Page 185 - Sustainable On-Site CHP Systems Design, Construction, and Operations

158 De s i g n

Hiring the Best Engineering Team
The best interests of the owner-operator, developer, and/or facility are served when
engineering selections are based on hiring the most qualified and experienced team. It
is seldom wise to hire based on engineering cost. Such a process may be compared to
hiring someone to perform your heart transplant based on a low bid.
Hiring an engineering team with the lowest proposal cost may very well end up
costing more during construction and in subsequent operations. A firm with less expe-
rience may well underestimate the design effort and then cut corners in an effort to stay
on the design budget. The fact is the more experienced firm can do the project for less
engineering effort because they have their experience on past projects to help guide
them through the project.
Facilities should have a preagreed upon engineering fee based on the size and dif-
ficulty of the CHP construction project (often based upon a percent of the construction
costs) as a benchmark for whichever engineering team is finally selected. That way,
engineering teams selected for interview compete on their respective qualifications,
experience and best approach to the CHP design. Such a process allows the owner or
developer to select the engineering team best suited for the project.
Selection processes which include engineering cost proposals may be appropriate,
where all firms selected for interview are all preapproved and are required to respond
to a more detailed owner-operator furnished scope of work, project milestones, and a
completion schedule. This is only appropriate when all of the firms considered are first
determined to be highly qualified, and equally capable of providing the high-quality
CHP project desired.
The selection process hiring the most qualified engineering team often begins with
a “request for qualification (RFQ).” The responding engineering teams prepare their
“statement of qualifications (SOQ)” carefully to follow the owner’s instructions. A good
statement of qualification presents information about the firm’s history, personnel,
experience on this kind of project, cost control history on projects, percentage of change-
orders, and a contract person for the projects listed.
The owner reviews the submitted SOQs from all of the engineering firms and
develops a “short list” of the top three to five firms that they would like to consider
further. The next step is to either interview the firms or request detailed project proposals.
In either case, the areas where more information or details are desired should be clearly
presented to the selected firms.
Based on the interviews and/or project proposals, the owner’s panel must then rank
each of the engineering firms generally using a predetermined weighting process. Usually
a project proposal is evaluated for its technical proposal and the cost proposal is evaluated
separately. After evaluation of all the factors, the owner or developer selects an engineer-
ing team to perform the CHP project. The winning engineering team if selected on the
basis of its technical proposal and/or interview should be asked to provide an engineer-
ing cost proposal. In lieu of accepting a cost proposal, the owner can also elect to negotiate
with selected first place engineering firm, and if unable to reach a mutual understanding
would be free to contact the second place firm and repeat the same process, if desired.
Request for Qualifications
The owner’s RFQ needs to obtain from the engineering team all information needed to
create a short list of the engineering firms that owner would like to consider for the