Defence Online

Type of document: Contract Notice
Country: United Kingdom

1. Title: BASELINE DEPLOYMENT SERVICES AND LEASE, INDEFINITE DELIVERY AND QUANTITY – EXPORTING OPPORTUNITY
2. Awarding Authority: Secretary of State for Business, Innovation & Skills acting on behalf of UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), GB. Web:
3. Contract type: Service contract
4. Description: Opportunity type NATO
Industry Defence
NATO Communications and Information Agency (NCI) aim to expand its ability to configure and deploy assets by utilising external contractors.
A summary of the requirements of the invitations for bids (IFB) are set forth below. These requirements are currently being refined as part of the preparation of the proposed IFB.
The reference for this IFB is IFB-CO-115769-e-BDS and all correspondence concerning this IFB should reference this number.
Funding obligations will occur at delivery order placement.
The envisaged procurement procedure for this IFB is international competitive bidding (ICB), the lowest priced technically compliant bid. The successful bidder, pursuant to the IFB following this notification of intent (NOI) will be the bid that offers the lowest price and is technically compliant in accordance with requirement outlined below.
The formal IFB is planned to be issued by the first quarter of 2023 with an anticipated IFB closing date in the second quarter of 2023. The contract award is planned for no later than quarter 2 of 2023.
National responsible authorities are required to nominate eligible bidders. Nominations for companies should come from the national authorities via their delegation/mission to NATO, who are invited to provide the requisite declaration of eligibility (DoE). Upon receipt of the DoE, the NCI agency contracting officer will add the company to the bidders list.
The NCI agency executes various projects which deliver large quantities of new end-user equipment, consisting of laptop and workstation kits. This new equipment needs to undergo additional steps of installing a defined client device baseline before being shipped to NATO locations. Due to the volume of the equipment, the NCI agency wishes to expand its ability to flexibly configure and deploy assets by also utilising external contractor support.
The work to be provided is for baseline deployed end-user devices, through either deployment services or lease. The services shall be performed under the technical guidance/direction of the NATO communications and information agency and deployed either at the premises of the contractor or one of the NCI agency locations.
Deploy client device baseline requirements provided by the purchaser on to commercial off the shelf (COTS) or TEMPESTED (TEMPEST Level A, B or C) laptops and workstations, at either one of the NATO locations where there is NCI presence or at the contractor premises according to pre-agreed plan/schedule. As a minimum, the following activities will be required:
a) Integrate the software packages provided by the purchaser into their industrial standardised deployment infrastructure. The baseline shall contain only the components provided by the purchaser and no other components regardless of their nature (for example, drivers, settings, applications, scripts, firmware, BIOS) are permitted.
b) Conduct physical inspection of the hardware items for visible damage (such as a broken screen) and will not deploy the purchaser provided baseline in any case where there is physical damage.
c) Configure basic input/output system (BIOS) settings as provided by the purchaser prior to the deployment of the baseline.
d) Deploy the client device baseline to the laptops and workstations within 5 working days of the purchaser requested this.
e) Sign the purchaser provided checklist after completion of the deployment in order to have a log/report of each hardware asset that is free of errors or defects.
Lease to the purchaser a ready-to-use baseline deployed client devices for a specified period of time. The ready to use client devices should have undergone the activities as outlined in the previous paragraph.
a) Due to NATO security constraints referred at the INFOSEC AC/322-D(2012)011), in case of defects of a TEMPESTED item during the warranty period, the item must be returned to the contractor for repair or replacement free of any magnetic, solid state and electronic media storage devices (for example, CD-ROMs, DVDs, USB sticks, solid state storage drives, hard drives). Such storage devices must be removed even if it requires breaking the TEMPEST seals. The contractor shall replace such storage devices with new storage devices at no additional cost to the purchaser. All the other non-storage devices and components (for example, RAMs, boards) will be returned unaltered from the initial configuration.
b) The lease may be only for laptops, workstations or a complete ‘set’ including associated peripherals (for example, mouse, keyboard, docking station, monitor).
c) The lease may be required for the commercial life cycle of an asset or for a shorter period of time.
5. CPV Code(s): 70000000
6. NUTS code(s): UKC, UKD, UKE, UKF, UKG, UKH, UKI, UKJ, UKK, UKL, UKM, UKN
7. Main site or location of works, main place of delivery or main place of performance: NATO
8. Reference attributed by awarding authority: The reference for this IFB is IFB-CO-115769-e-BDS
9. Estimated value of requirement: Not provided.
10. Opportunity closing date 28.11.2022.
11. Address to which they must be sent: For further information regarding the above contract notice please visit:
12. Other information: TKR-2022115-EX-1498493