Wisconsin Dept of Transportation Purchasing Agent gives his all to the matter of purchasing a wide-format imaging system

Purchasing agent at Wisconsin Department of Transportation is giving Wisconsin’s taxpayers his all!!! Perhaps the third time (for detailed specifications required) will be a charm?

Note: this is an active bid procurement. If you want to access the bid documents, you will need to go to the purchasing department’s web-site.

REQUEST FOR BID (RFB)

FOR

PLOTTER PRINTER WITH ON BOARD SCANNER INCLUDING

INSTALLATION AND MAINTENANCE

RFB # 269000

Issued by:

STATE OF WISCONSIN

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION

Division of Business Management (DBM)

Bureau of Information Technology Services (BITS)

Bids must be submitted

No later than 2:00 PM CST

December 6, 2011

(bid submission has been extended to mid-December)

METHOD OF AWARD

Award(s) shall be made on the basis of the lowest total cost from a responsive, responsible bidder who meets specifications based on the following formula:

Machine Cost	Cost x 1
Monthly Maintenance Base Cost	Cost x 36 months
Monthly Maintenance Usage per square foot.	Cost x 10,000 sq ft per month x 36 months
Monthly Maintenance Consumables per square foot.	Cost x 10,000 sq ft per month x 36 months

The sum of these four components will be used to determine total cost. These components are marked on Attachment D.

When the bid document was initially released, here’s what the detailed “specifications” were …..

SPECIFICATIONS

The following specifications are minimum acceptable requirements. The bidder may offer an alternate product believed to be an equal. Any alternate product(s) bid must be clearly identified by manufacturer and catalog, model or stock number. Adequate detailed specifications of the product offered must be included with your bid to establish equivalency and to ensure that the product being bid meets all specifications. Failure to provide product specifications and information may disqualify your bid. WisDOT shall be the sole judge of equivalency and acceptability. Any attachments, documents, price lists, etc. to support your bid, must include the bid number.

Bid specifications may not be revised without an official written addendum issued by Purchasing.

The new device must meet the following SPECIFICATIONS:

· Must be available as an inkjet printer, inkjet copier/printer with on-board scanner, or multi-function with a wide format scanning system.

· Print 10 D size sheets per minute.

· Printer must print paper up to 3 mm thick.

· Media loading and cutting must be fully automatic.

· Print tray must be positioned at the waist level.

· Maximum plot length must be at least 45 feet.

· Must have a 4 roll cut sheet tray configuration

· Must have an integrated wide format 24 bit color scanner with output tray.

· Must support image quality of 600 x 600 dpi or greater for printing and scanning.

· Must have at least a 15” color LCD monitor with integrated print server\controller attached to the device for walk up service.

· The user interface must be clear and intuitive.

· Must support PostScript for easy drag and drop printing of PDF, DWF, BMP, JPEG, PNG, GIF, and DGN files.

· Must have the ability to scan documents and store them within an FTP directory or print them to a remote printer.

· Must have the ability to scan multi-page PDF’s and TIFF’s.

· Device provider must have support and maintenance service available with device. Quote annual maintenance to include, but not limited to, parts and labor. Service to be performed by a certified technician.

Later on, the detailed specification were changed, by Amendment, to these:

· Must be available as an inkjet printer, inkjet copier/printer with on-board scanner, or multi-function with a wide format scanning system.

· Print a minimum of 500 sq ft per hour in color.

· Printer must print paper up to 3 mm thick.

· Media loading and cutting must be fully automatic.

· Maximum plot length must be at least 45 feet.

· Must have a 2 roll cut sheet tray configuration with front eject.

· Must have an integrated wide format 24 bit color scanner with output tray.

· Must support image quality of 600 x 600 dpi or greater for printing and scanning.

· Must have at least a 15” color LCD monitor with integrated print server\controller attached to the device for walk up service.

· Must have touch screen interface.

