Our Procurement Methods

ICB is the standard competition method used within the Agency under formal bidding for acquiring goods and services. The NCI Agency ICBs are issued under sealed bidding procedures known as Invitations for Bid (IFB).

How are they advertised?

Competitions following this procedure are formally announced though a Notification of Intent (NOI) and posted on the Agency’s business opportunities page. The NOI contains a synopsis of the upcoming competition and provides a timeline for the Agency to receive the Declaration of Eligibility from the NATO Delegations.

Who is eligible?

Companies interested in participating in an NCI Agency ICB must be from a participating NATO Nation funding the requirement. ICBs that are common funded by all NATO nations are open to industry from all NATO nations.

To be included in the Bidders List and receive a copy of the IFB, interested and eligible industry must contact their national authorities or national delegation to NATO referencing the IFB number as posted on the NOI and request inclusion in the Bidders List for the upcoming IFB. The NATO delegation will nominate for inclusion the firm through a Declaration of Eligibility in accordance with the deadlines and instructions provided within the NOI advertising the upcoming competition.

BOA competitions are an approved competition method used for the solicitation of commercial-off-the-shelf items. NCI Agency BOA competitions are issued as Requests for Quotation (RFQ).

How are they advertised?

Competitions following this procedure are posted on the Agency’s Business Opportunities page with the source list attached.

Who is eligible?

Competition is limited to eligible industry participants holding an active BOA with the NCI Agency.

If a source list to a specific BOA RFQ posted on the Agency’s portal does not list your organization, and you have an active BOA, simply contact the contracting officer listed in the RFQ and request to be included by providing your organization’s BOA identification number.

More information about the BOA Programme and how to register a BOA can be found on our BOA page.

BOA + is a competition method used for the solicitation of commercial-off-the-shelf items. It maximises the participation of interested and eligible firms by forming the Bidders List from BOA holders and non-BOA holders nominated by the delegations through Declarations of Eligibility (DoE). NCI Agency BOA+ are also issued under Invitations for Bid (IFB).

How are they advertised?

Competitions following this procedure are formally announced though a Notification of Intent (NOI) and posted on the Agency’s business opportunities page. The identified BOA holders are provided as the initial Bidders List as an annex to the NOI. In addition, the NOI contains a synopsis of the upcoming competition and provides a timeline for the Agency to receive DoEs for non-BOA holders from the NATO Delegations.

Who is eligible?

Companies interested in participating must either be a BOA holder or must be from a participating NATO Nation funding the requirement.

BOA holders not listed on the initial Bidders List

If the initial Bidders List does not have listed an interested BOA holder, the BOA holder simply contacts the Contracting Officer listed in the NOI and requests to be included by providing the identification number of their BOA.

Non-BOA Holders

To be included in the Bidders List and receive a copy of the IFB, interested and eligible industry must contact their national authorities or national delegation to NATO referencing the IFB number as posted on the NOI and request inclusion in the Bidders List for the upcoming IFB. The NATO delegation will nominate the interested and eligible firm through a DoE in accordance with the deadlines and instructions provided within the NOI advertising the upcoming competition.

For procurements under €160,000, the Agency will normally follow the Simplified Procurement procedures. In these cases, qualified sources that are known to meet the requirements are solicited.

How are they advertised?

When practical these procurements are posted on the Business Opportunities web page. However, many of these are "quick-turn" procurements where the purchase order is executed with limited competition.

Who is eligible?

Companies interested in participating must be from a participating NATO Nation funding the requirement.

The purpose of an RFBV is to solicit comments from Industry and to engage firms in a dialogue as to whether the draft solicitation documents are sound from a contractual and technical perspective.

RFBVs are issued in a three-step procedure where the primary task of the Agency being to judge whether or not the solutions to be offered by Industry would meet the stated requirements.

How are they advertised?

RFBVs are formally announced through a NOI and posted on the Agency’s Business opportunities page. Interested and eligible firms must be nominated through their respective delegation through a DoE in order to receive the documents and participate in the effort.

Who is eligible?

Companies interested in participating in an NCI Agency RFBV must be from a participating NATO nation funding the requirement.

