Effectiveness and Impacts of Vendor Evaluation Systems over Indian Railways
P.SIVALINGAM, IRSS, DY. CHIEF MATERIAL MANAGER
South Eastern Railway, GSD, Kharagpur.-721301

emails – dycmmgsdser@gmail.com & psivalingam_smm@yahoo.co.in

Dear Sir/Madam,

Indian Railway Material Management Department procures more than Rs.30,000 Crores worth materials per year. The major Business Associates in this function are Rly suppliers who contribute in achieving the efficacy of the Public Procurement function objective.

With an objective to evaluate the impacts and effectiveness of Vendor Evaluation System over IR, as a person responsible for the Rly supply function in your firm or as a  Rly servant, your unique knowledge& experience feedback to this survey questionnaire enclosed herewith, will not only contribute to the study but also can act as an important catalyst input in assessing & future improving the Vendor Evaluation System in IR. This study is a part of my Post Graduate Program in Public Policy & Management at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore, sponsored by Ministry of Railways & Department of Personnel &Training (DOPT)

Your answers will be kept confidential, only the aggregated summary statistics will be analyzed without identifying any individual or firms.  I appreciate your time and effort in support of this study and potential contribution to a future policy. A summary of the results of this study can also be sent to you(if email id is given).

Though a soft copy of this questionnaire is attached herewith, it is also accessible online for filling responses through link          (printing online document, filling& posting in the link is also   possible) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dDVjWHdNbmlrdS1SbExrWWJVelFfZmc6MQ

I can be reached through voice/e-mail/SMS via the contacts mentioned below for anything on the above. The completed survey be sent via e-mail/post/online. I solicit you to forward this survey to your colleagues, Rly fraternity, Rly Suppliers to contribute in the study.

Thanking you for spending your valuable time and regret for the inconvenience if any caused.
Regards,
P.SIVALINGAM

