Agency TRANSPORTATION DEPT

Contractor Stanley Consultants, Inc.

SWIFT Contract Number 3000091220; 3000059025

Project Name TH10 Airport Road to TH59 VE study

Project Number (if applicable) 636

Summarize purpose of the contract, including why it was necessary: MnDOT requires a VE study to be conducted on projects that are above a TPCE threshold of $20M. This project met that cost threshold.

Project Duration

Start Date Mon, 05/21/2012 - 00:00

Original end date Sun, 03/31/2013 - 00:00

Actual end date Sat, 10/13/2012 - 00:00

Did project finish on time? Yes

Total billable hours utilized (if applicable) {Empty}

Contract Amounts

Original contract: $43019.25

Amendments {Empty}

Contract total $42990.74

Did project finish within budget? Yes

What was the funding source? Trunk Highway

Is this a sole source contract? No

If this was a single source contract, explain why the agency determined there was only a single source for the services (if applicable) {Empty}

Evaluator Name Anjani Milkert

Evaluator Email Address minnie.milkert@state.mn.us

Evaluate the contractor's timeliness good

Evaluate the contractor's quality good

Evaluate the contractor's cost very similar to other vendors

Evaluate the contractor's overall performance On the plus side, there were good cost saving recommendations and the VE job plan was followed. The VE team, both MnDOT and Stanley, seemed to work well together.

That said there were significant difficult issues that cannot be ignored:
1. FHWA requires all recommendations to be mutually exclusive; ie. you must be able to accept all recommendations. This was extensively discussed with Scott prior to and during the study. The final deliverables did NOT include mutually exclusive recommendations. Significant effort was required between Minnie Milkert and Tom Lundburg to resolve the issues.
2. Per request from upper management, Scott was asked to limit the number of recommendations to less than 12. We ended with 16.

Study execution:
• The venue was too small for the group. Scott arrived a day ahead and had time to resolve this, but he did not. Last minute changes were made by Minnie Milkert with the hotel.
• When responding to their other work (NOT the VE study), Stanley team members should limit their cell phone usage to breaks. There were several instances of a team member taking phone calls during the study.
• Kelly did a good job during the study, but it was not essential to have her physically at Detroit Lakes.

Overall, I felt an overall lack of cooperation from Scott Eshleman throughout the process. He seemed intent on doing things his way, regardless of what we had agreed to. At this point, unless there is a better understanding between Scott and MnDOT about the process, I’m not sure that I would have Scott back to lead a MnDOT VE study.


 

Would you engage the contractor's services again? Yes

Describe any negative action taken during the duration of this contract (i.e., termination, pursuit of suspension, etc.): There were several issues discussed directly with Scott during the week of the study. None rose to the level of termination or suspension. See comments section below.

Please rate the overall experience with the contractor 3 - neutral