To be included in the Bidders List and receive a copy of the draft solicitation, interested and eligible industry must contact their national authorities or national delegation to NATO referencing the RFBV number as posted on the NOI and request inclusion in the Bidders List for the upcoming RFBV. The NATO delegation will nominate the firm through a DoE in accordance with the deadlines and instructions provided within the NOI advertising the upcoming endeavor.

Market Surveys and Requests for Information are used when the Agency does not presently intend to award a contract, but wishes to obtain price, delivery, other market information or capabilities for planning purposes. Responses to these notices are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Agency to form a binding contract. Not responding to a market survey does not preclude participation from an eligible firm in any future solicitation, if any is issued.

How are they advertised?

Market Surveys are announced through a Sources Sought Notification which is advertised on the Agency’s Business Opportunities page and sent to the delegations for national dissemination.

Who is eligible?

Interested firms must be from a participating NATO nation.

DoEs are not required in order to participate in an NCI Agency market survey and instead the company can directly contact the Contracting Officer to express its interest in participating.

Please consult our Business Opportunities for current opportunities.

Lowest-Price, Technically-Compliant

Also referred to as "Lowest Compliant", LPTC is nearly always used for Simplified Procurements and BOA competitions as well as ICBs with known, firm requirements. For Simplified Procurements or some BOA competitions, bids can typically be quickly evaluated and awarded solely based on price.

For ICBs and larger BOA competitions, this type of evaluation includes the following steps:

1. Administrative Evaluation

This reviews the bid against the administrative requirements of the IFB, and is a "Pass-Fail" evaluation. For example, any Intellectual Property restrictions, or confirmation the bidder has accepted all of the terms and conditions of the IFB, would be included in the Administrative bid. All bids that are administratively compliant are then evaluated for price.

2. Price Evaluation

This review ensures that the price volume is complete and the prices bid are reasonable. The reasonableness of proposed prices are normally based on competition, and determining the lowest overall price is straightforward. The bid evaluated as the lowest price will then undergo the technical evaluation.

3. Technical Evaluation

In an LPTC evaluation, all of the technical factors are Pass/Fail. That is, the bid is either compliant or it isn’t. There is no technical scoring or consideration given to "extra features" that a bidder may include. If the lowest price bid is compliant with all of the technical requirements, that company is selected for the project, and the other technical bids are not evaluated. If it is determined to be non-compliant, the 2^nd lowest price bid is then evaluated.

Best Value

For more complex ICBs, where technical approaches among bidders may differ, the NCI Agency uses an evaluation method known as Best Value. This allows the Agency to potentially award the contract to a bidder who has offered a higher price, if their total evaluation score shows that they have been evaluated to offer the Agency the "best value."

It is important to note that the focus of a best value evaluation is risk mitigation. It is not so that bidders can offer additional features for a higher price, but to show that their approach would reduce the risk to the Agency.

The Best Value evaluation procedure is quite different from the Lowest Compliant procedure described above.

Best Value evaluations include the following steps:

1. Administrative Evaluation

• This reviews the bid against the administrative requirements of the IFB, and is a "Pass/Fail" evaluation. For example, any Intellectual Property restrictions, or confirmation the bidder has accepted all of the terms and conditions of the IFB, would be included in the Administrative bid. All bids that are administratively compliant will then undergo a technical evaluation.
• It is important to understand that the Administrative evaluation may extend to the Price or Technical evaluations, should it be determined that a bidder took exceptions in their price or technical bids to any of the requirements or terms and conditions of the IFB.

2. Technical Evaluation

•  The IFB will include the different high-level criteria – for example, Management, Engineering, and Supportability – and the weights that are applied to each. The IFB will also list sub-criteria that are important in each of those areas; and internally, these criteria are further broken down to ensure that every area of the bid is evaluated consistently.
• All bids are evaluated against the IFB requirements, they are not compared to other bids.
• The bids that are technically compliant will then move to the price evaluation.

3. Price Evaluation

This review ensures that the price volume is complete and complies with all of the IFB requirements. All of the price bids are scored based on the formula in the IFB; any bids that are not technically compliant will not be included in the price evaluation and scoring.

4. Final Scoring

The IFB will include the formulas for calculating the technical, price and best value final score.