Immigration & Naturalization Service, Procurement Division, 425 I St., NW, Room 2208, Washington, DC 20536

84 -- UNIFORMS SOURCES SOUGHT/MARKET RESEARCH SURVEY REQUEST FOR INS UNIFORM PROGRAM SOL HQ 99-12 DUE 062199 POC Marina Atchison (202)305-7494 E-MAIL: Click here to contact the contract specialist via, Marina.E.Atchison@usdoj.gov. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has a requirement for uniforms. This is a sources sought/market research survey (Request for Information) to identify potential sources that exist to supply commercially available items (adhering to INS specification requirements) or offering items that are modified which INS would find acceptable. In addition, this is an opportunity for industry to provide comments that would help INS shape a contract or a method of buying that is easy, efficient, cost-effective, and coincides with existing industry terms and conditions, yet at the same time helps INS meet certain requirements. The INS solicitation for uniform requirements is expected to require a firm that provides all-inclusive service (manufacturing, warehousing inventory, distribution, automated systems for ordering/billing, and a system for providing various reports). We are open to comments/suggestions on ways to better define our requirements that would provide industry an interest in competing for the opportunity to provide INS uniforms. INS WILL NOT PAY FOR INFORMATION SUBMITTED IN RESPONSE TO THIS SOURCES SOUGHT/MARKET RESEARCH SURVEY REQUEST. INS WILL ALSO NOT PAY FOR ANY COSTS INCURRED IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THIS INFORMATION. Any information submitted in response to this request will not be returned. QUESTIONS FOR INDUSTRY: 1) The uniforms and related items currently supplied are commercial items. There are colors and style features specific to each of the uniforms that make them distinctive, but they are, nonetheless, commercial items as defined by the Federal Acquisition Regulations. How would your company ensure that the INS' high quality standards would not be diminished if your company were awarded the next INS uniform contract? 2) The current INS uniform contractor provides a mix of items manufactured by its own subsidiaries and items manufactured by subcontractors. Please describe your company's manufacturing capabilities and the extent to which your company would have to subcontract for various uniforms and related items. 3) The INS has uniformed employees stationed in hundreds of duty posts in the United States and abroad. The current INS uniform contractor ships uniforms to all INS duty posts both domestic and foreign. Please describe how your company would manage a distribution system that would serve 16,000-plus uniformed employees in the United States and abroad. 4) The INS has three uniformed divisions, one uniformed program, and five distinctive uniforms. The current INS uniform contractor maintains inventories of each of these distinctive uniforms in a wide range of sizes and provides certain products on a "special order" basis. Please explain how your company would manage a highly diversified inventory as well as "special order" items. 5) Within the INS uniform program, there are some items that are common to two or more divisions while others are division or program specific. Cross-division ordering is not permitted. How would your company manage the ordering process to guard against cross-division ordering? 6) Individual INS employees order their own uniforms through the current contractor. The potential for waste, fraud, and abuse of the uniform allowance system is a concern. How would your company manage individual orders to protect the INS against wasteful, fraudulent, or abusive ordering practices? 7) The uniform program includes uniforms and insignia worn by law enforcement personnel. The potential for misuse of these items is a concern. What security measures would your company take to ensure that law enforcement uniform items and official insignia were properly safeguarded so they would not fall into the hands of those who would use them for illegal purposes? 8) The INS is in a growth mode. During each year of the current uniform contract, the contractor has had to deal with agency-wide personnel increases totaling more than 1,000 personnel. The increases have been difficult to predict. In some cases, the number of personnel is not known until the annual appropriations bill is signed into law. The hiring and training schedules for the additional personnel depend upon how positions are funded and when funds are apportioned to the agency to pay for them. Schedules are developed well into the first and second quarters of the fiscal year. How would your company manage the inventory issues associated with personnel fluctuations, considering the planning and budget factors described above? 9) The Federal budget process often affects the INS' ability to fully fund the uniform contract at the beginning of the fiscal year. A Federal budget may not be in place on October 1 thereby creating a continuing resolution funding scenario. The INS' uniformed employees occupy critical sensitive law enforcement and other essential positions. Their needs for uniforms are continuous. How would your company manage the INS uniform program during periods when the INS is in a continuing resolution funding mode for the uniform contract? 10) The current uniform contract specifies a wide range of sizes, but there are some employees who need uniforms in nonstandard or made-to-measure sizes. Other employees may have physical conditions that must be accommodated. Every uniformed INS employee must be provided with an appropriate uniform. How would your company ensure that every employee was properly attired in what the INS would consider an appropriate uniform? "Appropriate," as used in this question, means identical in appearance and quality to the uniforms described and shown in catalogs. 