FEDBIZOPS SOLICITATION INFO 3-11-09.doc

9Q9SDBIS001 – DMDC World-wide User Support Services

Request For Information (RFI)

General Information

Contracting Office Address

General Services Administration (GSA), Federal Acquisition Service (FAS), Acquisition Operations Division (AOD), 450 Golden Gate Avenue, 4th Floor East Tower, Suite 5132, San Francisco, CA 94102-3404

Description

This is a REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) for World-wide user Support Services is being released by General Services Administration (GSA) on behalf of the Department of Defense (DoD) Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC), the Requestor. This RFI is being issued for planning purposes only and shall not be construed as a Request for Proposal (RFP) or as an obligation on the part of the Requestor to acquire any products or services. If an RFP is issued, it will be officially issued by the appropriate government contracting office. The requestor does not intend to pay for the information requested. All information provided is for government planning use only. If proprietary information is provided, please mark as Proprietary for Government use only.

Background

a. The General Services Administration (GSA) is soliciting input from industry for end-user help desk and a wide array of information technology user support services. Services include interaction with Department of Defense (DoD) and other federal agencies worldwide to ensure operational effectiveness of DMDC programs and applications. The purpose of this task is to provide continued support of these requirements, and to provide information technology (IT) support to DMDC and their customers. The information obtained as a result of this RFI is intended to be utilized in the development of a future acquisition that may or may not require the products and services as described.

b. Vendors are requested to submit the following information regarding technical capabilities, industry information, and industry recommendations. These questions will be open for discussion at the Pre-Solicitation Conference and formal responses due Noon EST April 10, 2009.

i. The Government seeks innovative, cost-effective approaches to ensure optimized system performance and availability while sustaining overall user satisfaction. What are some of the innovative, best practices that your company has implemented with other government and industry clients for whom you provide services similar to those described in the draft Performance Work Statement (PWS)?

ii. The Government is seeking innovative, cost-effective solutions that are contractor-owned and are interoperable within the existing DMDC infrastructure. Can your company provide cost-effective solutions while still allowing seamless connectivity and a “One Trouble Ticket System” working with our other contractor partners?

iii. Does your company have interest in submitting a proposal under Alternative 2, as described in the PWS? If so, what additional information, if any, would you require to submit such a proposal?

iv. DMDC applications are available 24 x 7 / 365 days a year to service our global users. Describe your company’s ability to support worldwide operations with no service degradation.

v. Describe your company’s ability to support Disaster Recovery and Continuity of Operations with alternate site(s) and/or remote solutions.

vi. Describe your company’s ability to support OCONUS (Outside Continental US) as it relates to the resource and service requirements contained in the draft PWS.

vii. Discuss your company’s understanding of Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), Articles 72 and 73. In addition, what is your company’s understanding of and capability to staff under the TESA process, administered through DOCPER based in Hammond Barracks in Germany?

viii. Discuss your company’s requirements and cost factors to provide user support in forward deployed locations such as Iraq or Afghanistan. The Government’s requirements could range from permanent full-time to short term, temporary duty.

ix. Describe your company’s capability to hire local (non-SOFA/TESA) support OCONUS.

x. Given the opportunity to select the appropriate transition time for this effort, how much time would you allow to aid in a smooth transition from the incumbent contractor to your company? Can your company support the full operation of the helpdesk prior to Government infrastructure being installed?

xi. To promote superior performance and to provide the government insight into performance trends and customer satisfaction, metrics will be reported on at least a monthly basis.

· What metrics are most commonly used by your government and industry customers to measure helpdesk performance and/or quality?

· What performance metric, introduced in the last four years, has most helped your customers assess the services provided to the end users? Why?

· What is the range of Acceptable Quality Levels (AQLs) for these metrics?

· What approaches (systemic, manual sampling, customer interviews, etc.) are you using to measure quality and customer satisfaction? What technologies are used to perform trend analysis on performance and how is that trend analysis reported?

xii. What innovations does your company use to address customer needs and address performance issues?

xiii. What are the leading issues that your company faces as a helpdesk service provider to the Federal government?

xiv. What type of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems/programs and trouble ticket systems has your company used or would you recommend for this project?

xv. In the past 4 years, what technology has been introduced to reduce the cost of helpdesk operations? Are there any trade-offs with customer satisfaction when introducing these technologies?

xvi. What proactive actions does your company take to mitigate factors outside your control; e.g., base communication issues, software problems?

