Project BOSKER

A Contract has been awarded for industry to design/enhance, develop & manufacture the Next Generation Chemical Detection Chemical Sense capability for airborne hazards, (including vapour and aerosol) & deposited hazards (including liquids and solids) known as 'Project BOSKER'.

This procurement is exempt from the Defence & Security Public Contract Regulations on Grounds of National Security & is 'Secret 5 Eyes Only'. Only Suppliers from within UK, US, Canada, Australia & New Zealand may apply. However this does not stop companies with foreign ownership from applying if they have a UK registered business or subsidiary.

Suppliers should have the ability & technology to meet the following high-level user needs:

• Timely indication of toxic chemicals airborne in vapour & aerosol physical states, & then alert personnel to chemical threats within local areas.
• Develop person worn capability for Hazard Warning (HW) & Residual Hazard Warning (RHW) for military personnel and potentially through modularisation of the person worn capability provide a hand-held capability to provide Hazard Location (HL) & Contamination of Assessment to military personnel.
• Develop a base sense capability for HW & RHW to military personnel.
• Provide chemical threat presumptive identification & the amount of hazard present allowing this data to report the event to Commaders. This information will support integrated warning, increase situational awareness, and improve battlefield management.
• Obtain both a high level of chemical sensitivity & minimise the potential for false alarms (both false positive & false negative) to provide the user with confidence in their equipment.
• Deliver an integrated aerosol & vapour sense capability.
• Both the equipments are required to be network enabled.

Suppliers need to hold List X status prior to contract award.

The contract period is 5 years +1 +1 +1 +1 option years & include the following:

a. Demonstration Phase to develop a prototype to be approved by the Authority, in conjunction with Defence Science Technology Laboratory (DSTL) testing, that meets the requirement prior to during Y1 of the contract.

b. Manufacture, supply, & delivery of specified chemical sensing equipment.

c. Repair and Spares support for the remainder of the contract covering procurement of the full systems, part piece spares and component level spares.

d. Technical support which includes, but not limited to, updates to technical documentation and responding to technical queries from the users via CBRN DT Operations Manager (OM).

e. Provision of training equipment and/or training packages as agreed with the Authority.

In Service Support (ISS) to be a range of specialised DIM & sense equipment likely to require consumable items & may have servicing, repair & calibration requirements