Science Directorate: Digital Slide Scanner for the Natural History Museum

UK-London: Scanners.

Section I: Contracting Authority
   I.1)Name, Addresses and Contact Point(s):
      Natural History Museum
      Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, United Kingdom
      Tel. +44 02079425416, Email: j.baker@nhm.ac.uk, URL: www.nhm.ac.uk
      Attn: Mr J Baker Procurement manager

      Further information can be obtained at: As Above       
      Specifications and additional documents: As Above       
      Tenders or requests to participate must be sent to: As Above       
   
   I.2)Type of the contracting authority:
      Other: National Museum

   I.3) Main activity:
      Recreation, culture and religion
      Education

   I.4) Contract award on behalf of other contracting authorities:
      The contracting authority is purchasing on behalf of other contracting authorities: No

Section II: Object Of The Contract: SUPPLIES
   II.1)Description
      II.1.1)Title attributed to the contract by the contracting authority: Digital Slide Scanner for the Natural History Museum
      II.1.2)Type of contract and location of works, place of delivery or of performance: SUPPLIES
         Purchase

         Region Codes: UKI1 - Inner London         
      II.1.3) Information about a public contract, a framework or a dynamic purchasing system:The notice involves a public contract                                                       
      
      II.1.5)Short description of the contract or purchase:
      Scanners. The Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London, is not only a leading visitor attraction but is one of the world's leading authorities and research institutes in natural history. The Museum’s Imaging and Analysis Centre provides analytical and imaging facilities to the Earth and Life Science departments. The fundamental aim of the Imaging and Analysis Centre (IAC) is to meet, to a standard of international excellence, the research and curatorial requirements in advanced microscopy and chemical analysis for the scientific staff in both the Earth and Life science departments. The facilities operate as an interdepartmental resource for both Museum scientists and visiting researchers from around the world, and additionally contribute to income generation from many of the Museum’s Consultancy Sectors.

Proposal for the purchase of an automated microscope slide scanning system
Range of applications: The system is intended primarily as a tool to meet the NHM’s intended aim to digitize and make its collections publically accessible and also as a tool to rapidly assemble data from serial sections for use in 3D reconstruction projects (similar to that currently achieved with micro-CT datasets).
Introduction: Project aims
The Natural History Museum has extensive slide collections encompassing all aspects of its research activities across all of its historical science departmental divisions and covering a wide range of different sample types. The Museum has a stated ambition to digitize 20 million specimens over the next five years. Digitisation of the slide collections is intended to contribute to this project.
The current proposal aims to restrict the instrument, which is the subject of this tender, to be a system designed to scan those slides which make up parts of the Life Sciences collections. This is a pragmatic decision based upon the need to restrict the initial scanning effort to those samples which are presented on a standardized histological slide.
         
      II.1.6)Common Procurement Vocabulary:
         38520000 - Scanners.
         

      II.1.7) Information about Government Procurement Agreement (GPA):
         The contract is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA): Yes       
      II.1.8)Lots:
         This contract is divided into lots: No
      II.1.9)Information about variants:
         Variants will be accepted: No    
   
   II.2)Quantity Or Scope Of The Contract
      II.2.1)Total quantity or scope:
      Not Provided      
      
      II.2.2)Options: Not Provided         
         II.2.3)Information about renewals:
            This contract is subject to renewal: Not Provided         
   II.3)Duration Of The Contract Or Time-Limit For Completion      
      Not Provided
   Information About Lots
               
Section III: Legal, Economic, Financial And Technical Information
   III.1)Conditions relating to the contract
      III.1.1)Deposits and guarantees required:
      Not Provided
      
      III.1.2)Main financing conditions and payment arrangements and/or reference to the relevant provisions governing them:
      Not Provided
      
      III.1.3)Legal form to be taken by the group of economic operators to whom the contract is to be awarded:
      Not Provided
      
      III.1.4)Other particular conditions:
         The performance of the contract is subject to particular conditions: Not Provided      
   III.2)Conditions For Participation
      III.2.1)Personal situation of economic operators, including requirements relating to enrolment on professional or trade registers:
         The Authority will apply all the offences listed in Article 45(1) of Directive 2004/18/EC (implemented as Regulation 23(1) of the Public Contract Regulations (PCR) 2006 in the UK) and all of the professional misconducts listed at Article 45(2) of Directive 2004/18/EC (see also Regulation 23(2) in the PCR 2006) to the decision of whether a Candidate is eligible to be invited to tender.
         
