Stock-control services

Tender description

The Corporate Officer of the House of Lords and the Corporate Officer of the House of Commons (the Authority), invite you to submit a tender for the services as detailed in this Invitation to Tender (ITT) and the various requirements documents. The Houses of Parliament is looking to award a new contract on behalf of the House of Lords Catering and Retail Service and the House Commons Catering Service for a Bicameral Stock Control and Purchasing System. This is to meet the corporate objective of both Houses of Parliament for providing value for money in the delivery of their catering services, through effective and efficient inventory management. Each House is a legal entity in its own right and outlets are owned by one or the other House, not jointly. Revenue for both House of Commons' and House of Lords' operations is forecast to be over 13 000 000 GBP in the financial year 2016/17, with total annual covers/transactions estimated at over 1 500 000. In total, the 2 organisations employ around 400 staff. The stock control and purchasing system will be expected to serve the operational requirements of over 30 venues within 5 separate sites across the Parliamentary Estate, including the Palace of Westminster. There is currently no common stock management and purchasing system, and the Houses of Parliament is therefore seeking a solution that serves the catering departments in both Houses. Any solution should provide integration with the current EPOS and financial systems. Currently the catering department in the House of Commons uses Check SCM 3.5 as a Stock Management tool for stock control and purchasing. The House of Lords catering department does not have any Stock Management system for managing food and all processes are manual using spreadsheets. Beverages and souvenirs are managed using Micros Material control. — Each House has its own finance system (Agresso) using different cost centre and General Ledger code structures. — We are seeking a solution that can integrate with the existing EPOS and Events Management systems as well as interfacing with each houses finance system. — We are seeking a system that will support both catering departments. In view of the above arrangements, the Houses of Parliament is flexible regarding your proposal; whether this is through 2 instances of the same system with the ability to be merged at a later stage, or 1 system to be used by both organisations. The Authority is seeking a commercial ‘off-the shelf’ (COTS) solution; a bespoke solution would not meet the Houses of Parliament's ICT strategic goals. Any added development required to meet the requirements in the ITT should be offered as part of the standard product release; please see the tender documents for further details.