Awarded to Automation Logic

Start date: Wednesday 4 September 2019
Value: £3,000,000
Company size: SME

HMRC

CDS Infrastructure & Technology

13 Incomplete applications

9 SME, 4 large

31 Completed applications

19 SME, 12 large

• Published: Thursday 27 June 2019
• Deadline for asking questions: Thursday 4 July 2019 at 11:59pm GMT
• Closing date for applications: Thursday 11 July 2019 at 11:59pm GMT

Overview

• Summary of the work: With this call-off I&T are looking for a service provider with specialist capability and experience in delivering enterprise infrastructure services using cloud technologies, automated ecosystem delivery and a DevOps and Agile ethos and methodology.
• Latest start date: Thursday 15 August 2019
• Expected contract length: 2 Years
• Location: South East England
• Organisation the work is for: HMRC
• Budget range: £3 Million

About the work

• Why the work is being done: Customs Declaration Services (CDS) is a large scale IT change programme being delivered through a combination of in house delivery groups supplemented by external suppliers and procured Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) software. CDS is a strategically important programme for HMRC and is driven by the principal need to first dual run with, then replace and decommission the CHIEF (Customs Handling of Import/Export Freight) system and supports the wider HMRC EU Exit strategy.; C&IT Infrastructure & Technology (I&T) is the group responsible for delivery of the infrastructure that hosts CDS products and components and the CI/CD strategy that underpins delivery.
• Problem to be solved: We require a delivery partner to provide delivery of infrastructure and technology (I&T) components, delivery working in Scrum Teams, delivering phased sprints. ; The CDS system is live with minimal user base. External readiness teams want to increase migration of users from the CHIEF system against ambitious timelines. I&T must build the capability to support these ambitions.; I&T delivery teams require additional capability to support delivery:; * Live Support tooling to enable problem and incident resolution (logging / monitoring / alerting); * Ecosystem tooling to enable CI/CD and robust automation framework including test automation; *Platform hardening including data encryption; *Performance tuning
• Who the users are and what they need to do: As UK Importer/Exporter we need capability to electronically submit HMRC declaration data so that movement of commodities across borders can be maintained with minimal disruption and delay.; We need to ensure all electronic HMRC declaration data is valid and conforms to UK policies/tariffs so the correct duties can be collected, appropriate statistical information can be harvested and UK borders are protected against prohibitions and restrictions.; CDS Service Support Team needs the right tooling available to monitor stability and performance of the CDS system so service is highly available and any potential disruption to the service can be suitably investigated.
• Any work that’s already been done: CDS is a live service that is under support on a Monday to Friday 9-5 basis.; We are working against a maturing ecosytem using agile and devops methodologies for delivery.; ; Scrum teams for monitoring, logging, encryption and database platforms are established and delivering.; We are delivering and supporting a suite of environments in AWS including development, functional integration, stress, PVT, OAT and outwardly facing trade test.
• Existing team: We currently have a mixed team including in-house staff, existing Service Providers plus contingent labour contractors.; ; There are currently a number of teams working on these services, in Southend. The successful supplier team will work with these existing capabilities. A part of the role of the supplier will be to assist HMRC in growing its own capability and we will expect a level of support for our staff at all levels from apprentice through to senior management.
• Current phase: Beta

Work setup

• Address where the work will take place: Alexander House, Southend-on-Sea, Essex SS99 1AA
• Working arrangements: The supplier will report directly to I&T Head, providing performance metrics and other reports to demonstrate progress. HMRC will provide regular service feedback to facilitate continuous improvement. HMRC will provide list of tools required to be used for implementation. Line management and control of service delivery will be wholly the responsibility of the supplier. ; ; If appointed individual(s) replaced with equivalent resource during contract period, HMRC will be informed so they are able to access to systems and accommodation.; ; The service provider to estimate their delivery on the basis of the team it provides.; ; A fixed price proposal will be considered.
• Security clearance: BPSS but if working in Production then SC is required which HMRC will sponsor

Additional information

• Additional terms and conditions: Additional HMRC specific terms in relation tax compliance among other things will be added to the call off contract

Skills and experience

Buyers will use the essential and nice-to-have skills and experience to help them evaluate suppliers’ technical competence.

• Essential skills and experience:
  • Have demonstrable experience providing relevant skills, roles and resources against variety of technologies required to form Scrum Team, scaling up and down teams to accommodate new requirements/changes within delivery pipeline.
  • Have demonstrable experience of collaborative working with a client's ‘in-house’ teams, including coaching and mentoring, and knowledge sharing.
  • Have demonstrable experience of integrating test automation within the delivery pipeline.
  • Have demonstrable experience of delivering at pace to support ambitious programme milestones
  • Evidenced outcomes of delivering performance improvements through multi technology optimisation/implementation in the last 3 years.
  • Have good understanding of DevOps principles and benefits of CI/CD and are able to demonstrate ability to stay up to speed with current developments in platform automation and DevOps principles.
  • Have demonstrable experience of proficiency with tools commonly used for automating deployments, particularly those used when adopting a DevOps framework including delivery of containerisation and AMI creation.
  • Have demonstrable track record in recommending strategies that promote cost saving initiatives in relation to an enterprise cloud solution such as reserved instances and environment right-sizing.
• Nice-to-have skills and experience: Experience of working with a Public Sector body or relevent large organisation with evidence of adapting quickly to an organic architecture and shifting priorities.

