Industry Information Session - emits.esa.intemits.esa.int/emits-doc/ESOC/GFC8_IndustryInfoDay_20090403_RES-… · GFC8 Info Day | Joerg Reinhardt | ESA / ESOC | 03/04/2009 | Page

GFC8 Info Day | Joerg Reinhardt | ESA / ESOC | 03/04/2009 | Page 1

GFC8New Ground Segment Software

Frame Contract for ESOC

Industry Information Session

3rd April 2009

Jörg Reinhardt, H/RES-POM


I. Sources for further information

Question 1Where can we find more details / documentation that describes the NewApproach ?

Answer 1You may wish to contact your National IPC delegates to obtain a copy of the IPC paper, in which the “New Approach” is described.

Also, you may wish to refer to the summary description of the New Approach, which is provided in EMITS (http://emits.esa.int/emits/owa/emits.main).

The presentation given and the Q & A discussed today will also be published on EMITS in due course after this Industry Day.


II. Who is eligible ? Who is excluded ?

Question 1Are Canadian companies eligible to submit tenders in response to theGFC8 ITT ?

Answer 1Yes, Canadian companies are eligible.

Also, all companies from ESA Member States are eligible.



Question 2Can the Agency confirm that the Manpower Support FCOs excluded frombidding for GFC8 are those supporting OPS-G ?

Answer 2Only OPS-G Manpower Support Frame Contractors / Sub-Contractorsare excluded.

Such Prime and Sub-Contractors will be excluded as FCO and QPA untiltheir Manpower Support Frame Contract with ESA finishes.

Vice versa, Contractors chosen for the GFC8 as FCO or QPA willbe no longer available as Contractor and Sub-Contractor for the futureManpower Support Frame Contracts.

Additional Note:Also, Large System Integrators are excluded from bidding under theGFC8.



Question 3Will the list of companies, which are excluded from the ITT, be published ?

Answer 3The Contract Titles and Contract Numbers of the Manpower Support Frame Contracts, which lead to the exclusion of the respective Prime and Sub-Contractors, will be listed in the ITT documentation.



Question 4Will also companies, which belong to the same group of companies as the Prime- or Sub-Contractors of the respective Manpower Support Frame Contracts, be excluded from the GFC8 ITT ?

Answer 4Yes, in principle, unless it is demonstrated in the proposal that belonging to the same group does not result in conflicts of interest (e.g. specific structure of the group concerned) amongst the companies working under the GFC8 FC on the one hand and the respective Manpower Support Frame Contracts on the other hand.


III. Definition: Competitive Frame Contract

Question 1What is a “Competitive Frame Contract” ?

Answer 1A FC defines the general terms and conditions for the procurement ofequipment and/or services procured via individual detailed Work Orders.

Competitive FC• Several FCOs work under identical (but separate) FCs• Submission of offers in response to the Agency’s RFPs• Agency selects the best offer and awards the Work Order to one of the FCOs


IV. Selection of Frame Contractors

Question 1What does the Agency expect in terms of “cost elements”, which are notsubject to evaluation ?

Answer 1Tenderers should indicate their cost policy applied for similar work onprevious projects, as well as manpower rates for possible FUP work.

Prices submitted in connection with the GFC8 ITT should be binding as maximum rates for a certain period (all as specified in the GFC8 ITT documents).


IV. Selection of Frame Contractors

Question 2Given the fact that each legal entity must qualify individually as FCO or QPA, how will synergies and know-how within a group of companies be considered in the evaluation ?

Answer 2If companies, which belong to a group of companies, have access to know-how and/or resources of other group companies, this should be explained in the proposals submitted by the respective individual company. These aspects will then be considered in the context of the evaluation of such company as FCO or QPA. However, the competences of a company’s personnel should be demonstrated only with reference to its own workforce.


V. Selection of Qualified Partners

Question 1If an entity of a multinational company is selected as FCO, can this entitygive work to other entities of that company (as QPA) or does each nationalentity need to qualify separately ?

