SBSS_-_eRA_Software_Development_Support.pdf

THIS IS A SMALL BUSINESS SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE (SSN) ONLY.

THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL, QUOTATION OR INVITATION

TO BID NOTICE AND DOES NOT CONSTITUTE A COMMITMENT BY THE

GOVERNMENT.

The purpose of this notice is to obtain information regarding: (1) the availability and capability of all qualified small business sources; (2) whether they are small businesses;

HUBZone small businesses; service-disabled, veteran owned small businesses; 8(a) small businesses; veteran-owned small businesses; woman-owned small businesses; or small disadvantaged businesses; and (3) their size classification according to the North American Industry Classification System, (NAICS) code for the proposed acquisition.

Your responses to the information requested will assist the Government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible. An organization that is not considered a small business under the applicable NAICS code should not submit a response to this notice. Proprietary information submitted should be marked appropriately. All submitted information shall remain with the U.S. Government and will not be returned.

All responding firms are requested to identify their firm’s size and type of business. The anticipated North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code for this acquisition is 541511 - Custom Computer Programming Services. Teaming arrangements and joint ventures may be considered for any subsequent procurement based on the Government’s market research.

This market research is being conducted to identify sources that have prime contractor experience in providing secure application design and implementation in an agile environment. This includes design and development (new development and maintaining existing features and/or applications), application testing (manual and automated), requirements development, documentation, and management, application security and production application support for Federal grants management systems similar in size scope and complexity to the NIH eRA grants management system. The incumbent contractor currently provides a staff of about 150 Software Developers and Development Testers.

The responding firm must have demonstrated relevant and recent experience in providing software application design and implementation, application testing, and other software systems support for a management system similar in size, scope and complexity to the eRA system. Furthermore, the software design, development and testing experience must be related to a significant portion of the activities that are part of the 13 activities described under the Grants Management functions GRM.010 through GRM.050 of the Grants Management Lifecycle as documented at https://www.ussm.gov/fibf-gm/.

BACKGROUND

Developed, managed and supported by NIH's Office of Extramural Research, the OER systems provide information technology solutions and support for the full life cycle of grants administration functions for the NIH as well as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the Veterans Health Administration (VHA). OER’s eRA system, the largest and most complex of the OER systems, is a mission critical, complex custom grants management solution for the federal government. Other OER systems include RePORT, RePORTER, QVR, Loan Repayment and various other systems.

OER systems manage the receipt, processing, review, award and monitoring of over $30 billion in research and non-research grants awarded annually by NIH and other grantor agencies. The eRA system is used by Federal staff and applicants at over 11,000 institutions worldwide to:

• Record, review and process over 80,000 applications each year.

• Maintain and support more than 200,000 active grants.

• Support nearly 27,000 reviewers and more than 3,500 review meetings held annually.

• Administer more than 55,000 awarded competing and non-competing grants.

• Maintain patent and invention records for 25 Federal agencies.

• Support thousands of applicant interactions with the Federal Government before and after the grant award, through the eRA Commons.

OER systems align with Grants.gov (the one-stop web portal for finding and applying for federal grants), allowing for full electronic processing of grant applications from application submission through closeout of the grant award. The eRA system in particular provides a suite of 125 modules supporting end-to-end grants administration. The entire eRA system with all of its intra-dependent systems shares a common data model, residing within an Oracle database platform. The hardware architecture used by OER systems is primarily Unix servers with some special purpose Windows server machines. The application architecture is a web enabled multi-tier (J2EE for the eRA System) environment. The development activities for OER systems follow the eRA Software Development Life Cycle methodology which is based on the Department of Health and Human Services Enterprise Performance Life Cycle (EPLC). The majority of work to be performed by this acquisition consists of maintaining and enhancing existing systems.

Development of new systems will also be performed under this contract.

Experience in the following areas apply:

• Providing IT application development with expertise in the following skill areas:

• Agile software design and development

• Secure development practices

• Providing requirements development, documentation, and management in support of Federal grants management business processes

• Providing application and system design

• Incorporating software development and IT security best practices.

