Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2017-02-14
Buyer: Ministry of Defence, Land Equipment, Armoured Vehicles Programmes — Artillery Systems Programme
Country: UK
Region: Surrey, East and West Sussex
Contract type: Supplies
Procedure: Negotiated without a prior call for competition
CPV classification: 72231000: Development of software for military purposes
Estimated value: 17000000 GBP

Technical requirements: DE&S, part of the UK MoD, proposes to place a contract with CGI IT (UK) Ltd for the manufacture of Fire Control BISA v4.0, the networked application that computes firing data for artillery. This upgrade must satisfy safety approvals, deliver capability enhancements and changes to operational practices.
The scope of FC BISA 4.0 includes but is not limited to: Upgrade to the FC BISA support for Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System; Addition of Artillery Systems Co-operation Activities capability; Upgrade of NATO Armaments Ballistic Kernel; Amendments to Tactical Data Synchronisation Mechanism; Data import and export mechanisms; Extension of FC BISA capability to portable devices; Extension to the export of digital fire control data to weapons; Revised digital interface with Battlefield Sensors; Integration on multiple training environments.
FC BISA v4.0 must be designed to interoperate with the BCIP infrastructure and in accordance with the emerging Land Application Strategy.
Optional change of the electronic map display used by FC BISA (subject to a viable candidate being identified).
The Artillery Systems Project Team, part of the UK Ministry of Defence (‘MoD’), intends to award a Contract to CGI IT UK Limited (the ‘Contractor’) to deliver a Mid-Life Upgrade to the Fire Control Battlefield Information System Application.
It is considered that this contract can be placed using the Negotiated Procedure Without Prior Publication pursuant to Article 28(1)(e) of Directive 2009/81/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and (regulation 16(1)(a)(ii) of the of the Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011) due to technical reasons.
The UK MOD is required to implement digital fires interoperability with NATO Allied nations through delivery of the ASCA capability by 2020. Delivery of FC BISA 4.0 outside of the required timescales would result in extending a capability gap with digital fires interoperability between the UK and US. This will replace the current practice of voice communications and employment of liaison officers, this is a critical requirement for the UK MOD. The Contractor has designed, built and supported the system over the previous 14 year period, therefore the Contractor is currently the only economic operator with the specific in depth technical knowledge of FC BISA and its environmental context, to design and develop the next software increment within a timescale that satisfies the digital fires interoperability requirement.
Furthermore, the MoD believes that for any other economic operator to design and develop the next FC BISA version to the standard required (with particular reference to the need for assurance that this complex safety-related system would not be compromised) would result in significant negative impact on delivery timescales and incur disproportionate expense.
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-2017210-DCB-9564389.


Winner: CGI IT UK Limited
Award value: 17000000