Descriptions

***For the avoidance of doubt, this is not a call for competition. This notice is to request feedback from the market to inform future decisions*** UK Research and Innovation wish to procure a Quality Management Support System. RAL Space is the Space Science and Technology department of STFC - the Science and Technology Facilities Council, one of the UK government research councils and part of UK Research and Innovation. RAL Space carries out work for multiple customers and space agencies around the world, contributing to all phases of the specification, design, build, test and operation of scientific instruments flown on spacecraft or studying the space environment. Since 2017 RAL Space has been using a remotely-hosted installation of the Eclipse tool suite from Sapienza Consulting which provides an integrated system for managing actions, electronic documents and non-conformance records for projects and for general business functions. Use of the system has increased since 2017 so that there are now about 500 active users, mostly RAL Space staff but also including about external users working on projects in collaboration with RAL Space. The system supports the operation of the department's formal Quality Management Systems which are certified to ISO 9001:2015, EN 9100:2016 and the ESA standard for Space Test Centres, ECSS-Q-ST-20-07C. Responsibility for administering the current system rests with the Assurance function and this would continue with any system procured under this tender. Administration is largely devolved to project level so that the workload is distributed across a team of about 10 rather than being the responsibility of just a few individuals and the distinct requirements of the many projects in the department means that devolved administration is highly desirable. Scope • An on-line system • Documentation for users and administrators • Training for system administrators (as required) • Porting of existing data into the new system (as required) • Interoperability with instances of the SERCO (formerly Sapienza Consulting) Eclipse tool suite in use by major customers of RAL Space is essential; specific requirements on this are included in below. ****There is no commitment at this stage that the above mentioned opportunity will proceed in its current format****