Answer 1ESA will place the FC with a legal entity satisfying the criteria establishedto qualify as FCO. Therefore, each legal entity needs to qualify separately.

Other companies/legal entities belonging to the same group as the FCOdo not necessarily qualify as QPA. There is a separate qualification processfor QPA, which is also done at legal entity/company level.



Question 2What will be the mechanism for the nomination of new QPAs when the FCis already running ?Can a company apply at any time to be a QPA with no restrictions or is itthe Agency, who opens QPA positions only at certain moments ?

Answer 2An interval will be established for amendments to the QPA list (possiblyonce per year – announcement of exact interval in ITT documents).

Requests for admittance to the QPA list can be submitted any time.

After the selection of new QPAs, all FCOs and all QPAs will be informed.



Question 3Can a company initially rejected as QPA in the GFC8 ITT applyagain later to become QPA, assuming there have been changes, whichmake that company fulfil the criteria at a later stage ?

Answer 3This is possible, provided that the company can demonstrate thatthere have been substantial changes compared to the time when the initialproposal was rejected.



Question 4Will a FCO be able to add additional QPA(s) during the work on a particularWP or will this be “fixed” at proposal submission time ? An example of such a situation could be when a WP is to be extended(e.g. via CCN) with work, which is best (more) suited to another QPA.

Answer 4In general, new work will procured via RFP issued to all FCOs.

If a FCO working under a WP claims that he needs to cooperate with a newQPA to handle an additional task, this indicates that such additional task is new work to be procured via RFP, i.e. not to be included in the existingWP via CCN. In exceptional cases, where it is justified to introduce such additional work via CCN to a WP, it should be possible to include a new QPA, but only after the Agency’s approval, which would then be given via the CCN. If the additional QPA is not considered appropriate by the Agency, the Agency reserves the right to award the work, originally supposed to be covered under the CCN, to another FCO via RFP.



Question 5How will the list of QPAs be made available ?

Answer 5Once the FCs have been awarded and the initial list of QPAs has been established, such list will be sent to all FCOs and all QPAs.Whenever this list of QPAs changes, the new version will be distributed to all FCOs and all QPAs.


VI. Sub-Contracting

Question 1The 40% sub-contracting rule, if applied to every RFP, could significantlyincrease the risk to FCOs and cause project delays. How will this rulebe measured ?

Answer 1The compliance with the 40% sub-contracting rule will be monitoredper calendar year (per FCO), so that it does not need to be exactly compliedwith in each and every bid/RFP.

However, at a certain point, i.e. when a FCO is significantly below the40% target, there may be the need to take specific measures to ensure thatthis target will be met by the end of the year.


VI. Sub-Contracting

Question 2In case of work given directly to a QPA, while the FCO takes only a smalloverhead for the management of the QPA, does the Agency foresee amechanism, according to which the QPA carries the risk via-à-vis the Agency ?

Answer 2No, it will always be the FCO, who carries the risk vis-à-vis the Agency,since the Agency will have a contractual link only with the FCO.

It will, of course, be up to the FCO to make the necessary arrangementswith the respective QPA, in order to ensure a fair “internal” risk allocation.


VI. Sub-Contracting

Question 3In case of work given directly to a QPA, which FCO is chosen – the FCO theQPA has teamed with (the “stable” team) or any ?

Answer 3It will in these cases be up to the FCOs to arrange for a cooperationwith the respective QPA in the relevant RFP.


VI. Sub-Contracting

Question 4What will be the consequences, in case a FCO does not comply with the 40% sub-contracting requirement ?

Answer 4The compliance with the 40% sub-contracting requirement will not be monitored per individual RFP but per FCO per Contract year. If it turns out at a certain point in time, that a FCO is not in line with this requirement, appropriate measures will be taken to ensure compliance by the end of the respective year. Thus, at this point in time, it may be possible that proposals by this FCO, which do not significantly improve its sub-contracting quota, are being rejected. Therefore, it will be in the best interest of each FCO to comply with the sub-contracting requirement from the very beginning of the Contract (and to maybe even exceed the 40% requirement at a certain point in time in order to have more flexibility in this respect for the then following RFPs).


