Maritime Command & Staff Trainer (MCAST)

The purpose of this Contract Notice is to invite potential and interested suppliers to formally express interest in participating in this procurement by completing a DPQQ found on the Defence Sourcing Portal (DSP) linked to this Notice.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is considering the procurement of a Maritime Command and Staff Trainer (MCAST). The scope of the contract will include a full support solution including workforce to support the planning, execution, After-Action Review (AAR) and enable phases of the training cycle.

The Cyber Risk Assessment code is RAR-593027908 and has been rated as HIGH Risk.

It is noted that this procurement is exempt from the Defence and Security Public Contract Regulations (DSPCR) 2011, on grounds of National Security under Regulation 7(1)(a) of the DSPCR. Although the procurement will be managed using the principles of DSPCR 2011. Quantity or scope: The purpose of this Contract Notice is to invite potential and interested suppliers to formally express interest in participating in this procurement by completing a DPQQ found on the Defence Sourcing Portal (DSP) linked to this Notice.

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is considering the procurement of a Maritime Command and Staff Trainer (MCAST). The scope of the contract will include a full support solution including workforce to support the planning, execution, After-Action Review (AAR) and enable phases of the training cycle.

The MCAST System will provide a virtual environment for Maritime Battlestaffs (MBS) Tier 1, 2 and 2+ training and assurance exercises. The MCAST System should also provide interface to MBS participation in Tier 3 exercises run by other organisations with the potential to stretch to join Tier 4 exercises. At a lower level MCAST might be exploited for specific Tier 1 training delivered to the MBS or sub-teams.

The intent is for MCAST to be capable of linking to the wider Defence synthetic training environments. Compliance with Defence Modelling and Simulation Coherence (DMaSC) principles, as defined in JSP 939, will enhance coherence and interoperability, enable efficiencies, and facilitate integration with other synthetic environments. Links to NATO, other international partners and, potentially, component level organisations are expected to follow.

The simulated environment is to represent task force movements and the locations and movements of opposing forces and neutral entities within a realistic simulated environment. The training audience are working via mission orders and operational plans and staff will work to manage the task group operations, rather than an individual unit. First person views and high-fidelity, fast-moving graphics are not required. However, video, audio and imagery feeds to simulate sensors on platforms will be fed into the scenario. The simulation shall present entities that react to the actions of the training audience in a realistic manner. Entities will be represented by NATO symbology and recognised operational pictures.

The exercise data needs to be recorded and played back at different speeds to enable after action review. All Exercise data is required to be delivered to the Authority to enable future Exercise and scenario generation. Libraries of data supporting the Exercises are to be gathered and managed to reduce planning and development duplication. All Exercise data shall become the intellectual property of the Authority.

MCAST will provide and manage a suite of planning, exercise, after action review and recording software tools to reduce typically required workforce for training exercises. We expect MCAST to endeavour to provide efficiencies and reductions in workload wherever possible and to iteratively develop these support solutions.

MCAST will be expected to be a location agnostic solution taking advantage of modern software techniques and standards to provide a deployable service which can be used by the Navy wherever it is required.

To meet these requirements MCAST will be procured as a full support solution including workforce to support the planning, execution, AAR and enable phases of the training cycle. There will be minimal Royal Navy (RN) augmentation to training or management staff. We expect the service to include provision of personnel and equipment as required with no software or hardware required to be delivered into Service with the RN and no maintenance should be carried out by Authority personnel.

The MCAST service is a 5-year contract with 2 additional option years to deliver approx. 72 exercise days each year in accordance with the Statement of Training Requirement (SOTR).

The Cyber Risk Assessment code is RAR-593027908 and has been rated as HIGH Risk.