Crucially, under a QBS procurement, the cost of the work (price) is not considered when making the initial selection of the best or most appropriate provider of the professional services required.
Price will be taken into consideration under QBS but not for the purposes of the public owner's determination of the most suitable and qualified provider of construction services.
Qualifications-Based Selection was developed because public owners lacked procurement tools for services for which price competition made no sense.
An apt analogy from outside of the construction arena often cited is in the area of medical care: Nobody willingly chooses a surgeon based upon a doctor's willingness to perform an operation most cheaply.
Such situations have led to unintended consequences, including poor service and quality, excessive and expensive change orders, and litigation over disputes.
Commonly, the initial evaluation of qualifications submittals will lead to a shortlist of three to five firms that the selection committee judges to be well qualified to perform the work.
Beyond a simple document management system, a true ESP will extract essential information from submitted items, maintain lists of projects and specific evaluation criteria, and provide tools for committees to objectively compare, score and rank firms in an efficient manner.