         A full list of these criteria are at http://www.delta-esourcing.com/delta/project/reasonsForExclusion.html#pcr
         
         Candidates will be required to answer these questions as part of the qualification process. For candidates who are registered overseas, you will need to declare if you have any offences/misconduct under your own countries laws, where these laws are equivalent to the Regulation 23 lists. Candidates who have been convicted of any of the offences under Article 45(1) are ineligible and will not be selected to bid, unless there are overriding requirements in the general interest for doing so. Candidates who are guilty of any of the offences, circumstances or misconduct under Article 45(2) may be excluded from being selected to bid at the discretion of the Authority.
      
      III.2.2)Economic and financial capacity
         Economic and financial capacity - means of proof required:         
         Not Provided
      
      III.2.3)Technical capacity
         Technical capacity - means of proof required         
         Not Provided      
      III.2.4)Information about reserved contracts: Not Provided
Section IV: Procedure
   IV.1)Type Of Procedure
      IV.1.1)Type of procedure: Open
   
   IV.2)Award Criteria
      IV.2.1)Award criteria:      
         The most economically advantageous tender in terms of
            The criteria stated in the specifications, in the invitation to tender or to negotiate or in the descriptive document

      IV.2.2)Information about electronic auction:
         An electronic auction will be used: No       

   IV.3)Administrative Information
      IV.3.1)File reference number attributed by the contracting authority: NHM IAC DSS 2014      
      IV.3.2)Previous publication(s) concerning the same contract: No

      IV.3.3)Conditions for obtaining specifications and additional documents or descriptive document:

      Date: 13/08/2014
      Time-limit for receipt of requests for documents or for accessing documents: 10:00
         Payable documents: No       
      
      IV.3.4)Time-limit for receipt of tenders or requests to participate
         Date: 13/08/2014
         Time: 12:00      
      IV.3.6)Language(s) in which tenders or requests to participate may be drawn up:         English
         
      IV.3.7)Minimum time frame during which the tenderer must maintain the tender Not Provided      
      IV.3.8)Conditions for opening tenders
         Not Provided

Section VI: Complementary Information

   VI.1)This Is A Recurrent Procurement: No
   VI.2)Information about European Union funds:
      The contract is related to a project and/or programme financed by European Union funds: Not Provided      
   VI.3)Additional Information: The contracting authority considers that this contract may be suitable for economic operators that are small or medium enterprises (SMEs). However, any selection of tenderers will be based solely on the criteria set out for the procurement, and the contract will be awarded on the basis of the most economically advantageous tender.Suppliers must read through this set of instructions and follow the process to respond to this opportunity. The information and/or documents for this opportunity are available on https://www.delta-esourcing.com/delta. You must register on this site to respond, if you are already registered you will not needto register again, simply use your existing username and password. Please note there is a password reminderlink on the homepage. Suppliers must log in, go to your Response Manager and add the following Access Code : WU7568875D. The tender documents are available for download, including Instructions to bidders, terms and conditions, specification, bidder declarations and a draft pricing schedule. Potential suppliers are required to respond to the tender by uploading their bids by the closing date of 13/8/2014 at 12 noon.
For more information about this opportunity, please visit the Delta eSourcing portal at:
https://www.delta-esourcing.com/tenders/UK-UK-London:-Scanners./WU7568875D

To respond to this opportunity, please click here:
https://www.delta-esourcing.com/respond/WU7568875D
GO-201474-PRO-5790733 TKR-201474-PRO-5790732
   
   VI.4)Procedures For Appeal
      VI.4.1)Body responsible for appeal procedures:
      Natural History Museum
      Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, United Kingdom
      Tel. +44 02079425416

      Body responsible for mediation procedures:
               Natural History Museum
         Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, United Kingdom
         Tel. +44 02079425416

      VI.4.2)Lodging of appeals: Not Provided   
   
      VI.4.3)Service from which information about the lodging of appeals may be obtained:
            Not Provided

   VI.5) Date Of Dispatch Of This Notice: 04/07/2014

ANNEX A