Public procurement notice: Contract Notice
Published: 2016-12-20
Buyer: Ministry of Defence, Land Equipment, Armoured Vehicles Programmes — Artillery Systems Programme
Country: UK
Region: Bristol, City of
Contract type: Supplies
Procedure: Negotiated procedure
CPV classification: 35720000: Intelligence and surveillance systems
Estimated value: 100000000 GBP
Submission deadline: 2017-02-20
Award criteria: The most economic tender

Technical requirements: Intelligence, Surveillance, Target Acquisition and Reconnaissance. The Artillery Systems Team, part of DE&S intends to run a competitive negotiated procedure under Regulation 18 of the Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011 for the D-JFI Requirement.
The Army HQ Single Statement of User Need (SSUN) that D-JFI will deliver against is: ‘The User shall be able to generate and communicate target information from a dismounted configuration to effector systems for integrated employment of joint precision and non-precision fires to achieve tactical success.’
The main Users are dismounted Fire Support Teams (FST) and Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTAC). The In Service date for D-JFI is 2020 with a planned Out of Service Date of 2040.
In issuing this Contract Notice and engaging with the Market, the Authority is not committing to carrying out any procurement in relation the requirement. If third parties are interested in engaging with the Authority in relation to the requirements they must do so without sharing information that is protected by copyright or patents.
The Authority intends to present the D-JFI requirement to the market at an Industry Briefing Day planned for 17th January 2017 at Larkhill. The Authority will not meet any costs incurred by participation at the Industry Briefing Day.
The D-JFI Project Manager will be hosting the Industry Briefing Day for the purpose of informing and updating potential Prime Integrators and Suppliers of the requirement, scope and commercial strategy. This briefing is timed to take place prior to publishing the Dynamic Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (DPQQ). A secondary purpose of the event is to allow potential industry partners to network with each other for the purpose of becoming part of the supply chain for D-JFI.
Suppliers who wish to attend the Industry Briefing Day must send an expression of interest and apply for a maximum of three places each by 17:00 hrs Friday 6th January 2017 to DES LE AVP-Arty-Comrcl-Mgr3@mod.uk; Please cc: DES_LE_AVP-Arty-DJFI-PM@mod.uk; DESLEAVP-Arty-DJFI-Sp2@mod.uk and DESLEAVP-Arty-Comrcl-Mgr2b@mod.uk. For those interested parties that are unable to attend the event, please inform the project team and you will be fowarded the slidepack, including question responses, prior to the publication of the DPQQ.
The Prime Integrator will be required to provide around 377 D-JFI systems in four configurations with three years associated support. These figures are based upon the Land Fleet Requirement as stated in the Initial Gate Business Case and are currently under review and the final figures will be included in the Invitation to Negotiate. It is expected that irrevocable contractual options may be required for support starting in 2022. The scaling of support may vary through the life of the contract.
2 x 2 years for software upgrades and 1 x 3 years for hardware upgrade. These are subject to change and will be finalised and advised in the Invitation to Negotiate. Exercise of these options will be at the Authority's sole discretion and subject to the contract continuing to demonstrate best value and required performance against Key Performance Indicators. Scaling of support may vary through the life of the contract.
If a group of economic operators wish to submit a bid, the group must nominate a lead organisation to deal with the Authority, tender and negotiate the contract. The group must form a legal entity prior to entering into the contract.
The Authority reserves the right to amend any condition related to security of information to reflect any changes in national law or government policy. The tender and contract documents will be accompanied by a Security Aspects Letter and the Authority reserves the right to amend the terms of the Security Aspects Letter 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 Authority will apply all the offences listed in Article 39(1) of Directive 2009/81/EC (implemented as Regulation 23(1) of the Defence and Security Public Contract Regulations (DSPCR) 2011 in the UK) and all of the professional misconducts listed at Article 39(2) of Directive 2009/81/EC (see also Regulation 23(2) in the DSPCR 2011) to the decision of whether a Candidate is eligible to be invited to tender.
A full list of the Regulation 23(1) and 23(2) criteria are at http://www.contracts.mod.uk/delta/project/reasonsForExclusion.html#dspr
Candidates will be required to sign a declaration confirming whether they do or do not have any of the listed criteria as part of the pre-qualification process.
Candidates who have been convicted of any of the offences under Article 39(1) are ineligible and will not be selected to bid, unless there are overriding requirements in the general interest (including defence and security factors) for doing so.

Eligibility requirements: (a) Appropriate statements from the economic operator's bankers or where appropriate, evidence of relevant professional risk indemnity insurance (b) The presentation of balance-sheets or extracts from the balance-sheets, where publication of the balance-sheet is required under the law of the country in which the economic operator is established (c) where appropriate, a statement, covering the three previous financial years of the economic operator, of:(i) the overall turnover of the business of the economic operator; and (ii) where appropriate, the turnover in respect of the work, works, goods or services which are of a similar type to the subject matter of the contract. Potential Tenderers must demonstrate their Capability and Capacity in accordance with the DPQQ to this advertisement which is scheduled to go live on the 20th January 2017. Included in this will be satisfactory demonstration of financial stability in accordance with the defined criteria in the DPQQ.