Who are Achilles?
What is the FPAL Supplier Management Service?
How does the service work?
Why join FPAL?
What type of company should register as a Purchaser?
What is the cost of Purchaser membership?
How do I become a member?
How do I search FPAL?
How does FPAL fit in with Verify?
Does FPAL conform to EC Legislation?
Help?
Who are Achilles?
Achilles identifies, evaluates and monitors supplier information on behalf of major organisations worldwide. We build and support supply chain communities in many industry sectors, creating unique and valuable global networks which create business opportunities for both purchasers and suppliers.
Our full range of web based supplier management services help our buyers to identify, qualify, evaluate and monitors suppliers. Achilles collates, validates and updates information provided by suppliers on behalf of buyers. As a result, organisations can mange their supply chains more effectively, reducing risk, and increasing data quality and consistency, making procurement more sustainable.
What is the FPAL Supplier Management Service?
Achilles operate the First Point Assessment (FPAL) Supplier Management Service on behalf of all the major UK, Dutch & Irish upstream Oil & Gas organisations.
Established in 1996, FPAL is now recognised as the standard approach to supplier pre-qualification within the UK, Dutch & Irish Oil & Gas Sector.
Any current or prospective supplier to the UK, Dutch and Irish Oil and Gas Industry is invited to register by completing an on-line questionnaire which allows them to describe their full range of products, services, capabilities and supply history. Supplier profiles are then made available, on-line, to over 80 purchasing members who interrogate this list of suppliers in order to produce a short list, in accordance with the EU Utilities Procurement Directives.
How does the service work?
FPAL pre-qualifies suppliers and contractors under various headings. There are over 900 standard codes and 2500 standard keywords used and controlled by the Oil & Gas sector.
Information is gathered about suppliers, e.g. financial performance, health, safety, environmental policy, products and services data and is checked for accuracy and currency. The information is then made available on-line to the purchaser.
The Oil & Gas organisations for example, BP, Talisman, Amec, Wood Group, are able to access FPAL and utilise the system for identifying potential suppliers and managing information on their existing suppliers. When a purchaser has a requirement for a contract or other purchase, FPAL allows them to search for potential suppliers or contractors in a fair and consistent manner, by applying objective criteria against the information registered by each supplier.
Why join FPAL?
FPAL is an off the shelf supply chain management tool based on industry best practice which mirrors that of key Oil & Gas organisations. In the UK, it enables compliance with the Supply Chain Code of Practice and in the Netherlands it is supported by the Dutch Purchaser User Group of operators and main contractors. It provides a structured way of identifying and selecting the best potential suppliers and contractors, eliminating the need to maintain your own in-house supplier database. FPAL assists in reducing effort in repetitive pre-qualification and evaluation of suppliers and provides a cost-effective mechanism for reducing tendering lead times by using much more concise pre-qualification documentation. A suite of model Invitation to Tenders which incorporate time-saving use of FPAL are available here.
What type of company should register as a Purchaser?
Any company who is a bone-fide procurer of goods and/or services in the oil and gas industry sector and satisfies the basic qualification criteria, may become a purchasing Subscriber.
What is the cost of Purchaser membership?
The FPAL annual subscription fee for purchasers is set by the FPAL Steering Committee.
There are two service options:
Option 1: Purchaser membership
Option 2: Purchaser membership including Verify
Click here to find full information about the cost of membership.
Click here to download the FPAL Purchaser Terms and Conditions.
The costs of operating the FPAL Supplier Management Service are shared between the purchasers and the suppliers. Suppliers pay an annual registration fee to cover the cost of registration, checking, training and supplier workshops.
How do I become a member?
Purchasers (major purchasing companies - typically oil and gas operators and major service contractors) should contact the FPAL Business Support Team to discuss membership, since their applications require different controls, assessments and fees. More information on the fee framework can be obtained in the what it costs section.
How do I search FPAL?
FPAL searches can only be carried out by subscribing purchasers.
Once you have decided to implement FPAL as a supplier information system, a company wide license is issued and access given to the system.
When you have a requirement for a contract or other purchase, FPAL allows you to search for potential suppliers or contractors in a fair and consistent manner, by applying objective criteria against the information provided by each supplier.
The FPAL search facilities allow easy identification of supplier capabilities. The information purchasers are able to use as search criteria include: Product/Service codes; financial information (last three years of audited accounts); QA and HSE standards/certifications; references.
This will result in a list of suppliers or contractors that meet the criteria applied, which can then either be used as the final tender list or as the ‘first pass’ for further information to be asked, depending on the nature of the contract being sourced.
How does FPAL fit in with Verify?
Where supplier verification and assessment is applicable for contracts of high operational risk, FPAL Verify is used. FPAL Verify allows your company to demonstrate compliance to health & safety, environment and competence & training requirements. Over 35 Oil & Gas purchasing companies use the system to qualify their supply chain through a standard assessment of their management systems which is specifically tailored to the Oil & Gas industry requirements and OGP and NORSOK guidelines. If you would like to learn more about FPAL Verify please, click here
Does FPAL conform to EC Legislation?
FPAL is operated as a ‘qualification system’ under Article 30 of the EC Utility Directives. This means that subscribing organisations do not need to individually publish notices in the journal – Achilles publish bi-annual Qualification System Notices (QSN’s) on their behalf.
Purchasers using FPAL no longer need to publish individual calls for competition in the OJEU and can therefore award contracts swiftly.
*Where an oil & gas exploration company is operating in the UK it does not have to apply the Utilities Directive with effect from March 2010. This is the result of a decision of 29 March 2010 by the European Commission that the conditions of open competition and free access to markets apply in the UK in relation to the oil and gas sector. The Netherlands is similarly exempt following a decision taken in 2009 by the European Commission. The position of oil & gas exploration companies operating in other states of the European Union (e.g. Ireland) will not be affected by this decision
Help?
For more information, please contact the FPAL Business Support Team:
First Point Assessment
7 Burnbank Business Centre
Souterhead Road
Altens
Aberdeen AB12 3LF
T: +44 (0)1224 337533
E: fpal@fpal.com
Date: 13th of April 2010