emails – dycmmgsdser@gmail.com & psivalingam_smm@yahoo.co.in

Mobile Nos. – 09002081745, 09445815887
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legend- IR-Indian Railway, MMIS-Material Management Information system used in IR, Rly. –Railway, PU-Production Unit, RDSO-Research Designs Standards Organisation, CORE-Centre Organisation for Railway Electrification, CLW-Chitaranjan Locomotive Works. ICF-Integral Coach  Factory.   RITES – Rail India Technical& Economic Services(Rly. Material Inspecting Agency)   PO-Purchase Order.     *** Category A-Capable of supplying above Rs.40lakhs, B-Rs.10-40lakhs,C-Rs.5-10lakhs, D-Rs.1-5lakhs,E- < Rs.1 lakh. Critical Item-Railway specific items whose failure endangers safety or manufactured items essential for the un-interrupted Rly operations/maintenance. Successful Supply- A vendor supplying above 95% of the PO Qty (without any rejections) within PO promised Delivery time.
Sign in to Google to save your progress. Learn more
Respondent is from (tick) *
E-mail id (optional)
For Sending results of this survey or suggestion/contact
Respondent name & Designation (optional)-
Please tick your level in the Railway if you are from Railways *
For Railway and other than Railway suppliers respondents
With the policy/rules/norms etc. common over IR for vendor registration, do you agree that once a vendor is registered with a particular Zonal Rly/PU, no further procedures should be insisted upon by other zones/PU and the registration must be valid all over IR. *
Do you think that Rly insistence of   ISO certification of the vendor at the time of registration/renewal  is  directly  related  to  future  better  performance  of  the  supplier  in contracts? *
After vendor registration, if the vendor do not get any PO during the validity of registration period due to Rly has not floated any tender/procured the items for which the vendor is registered, Do you agree that the renewal of vendor after initial registration period should be done based on any other criteria such as financial position, capacity, supplies to others etc. *
When a vendor performance rating of a supplier reaches less than the following %, then the vendor should be deleted from the Railway registered list *
In the year 2002 Rly has fixed norms for grading different categories (A, B,C,D,E)***  of vendors based on the monetary value capability of executing supply orders. Do you think that after increase in Officers’ purchase powers, advertised tender threshold limit, escalation factor etc there should be a review of these threshold limits and grading categories? *
Do you think that too  much of paper work and reviews  at different levels  are insisted/ followed for Vendor registration /approval or Renewal process in Rlys? *
.   Do  you  think  that  Rly    has  rigorous  performance  auditing  methods  to  weed  out  bad performing suppliers as a continuous improvement in monitoring efficient vendor base.? *
Do you think that at present Rly is following a system of automatically registering the well reputed sources directly as approved sources without following the required formalities? *
Do you think, it will be prudent to assign items ( PL Number/Description or a group of stores) specific vendor registration to suppliers like approval methods followed by RDSO/PU instead of allotting the obsolete trade group numbers designed & created more than 30 years back? *
Do you think that Rly maintains effective policies of fixing and monitoring items specific framework about   the amount of inventory & safety stock it can hold at any time? *
Do you agree that if a supplier gets a vendor rating for a contract less than 50%, then the vendor rating for the contract should be taken as zero and the performance for that PO can be ignored?. *
The vendor evaluation and ratings should be done based on the Purchase orders executed by the firm over  a period of - *
The minimum number of POs to be considered for vendor rating evaluation at any time be *
Out of 100% vendor evaluation ratings please specify the % that can be assigned to following rating factors of past supplies assessment period ( (Total of 3 factors be equal to 100%) *
Weightage to quality of supplies made in the past to that Railway -
Weightage for the supplies within the promised Delivery time in PO - *
Post supplies Service ratings like warranty claims, rejection, service *
Do you agree with Railways Vendor evaluation rating/methods of giving 60% weightage for quality of  past supplies and 40% weightage to deliveries made in time as per contract. *
Do  you  agree  that  the  formulae/methods  followed  by  Railways  in  Vendor  performance evaluation calculations Ratings is in line with the Industry Standards’ and Benchmarks.(# *
#Vendor rating(Vr) formulae as follows:-Vr = 0.60 x Qr + 0.40 x Dr; Qr(Quality rating)=Q1/Qs, Qs = total quantity supplied Q = (Q1 + Q2 + Q3) where Q1=Qty accepted, Q2=Qty rejected in pre- inspection,Q3=Qty rejected by consignee/Depot. Dr(Delivery rating)= (Qt + ∑{Qd (1-K x Td/T)) where Q = Qty ordered, T = Promised delivery time.    Qt = Qty. supplied in time. Qd = Qty. Delayed. Td = Time delay for quantity delayed. K = Constant = 2. Overall Vendor Rating(VR)=( V1 x Vr1 + V2 x Vr2...........+)/( V1 = V2 + V3+.......+) where Vr1. Vr2 are vendor ratings for different purchase orders. V1, V2, are the values of the respective purchase orders referred
Select factors below based on which Rly can achieve the Procurement effectiveness objective in split ordering on more than one source *
Required
Owing to what reasons that Rly/PU though have directions for vendor evaluation/ratings for deciding the award of the contract to the vendor, but not following the same in procurement decision making *
Railway should evolve more effective vendor evaluation methods and techniques in vendor performance evaluation and selection using the recent ICT tools like ERP, MMIS,WEB, mobile technology tools duly treating Rly supplier as Business Associate of Rly operation? *
Do you agree Rly should place POs only after assessing/evaluating the vendor performance *
In  a  tender,  a  new  supplier  who  have  not  supplied  the  item  to  Rlys  but  supplied  the same/similar  items  to  other  Govt/Pvt.  Organisation  offers  competitive  rate  and  has  the capacity cum capability to supply the item, then what percentage of the total procurable quantity should be given to the new supplier.(pl. Tick any one box in the appropriate row) *