• Providing functional and integration testing during the agile software development lifecycle (SDLC)

• Front end technologies such as Angular, Bootstrap, jQuery, JavaScript

• Object Oriented Analysis and Design

• Java Enterprise Edition (JEE) and related technologies

• Apache / Tomcat

• Typical JEE patterns, such as MVC, session façade, singleton, DAO, etc

• J2EE frameworks, such as Struts, Java Server Faces, Spring, etc.

• Client (JavaScript, AJAX, Tiles) and server-side programming

• Relational database design

• JDBC API, SQL, PL/SQL Oracle Database Management Systems

• Web Services, Service Oriented Architecture, XML, etc.

• Continuous integration and delivery

• Testing tools and technologies, e.g. JUnit, Selenium, etc.

• Debugging tools, e.g. JProbe, etc.

• Single sign-on development

• Business Rules Engines

• Workflow solutions

To a lesser degree than those listed above, the following skills are also needed:

• Visual Basic, C

• ColdFusion

• .NET

• Other Application Servers, e.g. JBoss

• BPM technologies

• Unix and Windows scripting languages

• Providing Infrastructure support

• Providing documentation and training support

• Providing Configuration Management support

The goal of this proposed procurement is two-fold: (1) to provide a practical solution for eRA software development support services for eRA in all program areas (application design, development and maintenance; new initiatives; and integration of HHS and other agencies), and (2) to meet the needs of the end user community and their expectations for service. The preponderant amount of the work is increasingly maintenance and enhancements of existing systems, and new functionality that spans across multiple systems. Therefore, the eRA strategy for accomplishing these goals has been to restructure from individual project teams to a customer focused service team approach.

Below are the characteristics of the eRA software development requirements:

• Project Planning Support

• Requirements Development, Documentation, and Management

• Application Design

• Implementation (coding/new development and maintenance)

• Application Testing

• Project Integration Management/Development Support

• Production Support

• Documentation Support

• Training Support

• eRA Infrastructure and Architecture Support

• Applications Security

Information Requested:

Please submit the following information:

Name and address of company and or companies (if there is a teaming arrangement)

1. Corporate capabilities

• Systems management experience similar in scope, size, and complexity to OER requirements

• Software development experience similar in scope, size, and complexity to OER requirements.

2. Relevant experience listing up to three (3) customers (Government/non-Government) within the past 5 years, providing:

• Contract name

• Contracting Agency or Department

• Yearly contract value in dollars

• Period of performance

• System metrics

• Description of work, how it relates to OER requirements and how it maps to the

13 activities described under the Grants Management functions GRM.010 through GRM.050 of the Grants Management Lifecycle as documented at https://www.ussm.gov/fibf-gm/.

Submission requirements:

1. Page limit (not including a cover letter or introduction page) - Seven (7) 8 ½ x 11 pages

2. 1 inch margins (top, bottom and sides)

3. Times New Roman font – 12 point

4. Page limitation does not include (1 cover page or 1 letter of introduction page)

5. Do not include promotional materials

Interested firms responding to this market survey must provide a capability statement demonstrating their experience, skills and capability to fulfill the Governments requirements for the above in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 19.502-2(b). The capability statement shall be in sufficient enough detail so that the Government can determine the experience and capability of your firm to provide the requirements above. Please specify one primary and one alternate Point of Contact (POC) within your firm, including telephone numbers and email addresses.

Only electronic copies of capability statements will be accepted and should be emailed to jeremy.white@nih.gov. The e-mail shall contain the following subject line: Sources Sought - eRA Software Development Support. A determination by the Government to proceed with the acquisition as a set-aside is within the discretion of the Government.

Please submit all information to Jeremy White at jeremy.white@nih.gov by February 1, 2019. NO TELEPHONE REQUESTS WILL BE ACCEPTED.

mailto:jeremy.white@nih.gov