Buying Wisely

This article reviews about rigorous equipment specification, which is a sound engineering practice and is important in capital procurement. A complete and robust specification document serves as the basis of all important procurement activities: requesting a bid and competitive bidding, purchasing contract development, and interim and final quality inspection of the delivered equipment. Once the bids have been received, a rigorous, organized, and documented bid analysis should be done. A format that incorporates a comparison of critical variables’ values in each bid should be designed. A rigorous post-delivery inspection is required because there may be serious flaws with the equipment that escaped the manufacturer’s internal quality control. The engineer is better able to thoroughly inspect the equipment at the company site rather than the factory site. Checks involving measurement devices should be included, depending on the type of equipment ordered. Since this is usually precommissioning activity, calibration of instrumentation for this activity is desired, though not required.