SOLICITATION NOTICE
D -- Request for Information: Procurement List Information Management System
- Notice Date
- 9/30/2005
- Notice Type
- Solicitation Notice
- NAICS
- 518210
— Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services
- Contracting Office
- Comm for Purchase from People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled, Committee for Purchase, Committee for Purchase, 1421 Jefferson Davis Highway Jefferson Plaza #2, Room 10800, Arlington, VA, 22202-3259
- ZIP Code
- 22202-3259
- Solicitation Number
- CBSD-06-RFI-0001
- Response Due
- 10/14/2005
- Archive Date
- 10/29/2005
- Description
- SUBJECT Request for Information (RFI) for a Procurement List Information Management System (PLIMS) Responses are due to this RFI by 4:00 PM on October 14th, 2005. See section 5.0 for further information. Background The Committee for Purchase from People Who Are Blind or Severely Disabled (??The Committee??) seeks to contract the services of an organization willing and capable to develop the next generation of their PLIMS. This system is the primary information and decision processing system utilized by The Committee to perform its functions under the auspices of the Javits-Wagner-O??Day (JWOD) Act [41 U.S.C. 46-48c]. This document serves as an introduction to the requirements of this system. It should enable organizations to decide whether their capabilities are sufficient to perform the tasks under the expected contract. The application architecture supporting the JWOD Program consists of a few automated systems and many spreadsheets and manual files. The primary automated system in use by Committee Staff is the JWOD Program Information Database (JPID). JPID is augmented by an external Master File/List. An extract from JPID is made to populate the Procurement List (PL) database that is provided on the Internet via the JWOD.GOV website. Many of the processes supporting the JWOD Program are semi-automated; that is, they are supported by the use of office automation tools such as e-mail, spreadsheets, and facsimile submissions rather than institutionalized automated systems. The expected procurement from this RFI is for a solution that will replace the current JPID and include the new capabilities outlined below. 1.0 REQUIREMENTS The PLIMS is anticipated to involve custom development along with integration of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software for workflow management, document management, security and authentication, and other common business practices. The complexity of transactions in the Committee??s business processes suggest that it will be suitable for prototyping some functions using state-of-the-art tools for automating data exchange, forms and electronic signatures. The existing data in the current PLIMS, known as JPID shall be converted. A data analysis and cleanup process has begun, reconciling data between the Committee??s systems and the Central Non-Profit Agency (CNA) systems but additional data analysis and conversion to the new system will be required. The PLIMS, as it is expected to be developed, will fulfill six objectives: 1. Provide decision tracking support for Committee and Committee Staff; 2. Improve data integrity across the program; 3. Reduce redundant work and duplicate data entry 4. Improve transparency of procurement processes; 5. Provide project level visibility; and 6. Maintain security, integrity, and accessibility. Extensive analysis has already been performed to develop a detailed Requirements Document for the PLIMS. The list below summarizes the key requirements from that document. At a minimum, the system to be developed must support the following functional areas: ? Non-Profit Agency Qualification and Management ? Impact ? Contracting Activity Interactions ? PL Transactions with the CNAs ? Committee Staff Workflow ? Federal Register, with electronic submission capabilities ? Voting ? Pricing ? Program Oversight ? Distribution Details on these functional areas will be provided in the Request for Proposal (RFP) document to be issued at a later date. The Committee??s PLIMS will reside on the Committee??s access-controlled extranet. The system will include functions for managing the pipeline of additions to, changes to, and deletions from the Procurement List, including supporting Committee member voting, oversight of Non-Profit Agencies (NPAs) participation in the JWOD Program, and portals for Committee members, Contracting Activities (CAs) and distributors. The current concept is for many of the PL Management functions to be supported through a combination of COTS workflow and electronic forms software, coupled with custom web application development. Functions that do not need controlled access (such as access to the Procurement List) will be available over the public JWOD.GOV web site. It is expected that the PLIMS developed for the Committee will use component architecture, possibly as web services and XML transactions. Consideration will be given to acquisition of existing Government applications (Government-off-the-shelf, GOTS) and/or COTS applications, where appropriate, that will need to be integrated. The underlying database will be SQL Server and will be shared across the Committee??s applications. Particular areas in which COTS or GOTS applications may be appropriate include workflow management, document management, voting, executive information system (EIS), on-line analytical processing (OLAP), and report writing tools. Additional market research may reveal others and help shape the requirement. Although the intent is that any COTS or GOTS components fit well into the architecture expected to be used by the new system, compromises may be made if the component is an excellent fit from a business perspective. If necessary, customization of GOTS/COTS components will be accepted as long as these customizations are not substantial or unrelated to the specific requirements of the PLIMS. It is probable that some applications may need the capability to accept incoming e-mail messages from program participants and retain them, associating them with specific PLIMS transactions. The target physical architecture for this application (or