How suppliers will be evaluated

• How many suppliers to evaluate: 4
• Proposal criteria:
  • Technical solution
  • Approach and methodology
  • Team structure
  • Value for money
• Cultural fit criteria:
  • Able to start on the work immediately.
  • Have excellent communication skills with staff at all levels of the organisation
  • Be willing to collaborate and partner, including with other suppliers and HMRC staff at all levels.
  • Proactively share knowledge and experiences with members of team, especially with junior HMRC staff.
  • Be innovative and promote ideas and suggestions as applicable
• Payment approach: Fixed price
• Assessment methods:
  • Written proposal
  • Presentation
• Evaluation weighting:

  Technical competence

  50%

  Cultural fit

  10%

  Price

  40%

Questions asked by suppliers

• 1. Could you please advise whether external suppliers provided support with Discovery? with Alpha? and, if so, who the respective suppliers were.: Yes, HMRC have engaged with external consultancy during various discovery phases.; ; Who the previous suppliers were has no relevance to this opportunity, therefore we will not divulge this information.
• 2. Reading the summary of work section, which states call-off, Can you please confirm – is this a continuous piece of work for 3 years ?: The duration of the opportunity is for a maximum of 2 years for delivery. The constraints are more around budget.
• 3. Is this opportunity to be awarded to a single supplier or multiple-suppliers?: HMRCs preferred approach is multi-supplier but a single supplier with suitable skill-set and experiences will be treated with impartial consideration.
• 4. Could you please give some details on whether you expect the supplier to be on-site in Southend full time? Will there be any flexibility to work from the supplier's office for some of the time?: The initial expectations will be for the supplier to be on-site in Southend.; ; Remote working will be considered where delivery culture and approach allow. Technologies (AWS D4D) to allow remote working exist on the HMRC estate so the capability is instilled.
• 5. The tender mentions the latest start date – what is the ideal start date?: Due to the timeline for the tender and internal processes, mid-August is when we will be looking for the successful supplier(s) to begin.
• 6. Technical Question: How many environments are we supporting on this project?: The programme has many environments both on the production and pre-production VPCs. While there is an element of support expected, the main contribution will be around service and infrastructure improvements.
• 7. ’Evidence outcomes of delivering performance improvements through multi technology optimisation/implementation in the last 3 years.’’ What do you mean by ‘performance improvements’ in this context – are you talking about team throughput or application/service performance or something else?: Performance in respect to PVT benchmarks with a view to a performant service likened to the CHIEF service which is being replaced.
• 8. ‘’Evidence outcomes of delivering performance improvements through multi technology optimisation/implementation in the last 3 years.’’ What do you mean by multi-technology optimisation, does that mean delivering improvements using combinations of technology or does it mean delivering improvements in a multi-technology (e.g. multi-cloud) environment?: Multi-technology in respect to the integration of a number of components . CDS consists of COTS packages and in-house developed micro-services, hosted on various applications servers and database platforms.
• 9. ‘’Have demonstrable experience providing relevant skills, roles and resources against variety of technologies required to form SCRUM Team, scaling up and down teams to accommodate new requirements/changes within delivery pipeline.’’ – That is a lot of information to condense in ~100 words, are there specific technologies / tools you’d like us to provide evidence against?: Experience of Scrum techniques and methodology coupled with exposure to JIRA and Confluence to manage delivery.
• 10. ''Have demonstrable experience of providing the relevant skills, roles and resources against a variety of technologies required to form a Scrum Team, scaling up and down teams to accommodate new requirements/changes within delivery pipeline'' – Please can you clarify what you mean by ''technologies'' here? Are you referring to the technology stack that a platform team is responsible for and the tools used to deliver or something else?: JIRA integration with delivery pipeline tooling e.g. GitLab.
• 11. Technical Question: What are the size of the components we will be supporting?: The size of components is relative to the environment they are hosted (right-sized). It's not possible to give an exact answer.
• 12. Technical Question: How many incidents are currently reported on a monthly basis?: This is not information that HMRC would make available as it is not relevant for bidding for this opportunity
• 13. What is the average supplier payment performance (i.e. the time taken to pay suppliers)? What is the department's average supplier payment performance to SME suppliers?: HMRC will pay within 30 days of receipt of a valid invoice, we aspire to pay within 5 days of receipt where possible.; ; HMRC do not differentiate payment processes for SME’s, so the payments will be made as stated above.
• 14. In response to CQ 7 you've said, ''Performance in respect to PVT benchmarks with a view to a performant service likened to the CHIEF service which is being replaced.'' What does PVT benchmarks mean? Can you clarify what you mean please?: Performance, Volumetrics Testing
• 15. The requirements for this opportunity include a significant element of maintenance. Please can you confirm whether you have a requirement for out of hours support such as a call out arrangement?: Out of hours support is unlikely to be in scope for this opportunity.
• 16. There is no weighting provided to any questions. Can we assume that all the questions hold equal importance?: Yes all technical questions will hold equal weighting for evaluation of responses
• 17. What are the key challenges you are facing currently w.r.t the CDS service? Has CDS carried out load testing on the new environment to verify the reliability of service?: Yes, load testing is being undertaken by an incumbent testing service provider which is not part of the scope of this opportunity.; The biggest challenge to the programme is around continuous integration and deployment.
• 18. What are the key challenges you are facing currently with regards to migration of users from CHIEF to CDS, apart from ambitious timelines? And what are the timelines to complete the migration?: External readiness is a separate programme stream and has little bearing on this opportunity
• 19. How many users are likely to have permission to log into the support tool? Is there any live supporting tool used by CDS currently? What are the expectations from the supplier w.r.t the tool, i.e. selection of the tool/implementation/configure/monitor/support?: Please elaborate it on what it is you are referring to. Are you referring to an incident management tool?
• 20. There is no weighting provided to any questions. Can we assume that all the questions hold equal importance?: Yes