· Must support PostScript for easy drag and drop printing of PDF, DWF, BMP, JPEG, PNG, GIF, and DGN files.

· Must have the ability to scan documents and store them to the network.

· Must have the ability to scan multi-page PDF’s and TIFF’s.

· Device provider must have support and maintenance service available with device. Quote annual maintenance to include, but not limited to, parts and labor. Service to be performed by a certified technician.

And then came the questions (and Wisdot’s answers):

The following questions were received:

1. The Specification under Item # 11 – 2^nd Bullet point suggests that the Printer must Print 10D size Sheets per minute. That is 360 sq ft per minute. I know new technology comes out every day… but unless I missed something, the fastest Toner-base plotter in a Mid-Volume Reprographer can only print out 9-10 D’s per minute today. I know of no Inkjet device that could possibly print this quickly.

AND

2. Both the T1200 and T2300 inkjet systems are only capable of producing 1.7 D’s per minute in the fastest B/W mono check print mode. So unless, you are looking for a bid to secure a roll fed web printer (?)… I think this speed is not possible to attain?

AND

3. I notice in your bid specs that you require an “inkjet” printer, it must be able to print 10 “D” size per minute and have 4 rolls.

AND

4. To my knowledge, such a machine does not exist at 10 “D” per minute in color.

AND

5. Drag and drop printing for DGN files? This capability is not supported with any large format inkjet.

Answer: This specification was changed with Amendment 1 dated November 23^rd, 2011. See the updated specifications below

6. Multi-page PDFs and TIFFs. The scanner on the HP T2300 does not support this yet. Does the bid require a single source brand like HP or Canon, or should we combine an HP or Canon Plotter with Contex scanner?

Answer: This specification has been eliminated. DOT is looking for a single source brand.

7. Need to know the media size , postscript, Operating System , connections.

Answer: See the specifications below and review the bid document.

And, here are the latest detailed specifications that came with the 2^nd Amendment:

Updated specification:

SPECIFICATIONS

The following specifications are minimum acceptable requirements. The bidder may offer an alternate product believed to be an equal. Any alternate product(s) bid must be clearly identified by manufacturer and catalog, model or stock number. Adequate detailed specifications of the product offered must be included with your bid to establish equivalency and to ensure that the product being bid meets all specifications. Failure to provide product specifications and information may disqualify your bid. WisDOT shall be the sole judge of equivalency and acceptability. Any attachments, documents, price lists, etc. to support your bid, must include the bid number.

Bid specifications may not be revised without an official written addendum issued by Purchasing.

The new device must meet the following SPECIFICATIONS:

· Must be available as an inkjet printer, inkjet copier/printer with on-board scanner, or multi-function with a wide format scanning system.

· Print a minimum of 500 square feet per hour in color.

· Printer must print paper up to 3 mm thick.

· Media loading and cutting must be fully automatic.

· Maximum plot length must be at least 45 feet.

· Must have a 2 roll cut sheet tray configuration with front eject.

· Must have an integrated wide format 24 bit color scanner with output tray.

· Must support image quality of 600 x 600 dpi or greater for printing and scanning.

· Must have a touch screen interface

· Must support PostScript for easy drag and drop printing of PDF, DWF, BMP, JPEG, PNG, GIF, and DGN files.

· Must have the ability to scan documents and store them to the network

· Must have the ability to scan multi-page PDF’s and TIFF’s.

· Device provider must have support and maintenance service available with device. Quote annual maintenance to include, but not limited to, parts and labor. Service to be performed by a certified technician.

· Support must be available within 24 hours of initial contact to support vendor.

Time is money! It is not uncommon for purchasing agents who have no particular expertise with wide-format imaging systems to stumble and fumble when calling out detailed specifications for the systems their agencies want to purchase. Perhaps it would have proved easier for the purchasing agent to call to a meeting various equipment vendors, knowledgeable about wide-format imaging systems, so that the detailed specifications could be arrived at up-front? Some of the specifications in the originally issued list were kind of amusing!