Office furniture

Tender description

Public Sector Prison Industries is the part of the National Offender Management Service — an Executive Agency of the Ministry of Justice. The purpose of PSPI is to help reduce the potential for prisoners to re-offend and to help PSPI deliver decent regimes. Allied to that purpose are 2 main aims: 1. To provide employment for prisoners, enabling them to experience real work, on the job training, and life skills in preparation for their release; 2. To manufacture high-quality goods and services to allow prisoners to live decent lives in custody. There are more than 500 workshops in the UK utilising a workforce of prisoners supervised by trained instructors. Our workshops manufacture high-quality products for use internally, for other government departments and for the commercial market. We offer a service that creates work for prisoners and is an end-to end solution for our customers, from initial planning through to delivery and installation. We currently manufacture a wide range of products including but not limited to office furniture such as desks, chairs, pedestals plus office storage and filing. We also produce bedroom furniture and soft seating. We are now looking at how we take this part of our business forward, including reviewing and updating our furniture range. In our solution we do not want to limit ourselves to what and how we currently produce. We are therefore looking for innovative solutions with a collaborative approach in the following services: — Designs and design authority to enable prison workshops to manufacture and/or assemble a range of furniture products which conform to current European standards; — Supply of a range of component parts to support the manufacture of furniture products; — Supply of a range of finished furniture goods to assist with order completion and contingency planning; — On-site guidance and instruction to ensure that finished products meet the relevant quality standards; — Space planning and design services tailored to meet our customers requirements; — Site surveys for potential furniture projects and installations; — Collection and delivery of furniture products manufactured within the prison estate with the possibility that this could be extended to encompass a wider range of goods; — A furniture installation service ranging from a single item through to major projects; — Regional short-term storage solutions for furniture; — Assisting with the marketing of our products, including the preparation and distribution of a dedicated furniture catalogue, which must include an online option; — Providing suitable market intelligence to ensure products and services are in-line with the latest furniture industry and marketplace trends; — Offering an environmentally friendly furniture collection, and recycling/ re-using disposal service that meets appropriate Government Buying Standards requirements. Additional services that may be required include: — Training instructors involved in supervising prisoners engaged in the furniture manufacturing process; — Developing the capabilities of workshop instructors and operatives in key areas such as production management, quality improvement and stock management; — A solution for our back office sales and administration function to ensure an effective end to end ordering process is in place. We are interested in hearing how you feel a collaboration between your company and the MoJ could support us and help to achieve our objectives. It is therefore the intention to hold early engagement sessions with potential suppliers. If you wish to take part in the engagement, please express your interest by emailing: mojprocurementprisonindustries@justice.gsi.gov.uk A response is required no later than 31.8.2016. Please note that we may look to divide this contract into Lots, decisions on how we approach this will be made following supplier engagement and made clear in the request for proposal once published.