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Market Survey (MS)

Purpose

The Market Survey (MS) is a procurement procedure to be issued for expenditures foreseen over 200 kCHF. It is the previous step to an Invitation to Tender (IT).

The aims of a Market Survey are:

• Allow Member State Delegations, Industrial Liaison Officers and other parties outside the Organization involved to contribute, at an early stage, to the tendering process by proposing suitable potential bidders in their countries.

• Allow CERN to qualify and select a limited number of potential bidders to whom the invitation to tender will be sent.

10 firms for contracts expected to be up to 750 kCHF 15 firms for contracts expected to exceed 750 kCHF

Market Survey documents

A Market Survey includes the following documents:

• A short Technical Description that shall give a good general idea of CERN technical requirements.

• A Qualification Criteria that shall state clearly under which bases firms will be qualified or disqualified.

• A Technical Questionnaire asking questions related to the defined Qualification Criteria to be answered by the potential bidders.

Templates for the documents listed above (for service contracts) are available in this site.

If the market survey concerns LHC or LINAC4 project, an EDMS number and a project document number shall be requested to the CERN Project Office (contact point: Cécile NOELS).

• A list of potential bidders which shall be sent at the time of the market survey to the Member State Delegations and Industrial Liaison Officers, including if possible:

  • Name and address of the firm

  • Contact person

  • E-mail address

The MS documents are sent to CERN Member States Delegations and other entities, as well as anyone who request them.

Firms (companies, institutes or consortiums) that are not disqualified as result of the Market Survey cannot be disqualified at the Invitation to Tender process, where only offers can be disqualified.

• A letter issued by the Procurement and Industrial Services group including, as attachment, the document “Selection and Adjudication Criteria for Supply or Industrial Services Contracts”, only in the case of “lowest compliant” adjudication basis.

It is to notice that these "Selection and adjudication criteria" documents are updated every year in March.

The country of origin is defined as: For supply contracts: the country where the supplies are manufactured or undergo the last major transformation For service contracts: the country in which the bidder is established

Procedure

The technical responsible shall prepare the following Market Survey documents:

• Technical description

• Qualification criteria

• Technical questionnaire

• List of firms

The technical responsible shall send the documents to the EN Specification Review Panel.

Once validated by the EN Specification Review Panel, the documents shall be sent to the sLHC Specification Committee (contact point: Cécile NOELS) for reading and comments. The reading time is 2 weeks.

• In the case of Service Contracts, the possibility of placing the contract under Lowest Bidder procedure or Best Value for Money procedure shall be explained.

The decision to adjudicate a contract under Best Value for Money procedure is taken jointly between the Procurement and Industrial Service and the Head of the EN Department or his representative before the Market Survey is sent out.

At the end of the deadline, a short meeting is organized to agree on comments to be integrated. The meeting shall include:

• The technical responsible

• The chairman of the sLHC Specification Committee

• The EN Specification Review Panel

Once comments have been integrated by the technical responsible, the documents shall be sent to the sLHC Specification Committee for further revision.

When the chairman of the sLHC Specification Committee considers quality of documents is acceptable, he sends final version to the technical responsible and the purchase officer (with copy to the EN Specification Review Panel).

The group’s secretary or technical responsible enters technical documents into CFU / AIS Media.

The Market Survey is sent out to the firms by the purchasing service. In principle, 4 weeks are given to firms to express their interest in the future invitation to tender.

The closing date of the Market Survey is at least 4 weeks from the first mailing date of the Market Survey. Firms still can apply until the Invitation to Tender is sent out.

As a rule, a Market Survey may be used as a basis for an Invitation to Tender within a period of up to 12 months or, for contracts involving prototype work, 18 months .