Maintenance, Product Development (hardware, software and drugs library updates) and Consumables for HMPPS Rapiscan Itemisers

HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), an agency of the Ministry of Justice, has a potential requirement for a contract for the supply of maintenance, support and consumables for its Rapiscan Systems Limited Itemiser estate. This includes approximately 96 units of both Rapiscan Itemiser 3 Enhanced (3e) and Rapiscan Itemiser 4DN (the "Equipment").

Requirements include:

1. Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) Visits: schedule of manufacturer approved maintenance tasks on a 2, 3 or 4 visit cycle per Equipment unit per annum.

2. Reactive Maintenance: incident management to faults or breakages on the Equipment from logging of the initial incident, arranging an engineer to site and facilitating a first time fix or soonest possible fix within service level times as required by the Authority.

Supplementary maintenance requirements:

a) Both PPM and Reactive Maintenance visits are across the HMPPS estate which covers all of England and Wales (approx. 108 sites) b) Both PPM and Reactive Maintenance to be against Key Performance Indicator (KPI) as determined by the Authority (to be fully defined by the Authority. Example being: next working day attendance on site from incident being raised c) Both PPM and Reactive Maintenance performance management to be supported by detailed Management Information to ensure KPI compliance d) Stock holding of spare parts and consumables as required to service the HMPPS estate. e) A financial Service Credit regime to be in place to ensure performance against KPIs

Any maintenance services would require multiple financial options for the Authority to select from on a year by year commitment only.

3. Spare parts provision: the stocking and supply of new, manufacturer approved spare parts to ensure the estate continues to function in line with manufacturer instructions, data specifications and warranties.

4. Consumables: the stocking and supply of a catalogue of new, manufacturer approved consumables to support day to day operation of the equipment, in line with manufacturer instructions, data specifications and warranties.

5. Drugs Library Updates:

The Authority requires the drug library software to be maintained and updated to react to new and evolving drugs which seek entry to its estate. Services associated with library updates therefore includes but is not limited to:

a) Working with HMPPS sites, providing a legal and controlled capability to support the identification of new or changed drugs, obtaining samples and/or sample data b) Scientific expertise in the identification of new drugs or drug compounds c) The capability to develop new detection algorithms against new drugs or drug compounds and test them against agreed Authority, industry and/or manufacturer approved standards d) The capability, following Authority UAT (to be defined), to deploy the new drug detection algorithm to the HMPPS estate

A drugs library update is anticipated to be commissioned on request of the Authority at its discretion.

Additional information: In order to protect the warranties and operational use of the Equipment within its estate the Authority requires an interested Supplier to, for the potential duration of a contract, to be able to:

a) Evidence that it has the skills (including relevant and up to date), training and qualifications relating to the Equipment (both types) b) Evidence that it has service manuals, data specifications and other technical information pertaining to the Equipment so as to ensure it is able to demonstrate technical expertise (ensuring it could maintain the Equipment to manufacturer recommendations and Authority requirements) c) Evidence that it has manufacturer approved spare parts for both types of Equipment (3e and 4DN) in volumes which can support the number of units in the estate d) Evidence that it has manufacturer approved consumables in stock volumes sufficient to meet the demands of the estate (an estimated 96 units across 108 sites) e) Evidence that it has sufficient numbers of trained engineers in the Equipment in order to meet the KPIs of the Authority in the context of the number of units and geography of the estate f) Evidence that it has proven capability (including sufficient technical and scientific resources and processes) and commercial rights (inclusive of any licencing or Intellectual Property) to support the Drug Library Update minimum requirements and software updates for both types of the Equipment.

Note: this is not for new supply of Itemisers.

The Authority is inviting expressions of interest in order to understand the capability and capacity in the market against its requirements. Expressions of interest are to be submitted no later than 12pm (noon) on 24th November 2021, any submissions after this point will not be considered.

On receipt of an expression of interest the Authority will provide a questionnaire for Suppliers to complete in order to evidence their capability against the outline requirements as set out in this Prior Information Notice. This shall be used as the basis of further dialogue with interested Suppliers as the Authority seeks to understand the capability of the market.