Mississippi Administrative Code › Title 36 - Technology › Part 2 - Information Systems Services › Chapter 10 - Procurement Policies › Rule 36-2-10-210.4 - 019-030 Setting a Manufacturer Standard

Current through June 25, 2024
Sections
				  25-53-5(o)
				  and
				  25-53-123(1)
				  of the Mississippi Code of 1972 require that all acquisitions of computer and
				  telecommunications equipment and services costing in excess of $50,000 ($25,000
				  for projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) be based
				  upon competitive and open specifications. ITS makes every effort to work with
				  customers to ensure that both the statutory requirement for competitive and
				  open specifications and the customer's business needs are met through the
				  procurement process.
In certain situations, the most advantageous and
				  cost-effective approach for the State may be to identify the brand of hardware
				  or software in the specifications. If the requested product has significant
				  features that are not available in similar products, if these features can be
				  certified as business requirements for the requesting agency, and if the
				  product is not competitively available from multiple resellers, the Sole Source
				  process should be used. (See 013-030 Sole Source)
When there are other products available in the open market
				  that would meet the customer's business objectives, the need to issue
				  brand-name specifications must be well documented by the customer and closely
				  examined and approved by ITS. To specify a brand name that is not a sole
				  source, the State or the customer must have established an agency/institution
				  "manufacturer standard" for the requested brand name product. It is important
				  for the customer and ITS to work closely together on the process of
				  establishing a manufacturer standard. Once the standard has been established,
				  the requesting agency, in submitting a brand-name request to ITS, must provide
				  documentation of the product as an agency/institution standard, including how
				  the standard was established, the length of time the standard has been in
				  place, any relevant volume information concerning the number of devices
				  currently installed at customer site(s), and the timeframe in which the
				  standard will be re-competed.
For an agency or institution, or a major facility within an
				  agency or institution, to establish a brand-name (manufacturer) standard, all
				  or most of the following guidelines must be met:
(1)
The manufacturer standard
				must be established through a competitive procurement.
It is
				highly desirable that the specifications used in this competitive process
				explicitly state that the results of the procurement will establish a
				manufacturer standard for the procuring entity.
(2)
The competitive procurement
				for establishing a standard must be for the majority of like devices owned by
				the procuring entity.
If the initial purchase to be made under the
				competitive procurement is for fewer than the majority of like devices, the
				intent should be to replace the majority of devices with the established
				standard during the defined life of the standard (see (4) below).
(3)
The requesting entity should
				identify the practical benefits of setting a manufacturer
				standard.
These benefits should be documented in terms of specific
				technical benefits related to interoperability/consistency or in terms of
				business benefits, possibly related to staff expertise and institutional
				knowledge base, parts inventories if maintenance is performed in-house, and/or
				the ability to leverage volumes for better discounts over a product lifecycle.
				Technical synchronization with peer governmental, educational, or research
				entities could be another valid justification for setting a standard.
(4)
The standard must
				be set for a defined period of time and be reexamined
				periodically.
For example, it is expected that many agencies and
				institutions will replace most desktop devices on an n-year cycle. The length
				of the refresh cycle should be specified in the competitive procurement. The
				replacement procurement must be open to other manufacturers and to the
				potential of establishing a new standard for the next several years.
				Organizations that procure desktop devices on a staggered cycle should also
				re-compete on a reasonable timeframe, approximately every three to five years,
				and should specify this timeframe in the competitive procurement. Different
				types of equipment or products will have different lifecycles. While a
				competitive procurement for desktops would reasonably be conducted on a three
				to five year cycle, a router standard might only be competed on an eight to ten
				year basis. There are no hard and fast rules for these timeframes. The agency
				or institution should regularly examine the relative competitiveness of the
				product pricing and the cost-benefit of remaining with the standard, as long as
				the standard is in place.
The following criteria are
not
appropriate for
				  consideration in establishing or requesting a brand-name standard:
(1) The original procurement was made
				directly from the Express Products List rather than via a formal competitive
				process.
(2) The original
				procurement was for a lower-end, less expensive technology, and the request
				asks that the standard be applied to a higher-end, more expensive technology
				(e.g., LAN switches cannot establish a standard for large enterprise network
				switches or routers). Standards are, within reasonable limits, device-specific.
(3) The current procurement is a
				replacement for the majority of the organization's devices/products of this
				type.
(4) The "brand" requirement
				is specified in terms of a reseller rather than a manufacturer. Standards must
				be at the manufacturer level.
25-53-5 (o);
				  25-53-123 (1)