11) Inventory planning and management are very important aspects of the INS uniform program. The program's diversity in terms of the items provided, the existence of five distinctly different uniforms, and the demographics of the INS' uniformed population play an important role in inventory planning and management. For example, approximately 50 percent of the Inspections Division's Inspectors are women, but less than 5 percent of the Border Patrol's Agents are women. Please describe your company's inventory planning and management experience with highly diversified inventories. How would your company manage a highly diversified clothing and accessory inventory to ensure that there were not excessive lots of unsold inventory at the end of a contract's performance period? 12) From time to time during the course of the current uniform contract, the INS has found it necessary to add new contract line items, phase out contract line items, and improve contract line items. Please describe how your company would approach a requirement to add new product, phase out an existing product, or make product improvements. 13) The INS' uniform program managers have historically taken an active, hands-on role in new product development. This has included working directly with the contractor and various subcontractors, visits to manufacturing plants, and attendance at trade shows where clothing, uniforms, and related items are the featured exhibits. This hands-on type of involvement will likely continue with the next uniform contract. Please describe how your company would work with the INS' uniform managers to facilitate new product development and attendance at trade shows, including shows restricted to members of the uniform trade, e.g., the National Association of Uniform Manufacturers and Distributors annual conference. 14) Certain types of alterations are provided under the current contract. These include hemming pants, sewing on emblems, etc. Please describe your company's capability to provide this type of service. Is your capability an in-house capability or a subcontracted capability? 15) Under the current contract, the contractor provides onsite measurement and uniform ordering, distribution, and exchange services at the INS' training academies in Glynco, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina, for the U.S. Border Patrol, the Inspections Division, and the Detention and Deportation Division. When trainees arrive at their respective training sites, they are measured and assisted with preparing their initial uniform orders. How would your company manage this type of activity? 16) Under the current contract, the contractor bills the INS every 2 weeks. To support its invoices, the contractor provides voluminous spreadsheets that document sales made to specific individuals by division or program and location. Invoices will be submitted on a monthly basis under the new contract. Is your company able to handle invoicing on a month basis, and what type of information would be provided to support the invoices? 17) The current uniform contract is funded in part by each of the uniformed divisions on the basis of the number of uniform allowances to be authorized during each fiscal year. Funding is usually provided on a quarterly basis. How would your company design and implement a system to manage individual uniform allowance accounts for 16,000-plus employees nationwide and abroad? What kind of information would your company provide to the INS to report on matters such as, but not necessarily limited to, individual employee allowance account usage, division-level balances, and estimated funding requirements for upcoming quarters. Would in-house personnel provide your management services or would a subcontractor perform them? 18) What kind of ordering system would your company design to handle the orders of 16,000-plus employees? 19) How would your company inform INS employees about the products available to them under an INS uniform program? 20) What kind of customer service would your company provide to take in and process orders, resolve complaints, and provide basic information to INS employees? What size would the customer service staff be? When and how would they be accessible (i.e., 24 hours per day, toll-free phones, hours of operation)? 21) How would your company handle a request from the INS for an ad hoc report covering a specific issue, such as, but not limited to, the ordering activity of a specific INS employee or the inventory status and/or sales history of a specific contract line item? 22) Does industry have any exception to this follow on contract being a commercial item acquisition as specified in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 12? 23) Provide information regarding your quality control procedures. 24) Do you have a refund/exchange policy? Please describe. 25) How are back orders handled? Please describe. 26) What is your policy regarding delivery of ordered items? 27) Do you have capability for secure orders to be placed electronically over the INTERNET? 28) Do you accept credit cards (the Government purchase card)? 29) Describe how your products are packaged, labeled, and shipped. 30) Are your catalog and prices available on the INTERNET? Are pictures available? If so, please provide your INTERNET address. 31) Do you have any questions or additional suggestions for INS? Please submit your interest and responses to the above questions to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Procurement Division, 425 I Street NW, Room 2208, Attn: Marina Atchison, Washington, DC 20536. You may also e-mail your responses, interest, or questions to Marina.E.Atchison@usdoj.gov. PLEASE HAVE YOUR RESPONSES TO INS BY CLOSE OF BUSINESS ON 21 JUNE 1999. Posted 06/04/99 (W-SN339295). (0155)

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