
a set of social requirements
© UEP 25

26. 3 Requirement module
• Definition of complex requirements involving various
aspects of contractor groups
• Provides information concerning requirements used
in various public auctions
• Repository of sets of requirements for future reuse
© UEP 26

27. 4 Participant’s activity module
• Stores information concerning activities performed
by contractor selection process participants
throughout selection processes
• Activity Pattern Identification and Recommendation
method for Collaborative Processes
© UEP 27

28. Selection technique

29. 1 Definition of VO specification
• Set of requirements
• Process participant’s preferences
• Process participant’s acceptable requirement
conformance levels
Phase 1
© UEP 29

30. Selection of partners and
2
services for role
• Set of contractors and offers
for each role
• Sorting and filtering out
elements
Phase 2 and 3
© UEP 30

31. 3 Generation of VO variants
• Contractor group variant - possible
composition of contractors and
offers
– Genetic algorithm - determination
of the best fitted partner group
variants
– Fitness function - estimation of
the level of satisfaction of social
requirements
– Threshold value - used to filter out
the contractor group variants
Phase 2 and 3
© UEP 31

32. Final contractor group
4
selection
• Choosing the “winning” contractor and offer variant
• Registration in social network
Phase 4
© UEP 32

33. Recommendations

34. Recommendation
• Detect activity patterns in contractor selection process
A set of activities that are frequently performed
in a structured way in a particular context
• Identified activity patterns are later recommended to other
selection participants
• Possible due to information stored in participant’s activity
module of the repository
© UEP 34

35. Conclusions

36. Conclusions
• Work in progress
• Validation in public administration practice
• Prototype implementation
– The ErGo System
– http://ergo.kti.ue.poznan.pl
• According to the current European legal regulations
– Only requirements concerning economic contractors and their offers
– No social requirements can be used to evaluate and reject an
economic operator as a result of a public auction
© UEP 36

37. Related work
Cellary, W. and W. Picard, Agile and Pro-active Public Administration as a
Collaborative Networked Organization, The 4th International Conference on
Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, ICEGOV, 2010
Picard, W.: Adaptation of service protocols. Habilitation thesis,
Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego w Poznaniu, to appear, 2012
Paszkiewicz, Z. and W. Picard, MAPSS, a Multi-Aspect Partner and Service
Selection Method, 11th IFIP WG 5.5 Working Conference on Virtual
Enterprises, PRO-VE 2010, Springer, 2010
Paszkiewicz, Z. and W. Cellary, Computer Supported Collaboration of SMEs in
Transnational Market, Journal of Transnational Management , vol. 17, issue 4,
ed. Becker, K. , Taylor & Francis, 2012
© UEP 37

38. Computer Supported Contractor Selection
for Public Administration Ventures
Thank you
for your attention
Zbigniew Paszkiewicz Wojciech Cellary
Department of Information Technology
Poznao University of Economics, Poland
{zpasz,cellary}@kti.ue.poznan.pl

39. Computer Supported Contractor Selection
for Public Administration Ventures
Thank you
for your attention
Zbigniew Paszkiewicz Wojciech Cellary
Department of Information Technology
Poznao University of Economics, Poland
{zpasz,cellary}@kti.ue.poznan.pl