On May 13 the bidding was finalized for the new major software tender for EU-LISA. The value of this tender is nearly 1 Billion euro for the next four years.
EU-LISA is the European Union Agency for the Operational Management of Large-Scale IT Systems in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice and provides the EU with a long-term solution for the operational management of large-scale IT systems, which are essential instruments in the implementation of the asylum, border management and migration policies of the EU. The headquarters of EU-LISA are in Tallinn, Estonia, whilst its operational centre is in Strasbourg, France.
New procurement approach
EU-LISA has decided to fundamentally change its procurement approach. Up until now, procurement of services was organised on the basis of full-lifecycle services delivered by one single contractor per system (a “Silo” approach). A new approach was adopted by EU-LISA, called “Transversal Procurement”. This means that EU-LISA will procure services that can be deployed across the board on any of the current and future systems that it will have under its operational control. The service provisioning procurement for all future and existing systems will be altered from now onwards, beginning with this framework tender. Which consists of four lots:
- Design, Quality and Integration
- Software Development
- Infrastructure
- Test Services
Functional Size Measurement
as procurement mechanism
The maximum total value of this contract is 990 Million euro. The work packages in lot 2 (Software Development) will be contracted with a procurement method based on Functional Size Measurement. The maximum total value of this lot is set at 187 Million euro. The Functional Size Measurement methodologies used by EU-LISA can be either the COSMIC (v4.0.2) or IFPUG (v4.3.1 – without GSC/VAF). EU-LISA has also developed and implemented the following add-ons to the FSM methodologies:
- Local extension: Reusability Factor
- Local extension: Interfacing Factor
- Local extension: Maintenance Ratio
In order to estimate the software development, enhancement and maintenance cost the tenderer must follow elements of a Functional Size Measurement method chosen by EU-LISA.
A trend in software development procurement?
This is a very significant vote of confidence in the use of Functional Size Measurement to manage software development contracts and for the COSMIC Functional Size Measurement method in particular. Hopefully EU-LISA has set a trend in the way the European Union and its constituting governments will procure software contracts in the future.