xvii. As part of this requirement, we have the occasional need for resources to support Analysis/Tiger Teams to address issues that come up. As this is not a consistent need, we have had problems in the past in securing the appropriate knowledgeable resources in a timely manner to dedicate to these Tiger Teams without negatively impacting on-going support activities. How would your company address this issue so that knowledgeable resources would be available on an as-needed basis? Would this be most appropriate as part of the FFP or T&M tasks?

xviii. What types of tools and/or technology does your company provide regarding self-help user support? (Example: FAQs, interactive web-chat)?

xix. Has your company been awarded and successfully performed any projects of similar scope and size with a volume of at least 200,000 calls per year within the last three years?

xx. Can your company provide firm fixed unit pricing for all of the work described in the base contract period and each of the anticipated four one-year option periods? If not, which elements of the overall project would not be appropriate for company fixed unit pricing?

xxi. Based on the support requirements discussed above, what contract vehicle(s) is best suited for your company to provide these services?

xxii. How many calendar days does your company need to prepare a cost and technical proposal to respond to a solicitation?

xxiii. What possible constraints or boundaries, if any, do you envision in performing these requirements?

xxiv. Based on the attached PWS and additional contract information, do you feel that you have sufficient information to successfully respond to a solicitation issued for this requirement? If not, what additional information would you require?

2 General Requirements:

a. The requirements are:

· Database / Server Support: Perform database server installations and on-going administration worldwide.

· Communications Engineering Support: Perform communications engineering in support of DMDC applications worldwide.

· OCONUS Support for Existing and New Sites: Perform site support activities, such as, hardware maintenance/warranty support, telephonic and on-site site surveys, site installations, site de-installations, site relocations, on-site training, and user liaison.

· Support Analysis / Tiger Team: Detailed technical analysis may be required to evaluate issues that arise within the DMDC systems.

· User Help Desk/Support: Operate DMDC end user help desk on a 24x7 / 365 worldwide support basis at a contractor-owned facility. The DMDC Help Desk shall answer calls from users and provide assistance to DMDC application users worldwide on hardware, software, security, communications, and application questions, as well as generate/maintain site IDs and perform user account maintenance.

· Cardstock and Consumables Support: Order, validate and track cardstock and consumables; provide storage for on-hand inventories of CAC cardstock and consumables; manage returned unusable/bad cardstock and consumables from sites; and provide distribution of cardstock and consumables.

B. The draft Performance Work Statement (PWS) is provided for industry comment. Request vendors make suggested changes to the document using “Track Changes” for suggested enhancements and recommendations for changes. Submitted changes/additions may or may not be included in the final solicitation. Please contact Debra Bouchard, DMDC Project Manager via email at debra.bouchard@gsa.gov for copies of the PWS and appendices.

C. A pre-solicitation conference will at the Defense Manpower Data Center, 400 Gigling Road, Seaside, CA 93955 on March 25, 2009 at 9:00 AM

D. Interested parties shall submit their responses to the PWS by email to Vanessa.pappalardo@gsa.gov and debra.bouchard@gsa.gov no later than 12 Noon EST on March 20, 2009. Acceptable file formats are Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and/or .PDF. ALL inquiries and responses must be submitted as instructed above – Telephone and FAX inquiries will not be accepted.

Anticipated Place of Performance –

Support is worldwide. Specific locations include:

a. DMDC Support Center (DSC) and other program management staff in contractor-furnished location within CONUS.

b. Government provided DMDC Support Center – Europe (DSC-E) with offices in Landstuhl, Germany (or other location within Europe, as determined by DMDC).

c. Government provided DMDC Support Center – Asia / Pacific (DSC-A) in Seoul, South Korea (or other location within Asia, as determined by DMDC).

d. Government provided DMDC field locations in SW Asia are currently located at Camp AsSayliyah, Qatar, and Camp Arifjan in Kuwait.

e. There is a Government provided DMDC field location in Naples, Italy.

f. As required, and at the discretion of the Government, future DMDC annexes may be added or these locations may be changed. The contractor may be required to provide office space should a Government location not be available.

NOTE: This RFI is also being issued via FEDBIZOPS under 9Q9SDBIS001.

World wide locations coordinated through:

Address: DMDC, 1555 Wilson Blvd., Suite 600, Arlington, VA Postal Code: 22209 Country: UNITED STATES.

Point of Contact

Vanessa Pappalardo, Senior Contracting Officer, Phone (415)541-2020, Email vanessa.pappalardo@gsa.gov@gsa.gov