FAQs and Glossary for Product Procurement
For a complete list of bid expectations go to:
http://www.build-laccd.org/bidding_and_contracting/content/documents/ProcurementNTB/20090602102728451.pdf
Master Agreement Vendors Environmental Statement
Where do I find upcoming bids?
How does procurement determine which products are needed?
Each campus submits individual requests.
How can we determine the potential size of the order?
All products on master agreements can be Go here for postings:
http://68.164.146.131/dfstheme/ProductSearch.aspx
When do you use an Informal Contract, a Three-Bid Contract and a Master Agreement Contract?
Informal Contracts don’t need LACCD board approval and are for amounts under $5000. Good for one-time-purchases.
Three-Bid Contracts need LACCD board approval and are for amounts over $5000 and under $78,500. If we cannot find enough competition for three-quotes then the purchase goes out for a formal bid which must be advertised for 2 weeks. Good for one-time-purchases.
Master Agreement Contracts need LACCD board approval, are over $77,600, must have 3 quotes and must be advertised for 2 weeks. Typically these are multi-purchased products, which can be used on any campus.
NOTE: Due to the State of California’s low bid requirement, the lowest price wins in Three-Bid or Master Agreement contracts. Equal substitutions are allowed, but the substitutions must be submitted prior to the bid opening.
How do I locate the Design-Build teams working on the projects?
http://www.build-laccd.org/bidding_and_contracting/content/documents/designbuild/Prequal_Tabulation_List_Master_MASTER_FINAL_7-30-09.pdf(this doesn’t help for specific projects, just overall groups)
Do I need to register as a pre-approved product vendor?
The Master Agreement program is our pre-approved product list. Those products are featured in the Green Catalog. To get started, watch for upcoming bids located here: http://www.build-laccd.org/bidding_and_contracting/index.asp?pg=fab
What’s included the scope of a bid?
Bids cover all aspects of the provision, delivery and installation of products.
What Procurement Terms do I need to know?
Provide – the exchange between the LACCD and the vendor
- Assemble – put together according to the manufacturers specifications, instructions and guidelines.
- Design – How the product is used in a building’s interior.
- Layout – how the product is incorporated into CAD drawings
- Delivery
- Ship Dates – from the factory
- Inside Delivery – delivery into a building
- Drop ship – items left at the loading dock
- FOB – Freight on Board, vendor assumes responsibility of the product until delivery.
- Additional Delivery Services – Outside of the scope of a traditional delivery.
- Lead time – lead time the amount of time needed to place and receive an order.
- Placement (where the campus needs them)
- Installation – affixing the product to the walls or ground.
Additional Master Agreement Glossary for a complete list go here:
Advance Ship Notice
Also referred to as ASN. An EDI document that notifies a customer of the shipment of goods, prior to receipt.
Assumed Receipt
The principle of assuming that the contents of a shipping or delivery note are correct,Shipping and receiving personnel do not check the delivery quantity. Used in conjunction with bar codes and an EDI-delivered ASN to eliminate invoices.
Authentication
1. The process of verifying the eligibility of a device, originator, or individual to access specific categories of information or to enter specific areas of a facility. This process involves matching machine-readable code with a predetermined list of authorized end users.
2. A practice of establishing the validity of a transmission, message, device, or originator, which was designed to provide protection against fraudulent transmissions.
Available To Sell (ATS)
Total quantity of goods committed to the pipeline for a ship to or selling location. This includes the current inventory at a location and any open purchase orders. ATS is the quantity compared to the Goal and ROP to determine the replenishment need.
Benchmarking
Measuring a company’s performance against other competitors or unrelated firms, often to show where opportunities to improve are greatest.
Case Code
The UPC number for the case of product, different from the item UPC code
Change Orders
A written instrument, signed in accordance with the requirements of the General Conditions, setting forth the agreement of District and Contractor on the terms of a Contract Adjustment.
CRP
Continuous Replenishment Program.
Delivery Date - when product is on the dock
DUNS Number
A unique nine-digit number assigned by Dun and Bradstreet to identify a company. DUNS stands for Data Universal Numbering System.
On Order
The amount of goods that has yet to arrive at a location or retail store. This includes all open purchase orders including, but not limited to, orders in transit, orders being picked, and orders being processed through customer service.
Uniform Code Council (UCC)
A U.S. association that administrates UCS, WINS, and VICS and provides UCS identification codes and UPCs. Also, a model set of legal rules governing commercial transmissions, such as sales, contracts, bank deposits and collections, commercial paper, and letters of credit. Individual states give legal power to the UCC by adopting its articles of law.
