The clients are the public broadcasters of the Federal Republic of Germany (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, ARD), Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) and Deutschlandradio (DR), represented by the management of the contribution service of ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio (hereinafter referred to as "contribution service" or "client").

The Contribution Service intends to conclude a service contract for the provision of partial services in incoming mail processing at the premises of the Client. The retrieval concerns the opening and pre-sorting of the incoming mail in order to feed the resulting documents to the processing according to the agreed service level. Further processing of the documents and their contents are not part of the outsourcing.

The clients are the public broadcasters of the Federal Republic of Germany (Arbeitsgemeinschaft der öffentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, ARD), Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) and Deutschlandradio (DR), represented by the management of the contribution service of ARD, ZDF and Deutschlandradio (hereinafter referred to as "contribution service" or "client").

The Contribution Service intends to conclude a service contract for the provision of partial services in incoming mail processing at the premises of the Client. The retrieval concerns the opening and pre-sorting of the incoming mail in order to feed the resulting documents to the processing according to the agreed service level. Further processing of the documents and their contents are not part of the outsourcing.

The service to be procured with this objective essentially comprising:

1. the receipt of mail items as a worklist for the contractor's personnel;

2. the distribution of the worklist among the employees;

3. the opening and preparation of mail items for later scanning;

4. the pre-sorting of mail items into transaction types according to the specifications of the client;

5. ensuring the required quality, e.g. through control procedures and coordination with the client;

6. the provision of data for billing the service provided;

7. the provision and operation of work equipment for its own personnel;

8. the training of staff.

It is intended to conclude a service contract with the most economical bidder with a fixed term of 2 years from the provision of services (presumably from 01.07.2024 or earlier). The contract is concluded when the contract is awarded.

In addition, the Contribution Service will have the option of two renewals of one year each. The Contribution Service is not obliged to exercise the renewal options.

The client shall provide a room with (high) electricity, light, heating, data network, admission as well as break rooms, sanitary facilities, meeting rooms upon prior notice and transport containers and trolleys for internal transport exclusively for this purpose. The intended space is used exclusively by the contractor.

Each bidder has the opportunity to participate in an on-site visit offered by the Contribution Service before submitting the initial offer. The on-site visits will take place from mid to late June 2023. Each selected bidder will receive a separate invitation to the on-site visit. The use of the on-site visit offered by the contribution service is not mandatory.

The contractor must ensure that the incoming mail provided is processed on a day-by-day basis, taking into account the service level described below. Since the contractor's performance is embedded in the business processes of the contribution service, the following basic data must be taken into account:

- Delivery of mail and distribution to the teams around 6:30 and 9:00;

- Mail from special cases (large letters, parcels) is usually provided during the morning by postal and parcel service providers;

- Handover of the prepared mail items to the client, probably at 10:00, 12:00 and 14:00.

A change in the times at which the mail items are delivered can be made at any time by postal and/or parcel service providers and must therefore also be observed by the future contractor during the term of the contract.

If the incoming mail quantities made available every working day cannot be processed on a day-by-day basis, processing must be scheduled and carried out for the following working day.

The contractor must ensure compliance with the deadlines on each working day, provided that the fluctuations in the incoming mail are within the range described by the contribution service in the tender documents (in particular in Part B. Service description). The deadlines are considered to have been met if at least 95% of the transferred wings of the respective day have been processed. In addition, as part of quality assurance, it must be ensured that 95% of the mail items processed daily are processed qualitatively correctly.

As far as the actual incoming mail allows, the following average daily quantities are currently expected for the service to be provided:

- 60 swings of normal mail with about 500 pieces of mail and

- 10 wings with large letters with about 100 pieces of mail and

- 1 swingarm with approx. 100 large pieces of mail, e.g. letters with several attachments.

From the inbox of the year 2022, a volume of 16,243 swings corresponds to 7,114,892 transactions that would have had to be processed by the contractor in 2022.

The Contribution Service therefore expects the following quantities as order volumes for the contractor:

Minimum quantity: 10,000 swingarms p.a.

Maximum quantity: 20,000 swingarms p.a.

The contribution service guarantees the aforementioned minimum quantity of 10,000 swings per calendar year.

Taking into account the case law of the European Court of Justice, the Contribution Service is in the present case tendering the aforementioned maximum quantity of 20,000 swingarms per calendar year. However, this is an estimate based on the current values. This maximum quantity is therefore not guaranteed to the contractor.

Further details on the tendered services are contained in the tender documents (in particular Part B. "Specifications"), which the suitable tenderers receive after the end of the competition with the invitation to submit the initial tender.