Weapons, ammunition and associated parts. UK MOD has a requirement to acquire a new Modular Assault Rifle System (MARS) for deployment with certain military units from 2014. In accordance with UK government collaborative purchasing policy, the Contracting Authority intends to conclude a supply agreement for goods and/or services on behalf of itself and other UK public sector bodies as listed further below.

Expressions of interest are sought from candidate suppliers who are able to offer a product or capability meeting the Key User Requirements (KUR’s) listed in the Section below.

Potential MARS suppliers must be willing to work with future MOD and Police synthetic training solution providers by sharing design, performance and other data necessary to integrate their weapon into synthetic training systems and environments. This will be an enduring contractual obligation.

The anticipated service life of MARS is 10 years from initial fielding. All weapon designs proposed must have a clear path to being sustained and supported in service for that period in accordance with DEFSTAN 00-600 Integrated Logistic Support (ILS) requirements.

Candidate suppliers who are agents for third-party products may represent multiple Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM). However, only 1 system configuration per OEM will be permitted to be submitted for trials.

Expressions of Interest will only be accepted from candidate suppliers who are able to propose a system solution based on a rifle. Expressions of Interest from suppliers wishing only to supply individual system elements such as sights or grenade launchers without a rifle on which to base them will not be considered further.

Pre-Qualification of candidate suppliers will comprise assessment of those suppliers’ competence, capability and capacity to undertake work of the scope, value and duration proposed. In the case of candidate suppliers who are agents representing multiple rifle OEMs, each agent/ rifle OEM combination must submit a separate PQQ and each will be individually assessed on its own merits and treated as a separate candidate supplier. A “candidate supplier” may therefore be a rifle OEM, or an agent representing a rifle OEM. PQQ responses covering multiple rifle OEMs will not be evaluated.

A maximum of 6 candidate suppliers whose pre-qualification responses give MOD sufficient confidence about their competence, capability and capacity to undertake the supply of MARS will be invited to tender and to submit equipment for trials.

Each candidate supplier invited to tender will be required to loan or supply free of charge 12 weapon systems for Safety and Suitability for Service (S3) testing and environmental user trials by MOD. Further quantities of rifles and certain ancillaries may be required for testing by Police and Home Office. These may be required to be in a different configuration to take account of Police-specific requirements, especially ammunition differences and no fully-automatic capability.

Appropriate spares, ancillaries and support for these tests and trials will also be required free of charge. That support may include attendance at worldwide trials locations at short notice to support incident sentencing, inspect and rectify failures, etc. There may be 2 or more rounds of tendering prior to selection of a preferred bidder, and an electronic reverse auction may be used.

Candidate suppliers who propose system elements sourced from outside the UK should take note that some testing will be carried out by contractors working on behalf of MOD, and possibly by non-MOD bodies such as Police Forces and the Home Office. Any such candidate suppliers will be expected to take all necessary steps to facilitate the free exchange of any foreign-sourced products between these entities without interruption to the trials plan and process.

Selection of a preferred MARS rifle solution and bidder will be made on a “most economically advantageous” basis, taking into account technical compliance, demonstrated trials performance, reliability, whole life cost and other relevant factors to be defined in the Invitation to Tender. It is possible that the evaluation process may lead to separate rifle selections for UK MOD and Police based on different respective SRD criteria. In this case, 2 preferred solutions and bidders may be nominated.

The Contracting Authority intends to conclude a supply agreement for goods and/or services on behalf of itself and other UK public sector bodies. The Invitation to Tender and any resulting contract(s) will therefore facilitate the direct exercise of any Options to supply additional weapons, ancillaries, spare parts and/or support services by any of the following bodies and by their statutory successors and organisations created as a result of legal or organisational changes:

— The Metropolitan Police Authority and Service as established under s5B of the Police Act 1996,

— A Police Authority or Force established under s3 of the Police Act 1996,

— A Police Authority or Force established under s2 of the Police (Scotland) Act 1967,

— The Northern Ireland Policing Board and Police Service of Northern Ireland,

— Future Police Commissioners,

— Future Police and Crime Panels,

— The Civil Nuclear Constabulary and Police Authority as established under the Energy Act 2004,

— The Ministry of Defence Police and Police Committee as established under the Ministry of Defence Police Act 1987,

— British Transport Police and Police Authority as established under the Railways and Transport Safety Act 2003,

— MOD Cyprus Sovereign Base Areas Police and Gibraltar Defence Police forces,

— The Home Office, including its Agencies,

— The National Policing Improvement Agency,

— The Serious Organised Crime Agency,

— The future National Crime Agency,

— The Foreign and Commonwealth Office,

— A Security Service as established and defined under the Security Service Act 1989,

— An Intelligence Service as established and defined under the Intelligence Services Act 1994,

— Police Forces of all Crown Dependencies,

— Police and Military Forces of all British Overseas Territories as defined in the British Overseas Territories Act 2002.

Expressions of interest must be made in hard copy format to the address shown below not later than midday on 20 July 2012. Each Expression of Interest must list the complete proposed supply chain and show the work elements being carried out by each supply chain member. Subsequent changes to proposed supply chains may invalidate the basis of Pre-Qualification and may therefore render candidate supply chains ineligible to continue in the selection process. Electronic submission may also be made in parallel to the e-mail address shown below by the same date.