Best practices for snow and ice management is critical to ensure business continuity, and safety for patrons, tenants and employees. Knowing how to describe your service requirements in a snow and ice management request for proposal (RFP) is difficult, particularly given the variability of winter weather and the wide variety of property types. Therefore, the Snow & Ice Management Association (SIMA) established a best practices guide after years of collaboration between snow contractors, and facilities and property managers (FM/PMs). Based on discussion with and feedback from industry stakeholders from FMs/PMs, snow contractors, insurance, industry consultants and equipment manufacturers, SIMA developed best practices designed to better align all stakeholders for success when purchasing snow services. Purchasing Snow & Ice Management: Quality RFP Creation and Best Practices organizes the snow and ice management service procurement process to aid in the creation of RFPs, contracts and monitoring procedures. The document is divided into chapters that focus on:
- A 52-week procurement timeline that outlines dates to follow to ensure snow service contracts are issued far enough in advance to allow the snow contractor ample time to procure and allocate resources for the service sites.
- Defining a clear level of service to ensure that those bidding for your services are pricing appropriately.
- Understanding what goes into creating a scope of work to meet the level-of-service requirements.
- Defining terms and conditions, and the role they play in the RFP process, including contract fee types, payment and billing best practices, insurance requirements, documentation and service validation, and cessation of services.
