Finlande – Services de contrôle et d'essais techniques – Industrial-scale paper and board piloting services at Valmet’s Rautpohja pilot facility

THE OBJECT OF THE PROCUREMENT VTT procures industrial-scale piloting services for the development, validation, demonstration and scale-up of fibre-based products, production processes and related technologies. The services are used in VTT’s research, development and customer projects when testing at industrially relevant machine speeds, process conditions or equipment configurations is required. The procurement supports the progression of technologies and product concepts from laboratory and VTT pilot-scale validation towards industrial implementation.

The piloting may include, for example, trials related to new fibre-based products, raw materials, furnish compositions, chemical applications, multilayer structures, forming concepts, pressing, drying, and other paper and board manufacturing processes. The standard piloting service includes trial planning and preparation, pilot-machine operation, standard operating personnel, process supervision, agreed pilot equipment and facilities, required utilities, standard process measurements and data collection, the trial report, a results review meeting, normal machine cleaning, safety induction and site-access arrangements. The available piloting environment enables, depending on the agreed configuration, trials involving multilayer fibre-based web structures, alternative headbox and forming configurations, different pressing and drying arrangements, and wet-end or web-based application of starch, chemicals and other materials.

The procurement covers project-specific pilot trial campaigns carried out at Supplier's pilot facility. LEGAL BASIS FOR DIRECT PROCUREMENT According to the 40 § section 2(2) of the Act on Public Contracts (1397/2016), only a certain supplier can implement the procurement for a technical reason, or for a reason related to protecting an exclusive right; it shall be a further condition that there are no reasonable alternatives or substitute solutions, and that the absence of competition is not due to an artificial narrowing of the terms and conditions of the procurement. The procurement concerns industrial-scale piloting services to be carried out at Valmet Technologies Oy’s Rautpohja pilot facility.

The required services must be performed in a specific pilot environment, using dedicated pilot equipment, process configurations and operational capabilities that are uniquely available at the Rautpohja facility. The purpose of the procurement is to enable research, development and innovation projects requiring industrially relevant paper and board manufacturing conditions, including pilot-scale validation, demonstration and scale-up of fibre-based products and processes. The required piloting environment associated technical expertise and operational support form an integrated service that cannot be obtained from an alternative supplier without significant technical limitations and additional costs.

For technical reasons, the procurement can only be provided by Valmet Technologies Oy. The required piloting environment, including the specific pilot equipment, process configurations, technical infrastructure and associated operational capabilities, is uniquely available at Valmet Technologies Oy’s Rautpohja pilot facility. No other supplier has access to an equivalent technical environment or is able to provide the required combination of equipment, process conditions, technical expertise and operational support under comparable conditions.

Alternative solutions have been considered, but no reasonable substitute capable of meeting the technical requirements of the procurement has been identified. The absence of competition is therefore due to objective technical reasons and not to an artificial restriction of the parameters of the procurement. Accordingly, there is no reasonable alternative or substitute, and the conditions for direct procurement under Section 40(2)(2) of the Finnish Public Procurement Act are fulfilled.