Industry specific software package

Tender description

Notification of Award of the following: Water for Life set out the UK Government's vision for an innovative, resilient water industry that offered non-household customers a choice of supplier. In May 2014, the Water Act 2014 received Royal Assent and put in place the necessary legislative framework to achieve this vision. Open Water is the programme that is coordinating the development of the market rules, framework and systems that are required for an effective non-household retail market. The programme brings together market participants, Defra, Ofwat, Market Operator Services Ltd (MOSL) and other stakeholders to implement that vision, by opening the competitive market for non-household water and sewerage retail services in April 2017. Thames Water Utilities Ltd is committed to deliver capability in accordance with Open Water time frames. The architectural roadmap defines the need for a new Industry Data Exchange (‘IDEX’ or ‘New System’) product to enable managed interaction with the Market Operator. Failure to deliver on these commitments may result in financial penalty and reputational impact on the Purchaser. The current system architecture does not meet the Purchasers Market Operator (MO) interaction objectives. Investment in an IDEX is therefore considered a mandatory enabler to deliver a compliant and efficient solution. Bidders are requested to consider their response for 2 possible scope options — wholesale only, and retail and wholesale. In addition to the product itself, bidders should factor effort to configure the product in the target environment and provide support to a system integrator when integrating the product with other new and existing systems. The Programme expects to deliver capability increase in a series of phases. At a high-level, the Programme envisions at least 3 phases: 1. April 2016 — Completed installation, verification and commissioning of a New System to demonstrate ‘Northbound’ or external technical interaction with the MO. 2. Oct 2016 — Completed production installation, verification and commissioning of a New System demonstrating full operational capability of all defined Market Architecture Plan (MAP) processes, functional, non-functional and business requirements. From Oct 2016 to April 2017 the New System will operate as live, but operate in parallel or shadow operations. 3. April 2017 — full go live and market opening.