suite of applications) is an architecture that is web-enabled and accessible to program stakeholders and participants, forming interlinked extranets at the Committee and the CNAs. Security and access control will become paramount due to the exposure inherent in this connectivity. In addition, authentication architecture will be put in place to allow program participants to electronically sign transactions. CAs, CNAs, and NPAs will certify PL transactions. CNAs and NPAs will also electronically sign other transactions such as quarterly and annual reports. Individual data repositories will be owned by the Committee, the National Industries for the Blind (NIB), and/or NISH, located on their individual extranets, and administered by the owning organization. Each organization will also maintain its public website and its internal intranet. The Committee will deploy the PLIMS through its extranet. This is a relatively small, yet vital information technology solution. The expected size and scale of the system is not expected to exceed 50 simultaneous users and is projected not to exceed 500 MB for storage requirements. Current statistics have not more than 29 simultaneous users and approximately 100MB of storage. Guidelines for Hardware and Software The following summarizes the expected hardware and software configurations of the underlying physical architecture of the new PLIMS: ? To the degree possible, standard COTS tools are preferred. ? The web server must be compatible with a windows platform. No media servers are currently anticipated. ? The application servers will be ASP.NET, J2EE, Cold Fusion or similar. ? Requirements will be tracked and managed using a requirements management tool such as CORE to assist in the development of requirements specifications, provide traceability of requirements changes and determination of the impact of potential requirements changes. ? The Unified Modeling Language (UML) will be used to model and iteratively design the applications. ? An integrated development environment (IDE) will be used to develop the portions of the application that are not COTS or GOTS. ? The application will be developed under configuration management, using a configuration management tool. ? Test management will include functionality testing, end-to-end use case testing, usability/ accessibility testing, security testing, performance testing of system response and transaction rates, and load/volume/stress testing. ? The database to be used will be Microsoft SQL Server, which is the database currently in use at the Committee. ? Static display of information will be accomplished using standard Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). ? The development languages have not yet been determined, but may include C#, ASP.NET, CFML, Java, Visual Basic.NET and Javascript. ? Extensible Markup Language (XML) will be used for data interoperability. ? MS Office Applications are the standard work productivity tools. ? Data interchange will be accomplished using XML and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). ? SOAP will provide the mechanism for HTTP/XML based remote procedure calls for web services. ? Online Analytical Processing tools or report writers will be required. These may be acquired as COTS applications or implemented using XML for analysis, which uses SOAP to enable the web browser to access XML data. It can be used to create OLAP-type applications for use over the web. ? Section 508 compliance is required. 2.0 RESPONSE OUTLINE Following are the outline and page limitations for a response to this RFI. This outline is intended to minimize the effort of the respondent and structure the responses for ease of analysis by the government. Section 1 ?V Conceptual Alternatives Briefly describe one or more alternative concepts for PLIMS, including the reliability and availability characteristics of the alternatives. (3-5 pages per alternative with one diagram per alternative identifying the brand/type of COTS that would typically be deployed) Section 2 ?V Feasibility Assessment Briefly describe the feasibility of each alternative and the design tradeoffs involved as matched against the functional requirements and risks. (1 page per alternative) Section 3 ?V Cost and Schedule Estimates Provide cost estimates for each alternative for non-recurring and annual recurring costs. (1 page per alternative) Section 4 ?V Corporate Expertise Briefly describe your company, your products and services, history, ownership, financial information, COTS product(s) and other information you deem relevant. (15 pages maximum) In particular, describe any projects you have been involved in that are similar in concept to what is described in this RFI, and any relevant lessons learned (1-2 pages per project) Include any comments on the structure of the requirements for a formal RFP response. 3.0 INFORMATION EXCHANGE MEETING The Committee will hold an information exchange meeting to discuss this RFI with interested potential respondents. Details about this meeting will be made available at a later date. If you wish to attend this meeting, please respond to the contact provided in section 5.0, by 4:00 PM on October, 14th 2005. 4.0 DISCLAIMER This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes only and does not constitute a solicitation. All information received in response to this RFI that is marked Proprietary will be handled accordingly. Responses to the RFI will not be returned. In accordance with FAR 15.202(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Responders are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI. This request is for information only, no solicitation is currently available. All firms responding to this Request for Information are advised that their response will not be used or considered for a contract award, list of prospective bidders, or down selection. At this time we are collecting information only. 5.0 CONTACT INFORMATION Please submit responses via e-mail in Microsoft Word or PDF format by 4:00 PM on October, 14th 2005, to: PLIMSProject@jwod.gov.
- Record
- SN00907119-W 20051002/050930211523 (fbodaily.com)
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