piano purchase

[Fred Sturm]

Wim and all,
	The scenario you describe would not fly here. Purchasing would veto it on 
two counts: changing selection criteria in mid-stream (saying you would 
only choose based on quality, then adding price later); and lack of 
documentation (faculty failing to fill out forms, the decision made 
verbally in committee).
	We are required to state clearly in our requests for bids
a) what we want to purchase, described accurately
b) what criteria we will use to distinguish between bids, and what 
weighting each criterion will have
	Purchasing strongly prefers numerical rating systems, and wants 
documentation on file to show precisely how a decision was arrived at.
	I know we all tend to hate the red tape involved in this sort of thing, 
but it does make sense when you really look at it. Public funds are being 
spent. The public wants to be sure
a) there are no kick-backs or favoritism involved
b) there is a competitive process so that the best price is arrived at
c) potential vendors have an even playing field - equal access to the 
process

	BTW, I agree that dealer prep makes a big difference in this type of 
selection process. When we did our little purchase a month ago, it happened 
that the dealer who carries Kawai and Steinway was in a bit of turmoil. 
Their full time tech had had a heart attack two months before, and their 
manager had quit a month previous. So their pianos were, to say the least, 
iffy in terms of tuning and prep. Luck of the draw. They'll do better next 
go round, I'm sure.
	We have on file in the purchasing department the individual rating sheets 
filled out by each member of a three member selection committee and a 
spreadheet showing the mathematical calculations. These are public records, 
and available to any member of the public to view (especially any vendor 
who might want to challenge the selection). Water-tight. Our back-side is 
well covered. ;-)
Regards,
Fred Sturm
University of New Mexico

--On Monday, March 8, 2004 6:04 PM -0500 Wimblees@aol.com wrote:

>
> I thought I would tell you about our piano purchase odyssey.
>
> I asked for, and got bids for four medium sized grand pianos (Petrof,
> Yamaha, Boston and  Kawai, with an old decrepit Steinway L for trade).
> Since we could afford any of the of the pianos, we all agreed that we
> were going to pick the best piano for the school regardless of price.
> On Friday we (three piano faculty and I) went to four different stores to
> look at 5 different pianos. Each one of us were supposed mark a sheet
> indicating, on a scale of 1-10, four areas, tone quality, dynamic range,
> responsiveness of action and overall impression.
> After we left each store, I kept asking the teachers to fill out their
> forms. But they had a hard time doing it. They wanted to hear all the
> pianos first. When we got done, some of them had filled out the forms,
> but not all of them. I could see that my efforts to get them to fill out
> the forms was not going to get done. So, instead I asked each one of them
> which piano they liked the best, and which one they liked the least.
> When we got done, it seemed like the Yamaha came out ahead, and the Kawai
> was the least liked pianos. (I do need to say that the difference between
> the five pianos was very close, and any one of them would have been
> acceptable.)
> Before they inspected the pianos, I did not tell them the prices of the
> pianos. But at the end, when I did tell them the prices, they changed
> their opinions. The Kawai was not only the lowest priced piano, the
> dealer also gave the highest trade in allowance for our L. The Yamaha, on
> the other hand, was the highest priced piano, even with the trade. In
> fact, we could buy two Kawai's for the same price as one Yamaha.
> That made a big difference in how they felt about the pianos. In the end
> we decided to buy two Kawai's instead of one Yamaha.
> Wim
> Willem Blees, RPT
> Piano tuner/technician
> School of Music
> University of Alabama