Supply & Delivery of PLC, HMI, SCADA and Industrial Networking Equipment

CPV: Command, control, communication and computer systems · Industrial process control equipment · Industrial process control equipment and remote-control equipment · Instrumentation and control equipment · Scada or equivalent system · Telemetry and control equipment

Procedure method

Award procedure without prior publication of a call for competition

Legal basis

CELEX · 32014L0024 Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (Directive 2014/24/EU)

Procurement category

Goods

Notice status

Awarded without competition

Procurement threshold

Unspecified in notice

Regulatory regime

Standard

Commercial structure

Framework agreement

Who may use this agreement

Not stated in the notice; call-off rights may be limited to the establishing authority

Competition type

Direct award (no call for competition)

GPA / WTO covered

Unspecified in notice

Recurring procurement

Unspecified in notice

First published

10 Feb 2021, 15:14 GMT

Last source update

10 Feb 2021, 15:14 GMT

Authority reference

PRO004136

FTS notice number

2021/S 000-002731

Classification (CPV)

Command, control, communication and computer systemsIndustrial process control equipmentIndustrial process control equipment and remote-control equipmentInstrumentation and control equipmentScada or equivalent systemTelemetry and control equipment

Delivery area

North West (UKD)

Official registry OCID

ocds-h6vhtk-029212 Find a Tender

Why no open competition

The procurement falls outside the scope of application of the directive

Published justification

United Utilities the contracting entity, 90% of its operational sites are controlled, monitored and automated using Siemens S7 PLCs and WinCC SCADA software and the next investment programme calls for circa 2% of its PLC/SCADA to be replaced. Awarding the PLC/SCADA contract to any supplier other than the incumbent will re-introduce 'Islands of Automation' onto our sites.

This introduces numerous potential issues such as:

• Single Points of Failure;
• Duplication of both tasks and data;
• More complex designs;
• Lengthier troubleshooting; and
• is generally and much more inefficient way to automate a site.

At a site level United Utilities has mostly eliminated this issue, to introduce differing technology (with limited to no interconnectivity) to these sites would be to reintroduce issues such as the above.

An alternative to introducing Islands of Automation would be to replace all hardware and software on a site that is introducing new hardware. This would require software to be reverse engineered and redesigned in a way to work on the new platform and then being re-commissioned.

Independent third parties have provided proposals for a full PLC replacement project (using non incumbent technology), based on a typical UU Waste Water plant size using the above scenario for verification. The technical complexity (design, coding and testing effort required) to achieve this, when compared to implementing an additional PLC onto a site using the incumbent's technology, was found to be a ratio of 11:1.

The Framework was last tendered in 2009, with minor amendments to scope and terms negotiated with the successful supplier, (Siemens PLC), as part of the strategy for Kit Framework awards for AMP6 in 2015.

Prior to 2009, Siemens were also the incumbent supplier for these products and services and have been the UU SCADA platform provider since 2004

The Kit Framework is still in place with Siemens PLC until Sept 2020, with no further extension options under the current arrangement which has now expired.

United Utilities conducted stakeholders meetings and agreement sought that confirm the optimum solution would be to re-negotiate with the current incumbent, there is a need to justify and confirm the disproportionality of re-tendering v transition costs, i.e. the cost of changing asset base, associated protocols, training material, maintenance regimes, spares and knowledge etc., should the solution provider change.

United Utilities conclusion is that the significant extra technical steps required to transition to a change of supplier would oblige the utility to acquire supplies having different technical characteristics which would result in incompatibility or disproportionate technical difficulties in operation and maintenance. It is therefore, necessary to conduct a negotiated procedure without prior call for competition, as highlighted above United Utilities have acted in good faith prior to coming to this decision based on the due diligence that has been conducted.

1 suppliers are admitted to this framework without individual award values or dates, see the supplier list below.

• Siemens PlcFramework contractor 00727817 Farraday House, Sir William Siemens Square, Frimley, Camberley, South East, GU168QD

No document links were published on the notice.