Critical Item
Non-Critical Item *
Do you agree  with the Rly adopted methodology of assigning order Qty to vendors through pre-determined splitting ratios to L1,L2,L3 etc based on quoted price differentials among them *
(Price difference between L1&L2- <3% 60:40%, 3to 5%- 65:35%, >5% - minimum 65% Qty on L1)
Do you agree that through all Zonal/PU MMIS integration in a single platform and bringing RDSO/RITES agencies all supply inspection results online meaningful assessment of vendor rating metrics is possible and that can guide in right selection of supplier for award of the contracts? *
Do you agree, when a RDSO Part II vendor is considered only upto 25% of the procurable Qty or the highest successfully executed Qty, the Part I vendors should also be restricted with the same logic of only  maximum of highest successfully executed PO Qty during specific period? *
At present while deciding the PO awarding based on the capacity cum capability, the Zonal Rly./PU is not able to verify the outstanding orders/performance in other Rlys. Do you agree that Rly should arrive capacity cum capability of the vendor after adjusting/ deducting the capacity already engaged by the firm against the other Railway pending orders *
Do you agree that Rly can pre-determine & fix delivery period in the tender for each item and different  vendor  performance  ratings/weightages  could  be  given  to  supplier  who  are efficiently supplying in shorter period than fixed period in comparison to others offering to supply in longer than the tender fixed delivery time. *
When a new supplier quotes for the item without past experience of that item in Rlys, do you agree that based on the firm’s capacity cum capability, financial performance parameters, infrastructure to ensure the product quality, successful past performance of the item/similar items with other organisations, it is possible to predict and arrive the future successful execution of the new item, if Rly order the item on this new source. *
Do you agree that Rly provides adequate procedures for the suppliers to make protest and appeals in the process of tendering and purchase contracts? *
Do you think that   for vendor development there is regular information exchange between Rly/PU & vendor approving   or pre-inspecting authorities like RDSO/ICF/CLW/RITES about  reporting the bad or good performance of the approved/registered vendors? *
With Information & Communication Technology (ICT) facilities augmented fully in Rlys, do you agree that the vendor evaluation system in Rlys should be real time (online) and all vendors’ performance should be available in the Website in a transparent manner *
In how many tenders/purchase cases, do you think that Rlys is calculating and arriving the vendor evaluation/selection methods before awarding a contract to  suppliers *
In Railways public procurement decision of selecting/awarding a contract to supplier, if Rly follows more effective vendor evaluation methods, then there is scope to improve the maximum availability of materials and cost savings in the purchase. *
Like Rlys impose LD for the late supplies after delivery date, do you think Rly should also extend extra weightage to the supplier rating if supplier successfully supplies the item when specifically requested by the Rly due to exigencies before the PO promised time?. *
With  so  many  complex  and  business  risks  involved  in  predicting  the  performance  and successful execution of a contract, some industries are adopting artificial intelligence methods in predicting/deciding the contractor for award. Do you think that such systems are implementable in Rlys duly following public procurement principles?
Clear selection
Do you agree that for Rly specific items with longer lead times, it is prudent to  develop more sources for bringing out better competition rather than using the available capacity of the already developed vendor(Business Associates who are ready to offer reasonable rates consistently ) by entering long term contracts fixing price on cost+profit basis. *
Do you agree that for Rly specific common items like consumables, spares etc ( which are small value for that zone but makes bulk if all Rly/PU requirements are consolidated) not necessarily to be procured from RDSO/CORE/PU approved sources, IR should enter into long term Rate/Running contracts with pre-determined price variation clause with p (like   MICO/CLW centralized) on reliable/proven sources on the strategies/principles adopted by DGS&D? *
With some suppliers not following the ethical methods of quoting their rates based on cost of the item+profit basis and indulging in other  methods(like game theory, cartels)  to make maximum/undue profits, do you agree that Rly should evolve methods of evaluating the rate reasonability of the item based on cost+profit method rather than following the traditional last purchase rate, change in cost indices etc from last purchase. *
As  per  the  Ministry  of  Rlys  instructions,  in  each  Rly  a  Head  of  the  Department  level committee of Stores and Mechanical/technical officers should be formed and be available at each Rly/PU Head Quarters to deal with vendor development and supplier related issues. Have you seen that such committee is functioning in Rly/PU. *
Do you agree with the all the following three statements i.e. a), b) & c) (a) Railway encourages open dialogue with the private sector and has several established and formal mechanisms for open dialogue through associations or other means. (b) The Railways  has programs to help build capacity among private companies, including for small businesses and training to help new entries into the public procurement marketplace (c) The Railways encourages public/private partnerships and the mechanisms are well established in the legal framework to make possible such arrangements *
Answer the question based on all the above three statement viz a) , b) & c)
The system meets (a) plus one other condition above. *
The system only provides for (a) above *
There are no obvious mechanisms for dialogue or partnership between the public and private sector. *
Submit
Clear form
Never submit passwords through Google Forms.
This content is neither created nor endorsed by Google. - Terms of Service - Privacy Policy

Does this form look suspicious? Report

Google Forms