Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2022-02-04
Buyer: Havforskningsinstituttet
Country: NO
Contract type: Supplies
Procedure: Contract award without prior publication
CPV classification: 48000000
Estimated value: 5400000 NOK

Technical requirements: 22/00196 Voluntary ex-ante transparency notice for the procurement of a web-based mission planning system.
The Institute of Marine Research intends to procure ready software for planning research and monitoring missions with our research vessels and hired vessels, staffing the missions with researchers and research technicians, in addition the use, distribution, and transport of mobile scientific equipment and instruments, as well as budgeting and internal cost distribution for the missions for the implementation of the research mission 'mission planning system' as a replacement for the current, internally-developed web-based mission planning system.
It is important for the contracting authority that the switch to a new mission planning system is simple and resource-saving. This means that the contracting authority would like to procure existing software that is largely ready developed for use as a mission planning system, has been tested, and is used by other marine research institutions that are equivalent to the Institute of Marine Research.
The contracting authority's requirements ('minimum requirements' for the mission planning system that will be procured are:
Must be an 'off-the-shelf product' with the potential for further development and adaptations in order to cover the contracting authority's needs,
must be able to refer to experience from other reference customers and it must be used by two or more research vessel operators,
must be 'scaleable' as regards the number of our research vessels and hired vessels from year to year,
must be in either English or Norwegian, or have possibilities to convert all text to one or both languages,
Mission application, mission programming and maintenance, mission staffing, mission planning, and reports.
Furthermore, there are the following requirements for logistical functions in the mission planning system that must be procured; tracing for mobile equipment (current location, transport plans, etc.), maintenance status and certificates for mobile equipment, barcode scanner, functionality for barcode scanning of each individual mobile equipment, and a support tool for customs store functions.
The procurement costs are estimated to be NOK 1,400,000 for the installation and implementation, and the annual licence costs will be approx. NOK 1,000,000. Total NOK 5,400,000 for 4 years.
The relevant term for making the procurement without a contest in this case is that the service that will be procured can, due to technical reasons, only be provided by one supplier in the market, cf. the public procurement regulations, section 13-4 letter b), no. 2. 'technical reasons'. This exception can be used in cases where there is only one supplier in the market that offers or produces the product that is to be procured.
As far as the contracting authority is aware, only MAAS SE can offer ready software for mission planning, as requested by the contracting authority. There are, thus, no other suppliers in the market that can deliver an equivalent product that fulfils the set technical requirements for the mission planning system, cf. point 2, and thereby covers the contracting authority's need. See the attached document.


Winner: Maas Software Engineering B.V.
Award value: 5400000