March 22nd, 2022
The Saskatchewan Industrial and Mining Suppliers Association (SIMSA) has brought the “Certified Saskatchewan Supplier” Designation to SupplierLink SK.
SupplierLink is a trade-agreement compliant supplier-sourcing tool, which is seeing growing use by provincial governments, their agencies and crowns, as well as cities, towns, and RMs.
The Saskatchewan Construction Association (SKCA) pursued the creation of a single, unified, industry led pre-qualification and vendor engagement software platform SupplierLink SK; created and supported by EHS Analytics. SupplierLink SK provides buyers of services with the certainty needed for managing risk in vendor selection, at the same time, ensuring an accessible and equal opportunity system for vendors of all sizes.
The SKCA recognized the need to create a trade compliant vendor engagement and pre-qualification system that would be inexpensive and non-onerous for vendors while meeting the needs of buyers.
SupplierLink has already begun work with several other Associations such as the Electrical Contractors Association, the Mechanical Contractors Association and Concrete Sask.
With SIMSA’s new affiliation, SIMSA members’ profiles on SupplierLink will be marked as a SIMSA member and be deemed a “Certified Saskatchewan Supplier by SIMSA.” Until SIMSA began work with SupplierLink, there was not a way to readily identify “Saskatchewan Certified Suppliers” on the system – now there is.
Further, SIMSA will be providing a “Certified Saskatchewan Supplier by SIMSA” credential, to companies who would not normally be SIMSA members, but do meet SIMSA’s “Saskatchewan” presence criteria, such as “having a permanent physical office in Saskatchewan.”
It should be noted that if a company qualifies to be a SIMSA Regular or Open member, a company must join SIMSA to gain the “Certified Saskatchewan Supplier by SIMSA” accreditation on SupplierLink.
The goal is for procurement persons to easily identify suppliers, with a significant economic commitment to Saskatchewan.
It should be noted that listing on SupplierLink is optional for SIMSA members.
Further, BHP Hatch/Bantrel are still using SIMSA’s Saskatchewan Supplier Database to identify suitable businesses when developing the potential list of contractors for a specific scope of work. SIMSA’s member database is one of the four databases included in the competitive bid process for the Jansen Potash project, which includes; EXPORT – The Aboriginal Marketplace, Mid Sask Municipal Alliance, Hatch/Bantrel, and SIMSA. See HERE.
SIMSA members will also see a reduced subscription cost on SupplierLink, as well as an option to have their information on SIMSA’s Saskatchewan Supplier Database, directly ported to SupplierLink, to ease setup on that system. And, if SIMSA member choose to subscribe to SupplierLink, they will also see greater exposure to procurement persons falling under the various trade-agreements, such as provincial governments, their agencies and crowns, as well as cities, towns, and RMs.
The “Certified Saskatchewan Supplier by SIMSA” program and software development work required to support it are currently underway. We are targeting May 2nd, 2022 as the official release date.
