Engineering Support, Supply of Spares and Repairs

Tender description

For the provision of spares and repairs for Radar 1007 / 1009 and engineering support. Additional information: Communications & Situational Awareness (CSA) Project Team within Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S), part of the UK Ministry of Defence, ("the Authority") intends to award a Contract to Hensoldt Ltd. ("the Contractor") for Supply of Engineering Support, Supply of Spares and Repairs. The Contract will extend the services currently provided to the Authority by the Contractor for a period of two years to 31 March 2025 with a further three option years included to 31 March 2028. The value of the proposed Contract is £1.9-2.2m. A separate contract (CSA/4030) for Navigation Radar Programme (NRP) project is rolling out across the Royal Navy (RN) and Royal Auxiliary Fleet (RFA). Purpose of the Contract is for spare and repair, plus technical support of the legacy Radar equipment. It's considered that the award of the contract without prior publication of a contract notice in the UK e-notification service (in accordance with the relevant legislation) is lawful in accordance with regulation 16(1)(a)(ii) of the Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011 for technical reasons. Through its support of Radar 1007/1009 over the last 32 years, Hensoldt UK has developed a significant level design and technical knowledge. The company's engineers can be regarded as being Suitably Qualified and Experienced Personnel (SQEP) regarding Radar 1007/1009 expertise. From this, there is a limited supply of knowledge available in the market landscape and has now made the current contractor the only viable option. There are significant implications associated with failing to effectively support Radar 1007/1009 by the introduction of a new supplier to support this equipment. One of the implications is the possibility of compromising the platform safety as the equipment is a mission critical system to ensure safe navigation of platforms at sea. Therefore, any compromise to the system may leave the MoD exposed to operational deficiencies, preventing the platform from safely achieving its operational programme. As the MoD does not have the required technical knowledge or understanding of the system and equipment to support an alternative supplier, by introducing a new supplier, with no prior experience, technical SQEP or specific tools and testing equipment for the Radar system's would introduce an unacceptable risk to safety and equipment availability. This is on the basis that the Contractor (Original Equipment Manufacturer - OEM), for this equipment, have sole capability of performing the contract. No other company has access to the specific repair capabilities or any information to reverse engineer. Replacement of the existing legacy equipment is now done through repair and parts salvaged from items deemed Beyond Economical Repair (BER) with few spares supply available on the market. The Contractor owns the IPR imbedded in the software within the legacy equipment and possess the SQEP technical expertise to provide the repair activity at the sole repair facility.