Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2018-06-07
Buyer: Ministry of Defence, Ships, Communications and Situational Awareness (CSA)
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Negotiated without a prior call for competition
CPV classification: 34933000
Estimated value: 200000 GBP

Technical requirements: The United Kingdom Ministry of Defence (the ‘Authority’) intends to amend a contract with Ultra Electronics Limited (the ‘Company’) (contract no CSA /4006 to provide for the continued Service Support to the Platform Data Management Technical Refresh (PDM2 TR) and all necessary interfacing with and In- Service Support of the Data Transfer System (DTS) and ancillary engineering support, by extending the term of the contract for 6 months with an option to extend for a further (6) six month term (maximum envisaged total value of a 12 month extension being approximately 200 000 GBP).
It is considered that this contract extension can be placed using the negotiated procedure without prior publication of a contract notice pursuant to Article 28(1)e of Directive 2009/81/EC (Regulation 16(1)(a)(ii) of Defence and Security Public Contract Regulations 2011) for technical reasons.
a) Technical complexity of the PDM2 TR solution: PDM would qualify as “particularly complex equipment”. The Tech Refresh solution comprises of 5000 bespoke drawings, specifications and manufactured parts. As a result, the manufacturing data pack is large and very difficult to comprehend without a working knowledge of the full PDM2 TR design. The experience the Company acquired during development of the solution cannot be fully replicated in a technical pack and that, without expert knowledge of the equipment and TR design that an alternative supplier would be unable to manufacture, assemble and install the equipment without unacceptable risk to the Authority.
b) Technical expertise/know-how – PDM2 TR Installation/Integration: It was considered from the outset that only the Company possess the technical expertise, including the know-how, which is necessary to develop the PDM2 TR solution. This is derived from their experience as the OEM, Design Authority, and maintainer throughout PDMs 30+ year history and more recently as the Design Authority for the PDM2 TR solution.
c) Software / Firmware: The PDM system is heavily dependent on software, including firmware, to operate and software forms a significant proportion of the Tech Refresh design. The software used includes D3 Assembler, the PDM Real Time Operating System (RTOS) and Harmony (software development tool) which were developed by UECCS (and their predecessors) specifically for PDM in the 1980’s. No other supplier has the knowledge or experience to work with D3 Assembler which is a key software requirement of the PDM2 TR solution. It is considered that no other supplier has the working knowledge of the software as a whole to successfully undertake the PDM2 TR solution.
The Authority reserves the right to amend any condition related to security of information to reflect any changes in national law or government policy. If any contract documents are accompanied by instructions on safeguarding classified information (e.g. a Security Aspects Letter), the Authority reserves the right to amend the terms of these instructions to reflect any changes in national law or government policy, whether in respect of the applicable protective marking scheme, specific protective markings given, the aspects to which any protective marking applies, or otherwise. The link below to the Gov.uk website provides information on the Government Security Classification.
Advertising Regime OJEU:- This contract opportunity is published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU),the MoD Defence Contracts Bulletin and www.contracts.mod.uk GO Reference: GO-201865-DCB-12555938.


Winner: Ultra Electronics Ltd
Award value: 200000