The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Nuclear organization has a vision to be the top nuclear fleet by the end of fiscal year 2025 and an initiative to sustain top quartile performance. Selection of suppliers responsible for maintenance or system upgrades within TVA’s nuclear fleet can affect TVA’s ability to maintain top quartile performance and achieve TVA Nuclear’s vision. Two departments essential for making supplier selections are each plant’s respective Site Projects group and TVA’s Supply Chain (SC) organization. Through soliciting vendors and evaluating vendor bids, these departments are responsible for obtaining the best value to TVA. Because of the importance of supplier selections, we initiated an evaluation of solicitation and bid evaluation activities for Sequoyah Nuclear Plant (SQN). The objective of our evaluation was to determine if solicitation and bid evaluation processes were performed in accordance with TVA’s policies and procedures for electrical, maintenance, and modifications services contracts at SQN.
The Office of the Inspector General determined solicitation and bid evaluation processes were not performed in accordance with TVA’s policies and procedures for electrical, maintenance, and modifications project implementation at SQN as follows:
- Solicitations were not performed in compliance with TVA procedures. Specifically, (1) requirements related to direct awarding of projects were not followed, (2) SC was not always involved in the solicitation process, and (3) adequate information (such as technical specifications, commercial pricing terms, and answers to bidders’ questions) was not always provided to vendors.
- Bid evaluation procedures were not always followed. Specifically, (1) SC was not always involved in the commercial evaluations and (2) independent estimates were not always obtained to assess the reasonableness of vendor proposals.
- Ineffective bid evaluation practices resulted in an inadequate bid evaluation and evaluation scoring that was based on incorrect or inadequate criteria.
