The Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) invites you to submit an expression of interest for the Manufacture, Supply & Delivery of two (2) Class 2D Fire Fighting Vessels.

A briefing session will be conducted at 12pm on Thursday 31 October 2019. Location: 450 Burnley Street, Richmond Vic 3121 - Lecture Theatre
You are encouraged to attend the briefing session to acquaint yourselves with the requirements of this expression of interest.

MFB’s more than 2,200 employees provide services to almost three million Melbourne residents, workers and visitors, and safeguard assets and infrastructure worth billions of dollars. Our services cover the metropolitan district, an area of over 2,000 square kilometres.

The MFB is a statutory authority enacted under the Metropolitan Fire Brigades Act 1958, with a legislative responsibility to provide fire prevention and suppression services and emergency prevention and response services within the Metropolitan District (MD).[1]

Following a series of legislative changes in the first decade of the century, the subsequent changes to the MD [2] resulted in the MFB’s statutory response activities (i.e. responding to an alarm of fire),[3] being expanded to cover not only rivers and waterways within the Melbourne Metropolitan District (MD)[4] but also the majority of the waters within Port Phillip Bay and a defined area out to three nautical miles beyond Port Philip Head, within Bass Strait. Subsequent changes resulting from the Emergency Management Act 2013 and amendments to the Emergency Management Manual Victoria (EMMV) have further refined government expectations, resulting in the MFB being required to develop, maintain and deliver a variety of emergency response capabilities in the marine domain.

The MFB is seeking invitee’s response to our expression of interest to build and deliver two (2) Class 2D Fire Fighting vessels compliant with the National Standard for Commercial Vessels (NSCV).

The vessels are to be used in both riverine and bay environments and are to be capable of operating in the Yarra and Maribyrnong rivers (under a series of low bridges), including the shallow lower reaches of these rivers and within Port Phillip Bay (excluding Port Phillip Heads).

The vessels are required to perform in the following operating environments:

Around beaches and within rivers, river inlets and other inland waters;

Operate in Class D/E (Partial Smooth/ Smooth) waters in accordance with the design requirements defined in the National Standard for Commercial Vessels (NSCV)
The vessels are required to have a flexible multi-function capability and shall perform Emergency response operations 24/7 for a minimum of 300 days per year, in all weathers, up to Beaufort Wind Scale 6; by day or night.

The MFB requires both vessels to be capable of the following operational functions:

Perform firefighting duties on the Yarra and Maribyrnong rivers and Inland Waters

Provide a rescue boat function for MFB operations on and near water ways;

Provide a platform for Ship-to-Ship (S2S) transfer operations, to enable capability insertion with additional Technical Rescue abilities (personnel, specialist equipment and stores) to Commercial Vessels (CV) in distress, at anchor within Port Phillip Bay;

Provide support to other firefighting (land and/or marine based) platforms for fires on Commercial and Recreational Vessels within the Port of Melbourne (Smooth Waters) and Port Phillip Bay (Partially Smooth Waters);

Assist in supporting pollution prevention and containment measures on the Yarra and Maribyrnong rivers and in areas of inland waters; and

Training
The MFB seeks to gain more detailed information from the market to assist the MFB’s decision making on key issues for the preparation of the Request for Tender (RFT).

The MFB will conduct an EOI Industry Briefing for potential Respondents. The purpose of the briefing will be to provide details in respect of the Project and afford an opportunity for potential Respondents to ask questions in respect of any aspect of this Invitation for EOI.

This invitation is not an offer.

MFB will use the EOI in order to understand whether the current Provisional Function & Performance Specification for the vessels is feasible and can be reasonably achieved with a proven industry design.

To gauge how industry understand the vessel requirements based on the Provisional Function & Performance Specification

How industry would potentially fulfil these requirements understanding the MFB have several tasks on a relatively small and compact platform.

The MFB recognises that each operational task separately is achievable however the combination of tasks (which are not required to be performed concurrently) may be challenging in a platform of this size.

MFB intends to compare and assess the responses with the aim of identify and short list suppliers.

The questions are contained within the response area. They are required to be completed on line. To progress to the area of the online questions, follow the following steps-

1. Click on the invitation title
2. At the bottom of the page, click on "intend to respond" button.
3. On the newly displayed page, click the "response" (grey tab).
4. On the next page, click the response button under the completion bar
5.  A new screen will be displayed, click the start button on the bottom right-hand side and all questions and attachments will be provided for you to complete through the portal.