Uniform Communication Standard (UCS)
A set of standard transaction sets for the grocery industry that allows computer-to-computer, paperless exchange of documents between trading partners. Using Electronic Data Interchange, UCS is a rapid, accurate and economical method of business communication; it can be used by companies of all sizes and with varying levels of technical sophistication.
Uniform Product Code (UPC)
A standard bar code system used by the retail industry. Identifies manufacturer, item, style, color, etc.
GREEN FAQs
What are the current green product guidelines?
Bidders will be asked to answer 10 environmental questions surrounding their products and company as part of their bid package. Each bid will contain it’s own scope of requirements, but in general the projects can’t contain these Red Listed chemicals: http://standards.build-laccd.org/projects/dcs/pub/Sustain%20Design%20Standards/released/SDS%2D079.html
The project cannot contain any of the following Red List materials or chemicals:
What is the International Standards Organization?
An organization within the United Nations to which all national and other standard setting bodies (should) defer. Develops and monitors international standards, including OSI, EDIFACT, and X.400.
What is ANSI?
ANSI is the American National Standards Institute. A non-profit organization chartered to develop, maintain, and promulgate voluntary U.S. national standards in a number of areas. ANSI is the U.S. representative to the International Standards Organization (ISO).
What Product Standards does the LACCD follow?
Individual standards for construction are listed in the Standards and Guidelines Manuals. The LACCD is focusing on best products that can provide LEED Credits.
TECHNOLOGY FAQs
How do we load up our products into the Green Catalog?
After you are awarded a Master Agreement you will be invited to a training session. You will have a choice of entering data one product at a time, or bulk loading via a mapping process from your database or ours.
Is there a charge for this?
No, having your products in the LACCD Master Agreement Vendor Catalog and available to over 100 design build firms is free to all Master Agreement vendors.
Technical Glossary for Data Entry Application
Application Service Provider (ASP)
A company that offers access over the Internet to application (examples of applications include word processors, database programs, Web browsers, development tools, communication programs) and related services that would otherwise have to be located in their own computers. Sometimes referred to as & quote; apps-on-tap", ASP services are expected to become an important alternative, especially for smaller companies with low budgets for information technology. The purpose is to try to reduce a company's burden by installing, managing, and maintaining software.
File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
File Transfer Protocol. The Internet service that transfers files from one computer to another, over standard phone lines.
Flat File
Any file having fixed-record length, or in EDI, the file produced by EDI translation software to serve as input to the interface. Usually has the same fields as the original file, but each field is expanded to its maximum length. Does not have delimiters.
GIF
Graphics Interchange Format. A graphical file format commonly used to display indexed-color images on the World Wide Web. GIF is a compressed format, designed to minimize file transfer time over standard phone lines.
JPEG
Joint Photographic Expert Group. A graphical file format used to display high-resolution color images on the World Wide Web. JPEG images apply a user-specified compression scheme that can significantly reduce the large file size usually associated with photo-realistic color images. A higher level of compression results in lower image quality, whereas a lower level of compression results in higher image quality.
Mapping
Diagramming data that is to be exchanged electronically, including how it is to be used and what business management systems need it. Preliminary step for developing an applications link. Performed by the functional manager responsible for a business management system.
Meta Tag
An optional HTML tag that is used to specify information about a web document. Some search engines use "spiders" to index web pages. These spiders read the information contained within a page's META tag. So in theory, an HTML or web page author has the ability to control how their site is indexed by search engines and how and when it will "come up" on a user's search. The META tag can also be used to specify an HTTP or URL address for the page to "jump" to after a certain amount of time. This is known as Client-Pull. What this means, is a web page author can control the amount of time a web page is up on the screen as well as where the browser will go next.
Rich Media
An Internet advertising term for a Web page ad that uses advanced technology such as streaming video, downloaded applet (programs) that interact instantly with the user, and ads that change when the user's mouse passes over it.
RTF
Rich Text Format. A method of encoding text formatting and document structure using the ASCII character set. By convention, RTF files have an .rtf filename extension.
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
A string that supplies the Internet address of a website or resource on the World Wide Web, along with the protocol by which the site or resource is accessed. The most common URL type is http://, which gives the Internet address of a web page. Some other URL types are gopher://, which gives the Internet address of a Gopher directory, and ftp://, which gives the network location of an FTP resource.
WYSIWYG
What You See Is What You Get. An editing interface in which a file created is displayed as it will appear to an end-user.
FYI, for more terms…