VII. Geographical Return

Question 1If geo-return is imposed on a case by case basis – will that be made clearin the RFPs? How is this supposed to work with the expected “stable”teaming ?

Answer 1This will, of course, be made clear in the respective RFP.

This may lead to a less stable teaming, unless the FCO chooses tofrequently cooperate with QPA, who may benefit from the geo-returnrequirement.



Question 2In GDS7 all Primes have an office in Germany close to ESOC. This has beenconsidered advantageous in GDS7 and is listed again as criteria for FCO in GFC8 selection. This means that if non-German potential FCOs bid through their German office (and are selected), such FCO counts, in principle, as 70 % German geo-return. In this scenario, sub-contracts would need to be placed mainly with QPAs not based in Germany in order to avoid a 70% German geo-return. Does this not reduce the chances of German and German based QPAs ?Does this potentially inflate the number of FCOs ?

Answer 2The QPAs are not necessarily located in Germany. Further, FCOs can give more than 40% to QPAs.ESA will decide on when geo-return measures will be taken and which measures this will be.



Question 3Are there any specific geo-return categories, e.g. broken down per ESA programme ?

Answer 3No, there will be only one overall geo-return requirement.


VIII. COMMUNICATION OF RFPs

Question 1How will new RFPs be communicated to FCOs and QPAs ?

Answer 1All RFPs will be sent per email to all FCOs and all QPAs. Also, at the end of every calendar quarter, a list with the titles and summary descriptions of all RFPs, which have been issued in such quarter, will be made available upon request, so that also companies, which are neither FCOs nor QPAs get an impression of the work procured under the FC in order to decide whether they wish to apply for their QPA qualification in the future.


IX. Freelancers

Question 1What is ESA’s position about freelancers ? Is it perceived better to be behind a FCO or QPA (as company staff withfreelance contract) or to work as an independent QPA as freelancer if thespecific experience is valuable for ESOC ?

Answer 1The function of FCO and QPA and the requirements to become an FCO orQPA have been described during the presentation. Any opportunities forfreelancers will follow from this description. FCOs and QPAs are companieshaving capabilities in certain application / technology domains.A Freelancer is not considered as a company. His collaboration with a FCOor a QPA should be made transparent to the Agency.


X. Small and Medium Enterprises

Question 1Is there a recommended approach for small enterprises to take part in theFrame Contracts ?

Answer 1Details for tender submission will be provided in the ITT documents to bepublished on EMITS (http://emits.esa.int/emits/owa/emits.main).

No QPA will appear in the FCs – contracts only with FCOs.

QPAs will be temporary sub-contractors for an awarded Work Order.

QPAs are not part of any “frozen” consortium for activities awarded to FCO.


XI. Technical Questions

Question 1We are a consulting and engineering company in the field of IT-security(information security) with the focus on security of software applications.How can we find out if such adequate tenders are or will be issued by ESAfor the Ground System Software.

Answer 1Please refer to EMITS for intended Invitations to Tender and issuedInvitations to Tender.

Security is one of the technology domains, for which a QPA could qualify(it will be described in the SoW regarding the GFC8).



Question 2We are currently bidding on a few ESA tenders regarding online learning and knowledge. We are interested to hear about the training of new software applicationsand the chance to meet members of ESOC.

Answer 2E-learning systems are not in the scope of the work covered by GFC8.

For some important systems, training is offered to any company (againstfees).



Question 3What is ESA's position on proposals for virtualising its IT infrastructure, in the context of emerging technologies such as Cloud Computing ?

Answer 3Virtualisation will be a technology domain described in the SoW for GFC8, where companies could demonstrate their competence to be retained as QPA.

Documents

Industry Information Session - emits.esa.intemits.esa.int/emits-doc/ESOC/GFC8_IndustryInfoDay_20090403_RES-… · GFC8 Info Day | Joerg Reinhardt | ESA / ESOC | 03/04/2009 | Page