Public tenders on the Internet
eProcurement National Experts Meeting - 4/12/2001
Public procurement on the Internet
What are the trends at the EC?
Hilde Van Loon
Office for Official Publications of the
European Communities
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Contents
The
current situation
– What needs to be published?
– How it is collected and published?
– Some figures
What
users must pay attention to?
Developments and perspectives
– SIMAP and TED
Some
conclusions
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What has to be published
OJ/S and TED contents
All public notices of tenders above certain
contract values which legally have to be
made public according to EU directives and
other public regulations
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How notices are collected?
Notices
for publication can be sent to
EUR-OP:
– by post
– by fax
– by e-mail to [email protected]
– electronically via website www.simap.eu.int (see
purchaser profile)
on-line forms
XML reporting
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How notices are collected and
published ?
 Collection
– 700 to 1.000 notices per day
 95 % manual
– paper
– fax
– e-mail
5
% electronic (XML)
 Dissemination
– TED
– CD-ROM OJ/S
n° subscribers
 5 times / week
±10.000
 twice / week
± 2.000
– TED licence holders
 Publications
deadlines
(average)
– less than 5 days for XML
– less than 10 days for manual
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Some figures
N° public procurement notices / year
Number of notices
155 186 163 395
162 861 161 221
127 770
67 192
2 855
5 433
8 757
1978
1981
1985
1993
1995
1997
1998
1999
2000
From second half of year 1999 on: notices from USA and Japan are excluded
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Some figures
TED
TED
– number of visitors
– number of notices read
50.000 / month
6.000.000 / month
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Some figures
N° of subscribers to CD-ROM OJ/S
Sales
Free dissemination:
EU institutions and others
EDCs
Euro Info Centres
“Carrefours ruraux”
Justificatory copies
TOTAL
8.094
596
446
277
124
600
10.137
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Evolution of the OJ/S (1)
1994-1996 initial improvements
 Oct. 1994
– publication of short format
notices
 Jan. 1996
– increase (± 15%) of the
printable surface
 Jan. 1995
– use of CPV largely automate
the translation
 July 1996
– enriched table of contents
replaced the short format
notices
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Evolution of the OJ/S (2)
1997-1999 - the move towards electronic publishing
 Jan. 1997
– EU institutions decided to
publish a CD-ROM OJ/S on
twice a week
 July 1998
– paper version of the Official
Journal S was replaced by a
daily CD-ROM OJ/S
 Jan. 1999
– TED free of charge
 Dec. 1999
– new EUR-OP production
system (SGML)
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What users must pay attention to ?
 Use
standards forms
 Providing clear
description
 Avoid too specific or
lenghty wordings
 Use codes
CPV, NUTS, …
to allow proper indexing and
accessibility in other
languages
 Consider
sending
electronic (XML)
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Electronic forms in XML - why?
Avantages
of electronic reporting (1)
– To facilitate and enable eProcurement
– To suppress double encoding of forms
– To reduce paper
– To minimize human processing
– To increase time for value adding activities
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Electronic forms in XML - why?
Avantages
of electronic reporting (2)
– To reduce production delays and costs
– To ensure deadlines for disseminating notices
– To improve identification of opportunities for suppliers
BUT
notices must stick to agreed standard forms
(XML)
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Collecting notices electronically
 Conditions
– good knowledge of public
procurement procedures
– notices to be compiled into
an XML format agreed by
EUR-OP
– mandate Contracting Entities
– contact point for EUR-OP
 Who?
– National official journals
publishing
– large contracting entities
– public or private bodies
acting on behalf of
“contracting entities”
– facilitators
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Developments & perspectives
moving towards eProcurement
Moving from
95 % “traditional” and 5% “electronic”
to
5% “traditional” and 95% “electronic”
What is a realistic timeframe ?
A challenge
30 % - 35 % by mid-2002-2003 !!
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Developments & perspectives
 stronger partnerships
– with upstream partners
 contracting entities
 facilitators
– with downstream partners
 licence holders
 potential tenderers
 web masters of
eProcurment sites
 more standards
– Electronic forms
– XML (in & out)
 Reduced
publishing
deadlines
– for electronic reporting
 more feedback
– acknowledgement
– workflow
– value added services
 delivery of what has
been published
 notification & profiling
 additional electronic
products
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Anticipated actions
 Identification
of key
success factors
– key players
 large entities
(volume and/or number)
 small & medium entities
– win / win
– blocking factors
 technical, organisational,
logistics
 legal
 others ...
 Awareness actions
– SIMAP awareness
in 2001 - 2002
– working closer with
 national partners
 eProcurement partners
 facilitators
– increase support actions to
respondents
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Some specific actions
 Improved
user
friendliness
– target early 2002
 TED
 CD-ROM JO/S
– in 2002
 SIMAP
–content
–layout
 on-line tutorials
(e.g. use of CPV)
 Support
actions to
XML reporting
– standardisation XML DTD’s
 direct reporting
 bulk reporting
– acceptance of XML DTD’s
at EU level
– registration of XML DTD’s
by standardisation bodies
– benchmarking period with
pilot users
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Some useful addresses
SIMAP
http://simap.eu.int
TED
http:// ted.eur-op.eu.int
EUR-OP
http://eur-op.eu.int
Europa
http://europa.eu.int
eEurope
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/index_en.htm
Public procurement
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/publproc/index.htm
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