Commerce Decisions Ltd, a QinetiQ company, has been engaged by the Ministry of Defence and Team Leidos, the new UK MOD logistic commodities and services provider, to support their Combat Footwear procurement.
Suitable footwear is an ongoing requirement of military operations and this procurement covers five types of footwear in individual Lots: Combat High Liability, Desert Combat High Liability, Cold Wet Weather and Combat Jungle and Patrol.
Defence Clothing, part of Team Leidos has utilised the MOD’s Corporate agreement with Commerce Decisions to make use of their AWARD® Solution software. AWARD® is a collaborative web-based software solution, designed specifically to support strategic procurement projects. Defence Clothing decided to use AWARD® to support both the assessment of footwear and suppliers tendering for these contracts.
“Defence Clothing has used AWARD® over several procurements, and we appreciate the process, auditability and transparency it brings. Commerce Decisions has assisted us in configuring AWARD® for this multi-lot project to ensure that all tenders are evaluated in a fair and robust manner.” Jill Evans, Defence Clothing Team Leader, Team Leidos Defence Clothing.
Defence Clothing held two Industry Days in March 2015 attended by 37 companies. A Bidders’ Conference was also held in September 2015, at which Commerce Decisions played an active part. There were 22 Expressions Of Interest (EOIs) from 22 suppliers interested in tendering for the five to seven year contract for the supply of combat footwear. 15 tenders have now been submitted, and Team Leidos is taking the procurement forward to the next stage.
The evaluation process will take place across 2016 in the following increasingly testing phases – Tender Evaluation, User Assessment Panel (Jan/Feb 2016), Gross Error Trial (April/May 2016) and finally the Full User Trial (Aug-Nov 2016). Full details of the tender evaluation process, boot trialling, contract award criteria and any other relevant information are included within the tender documentation. The final contract will be awarded in April 2017.
”Commerce Decisions has worked with the UK MOD on many of its defence clothing projects over the past 10 years. We are delighted to be providing support to this key procurement that will ensure that our troops have the footwear they need to carry out their duties in all combat situations.” Gavin Shepheard, Sales Director, Commerce Decisions.
