Lessons Learned: Choosing the "right" vendor from client's toolbox

The Big Hospital uses several unionized cable vendors throughout the campus. We had to use cabling vendors from client's toolbox (i.e., list of preferred vendors). I will be honest... we were not used to interacting with a lot of union vendors, and as a result we were worried. So even before we entered into the bid process we (i.e., our company's principals) met their project managers a few times, visited their offices, and warehouse facilities. We also kept our ears perked during the initial site walks to get a feel for their knowledge and familiarity of the buildings, rules, regulations, etc. Overall, we were satisfied. There are good and bad sides in picking these vendors from client's preferred vendor list.

Good:

1. These guys had been working at the campus for many years. They know the intricate protocols involved with safety, infectious control and access to different buildings. They know shortcuts, and often cases the challenges we would face. This local knowledge is very valuable and would not be available to us if we just waltzed into the project.
2. They knew the campus specific, and even building specific rules that helped us a lot.
3. Another advantage was sort of understood, but unwritten. This is from liability perspective. Since the vendors were suggested to us by the Hospital authority, if there was any problem that came up due to workmanship or vendor’s behavior the hospital team took a shared responsibility. For projects like this where this is a potential minefield of heavy finger pointing, selecting the vendors from client’s tool kit was a good choice.

Bad:

1. Since we were not aware of their work style and workmanship, we were little concerned at the beginning if any of those 3 vendors will become an issue later. Out of the 3 vendors we only had problem with 1 vendor - mainly on communications issue. Crew supervisor would often not show up on the short calls we used to have daily, not return calls, not meeting commitment, etc. We got rid of them the earliest opportunity we had.
2. Training: The cable vendor had the local knowledge of the buildings, and very familiar with the cable routing and supporting portion of the project. But we had to train them in properly connectorizing cable, bend radius, sweeping etc. We brought out installation Supervisor Larry Marker from Houston, and took them through a rigorous hands-on training. We also arranged an Andrew trainer to come to the campus, and offered a 2nd training. The 2nd training worked as a refresher course and solidified the needed expertise for the project.