Select suppliers based on an evaluation of their ability to meet the specified requirements and established criteria.

Refer to the Decision Analysis and Resolution process area for more information about formal evaluation approaches that can be used to select suppliers.

Refer to the Requirements Management process area for more information about specified requirements.

Criteria should be established to address factors that are important to the project.

Typical Work Products

1.    Market studies

2.    List of candidate suppliers

3.    Preferred supplier list

4.    Trade study or other record of evaluation criteria, advantages and disadvantages of candidate suppliers, and rationale for selection of suppliers

5.    Solicitation materials and requirements

Subpractices

1.    Establish and document criteria for evaluating potential suppliers.

2.    Identify potential suppliers and distribute solicitation material and requirements to them.

A proactive manner of performing this activity is to conduct market research to identify potential sources of candidate products to be acquired, including candidates from suppliers of custom-made products and vendors of COTS products.

Refer to the Organizational Innovation and Deployment process area for examples of sources of process and technology improvements and how to pilot and evaluate such improvements.

3.    Evaluate proposals according to evaluation criteria.

4.    Evaluate risks associated with each proposed supplier.

Refer to the Risk Management process area for more information about evaluating project risks.

5.    Evaluate proposed suppliers' ability to perform the work.

Future releases of the COTS product may provide additional features that support planned or anticipated enhancements for the project, but may result in the supplier discontinuing support of its current release.

6.    Select the supplier.