Packing for Production.

Descriptions

There is an opportunity to become the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC) principal supplier of packaging materials. NIBSC mission is to assure the quality of biological medicines. At the heart of this ground breaking research, is the preparation, storage and worldwide distribution of World Health Organization international standards and reference materials as benchmarks for product quality, which are used by industry, regulatory authorities and researchers world-wide. NIBSC also produces reagents essential for the production of influenza vaccines each year and quality control reagents for the National Blood Service to help assure the safety of the UK blood supply.We currently distribute materials to in excess of 95 countries around the globe. These materials are transported under three temperature zones, Ambient, chilled 2 °C - 8 °C (ice packs), frozen -20 °C (Dry ice). These packages must have a validated cold chain life of between 96 and 120 hours. This is due to the distances involved and the vagaries of local customs practices.During the preceding four years we have seen our volumes grow year on year by the order of 12.5 %. During year 2012 –13 the institute dispatched in excess of 6500 consignments with approximately 25% of those shipments being multi carton.The vast majority of the consignments travel by air and therefore are subject to IATA regulations. The packaging should be of UN specification but not necessarily UN certified. The outer cardboard packaging should be of a minimum tri wall construction and preferably white in colour. The outer packaging in respect of frozen shipments should be pre-printed with the UN 1845 dry ice label and the Dry ice volume declaration and absolutely nothing else. All inner containers should be of moulded polystyrene type construction in varying sizes.In respect of delivery a lead time of no more than 5 working days is required (from raising Po to delivery). To ensure that this can be achieved and is not inhibited by production delays a 4 week buffer stock is required of an agreed list of items, is to be held by the supplier with this stock being available for a maximum 2 day delivery from the date of the receipt of purchase order. In theory we could place an annual call off order if this would reduce administration costs and receive deliveries on an agreed schedule.It should be noted that if through no fault of NIBSC, there is a need to obtain packaging from elsewhere due to none delivery or some other issue then the contracted supplier will be-could be liable for all additional costs incurred.All products supplied under this tender should be both ethically and environmentally sound.