ICBS_OM_S160009_Solicitation_Draft_2016_0819.docx

CONTRACT ADMINISTRATION DATA

1. Contract administration matters will be handled by:

a. CONTRACTOR:

DUNS Number _______________________Tax Identification Number _____________________

GSA/FSS Contract Number: ___________________________________________ (as applicable)

Effective dates of GSA/FSS contract: ____________________________________ (as applicable)

Contractor Authorized Representative

Point of Contact /Title _________________________________________________________________

Telephone Number ________________________Fax Number _________________________________

Email _____________________________________________________________

b. GOVERNMENT:

IVORY CARR, Contracting Officer United States Forest Service; Incident Support Branch 3833 S. Development Avenue Boise, ID 83705-5354

(208) 387-5659 Fax (208) 387-5384

2. CONTRACTOR REMITTANCE ADDRESS: All payments by the Government to the contractor will be made in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Clause 52.232-33, Payment by Electronic Funds Transfer – System for Award Management (Jul 2013).

3. 3. INVOICES: Invoices shall be submitted to the following address:

Invoice Processing Platform https://www.ipp.gov/

SCHEDULE OF ITEMS

BASE PERIOD

TRANSITION (PHASE-IN) January 3, 2017 – February 28, 2017

(Fixed Price) Including Travel*, as required by PWS

OPERATIONS & MAINTENANCE March 1, 2017 – February 28, 2018

Including Travel*, as required by PWS

MO Month LS Lump Sum

* The price provided herein for travel should be included in the overall fixed price for Program Management costs

SCHEDULE OF ITEMS cont.

OPTIONAL ITEMS

OPTION PERIOD 1 March 1, 2018 – February 28, 2019

Including Travel*, as required by PWS

OPTION PERIOD 2 March 1, 2019 – February 29, 2020

Including Travel*, as required by PWS

OPTION PERIOD 3 March 1, 2020 – February 28, 2021

Including Travel*, as required by PWS

MO Month LS Lump Sum

* The price provided herein for travel should be included in the overall fixed price for Program Management costs

Total Offered Price (All Line Items, Base+Options): $________________

Table of Contents

Performance Work Statement (PWS)

INTRODUCTION

The Interagency Cache Business System (ICBS) is a web-based application used to manage the inventory of National Fire Equipment System (NFES) supplies housed in fifteen (15) interagency incident support caches. NFES supplies are used for fire suppression, non-fire (“all-risk”) incident response, non-emergency planned events and training activities. ICBS is a mission-critical component of interagency response capability and has been in production use since 2008.

The purpose of this Operations and Maintenance (O&M) contract is to provide 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year (24/7/365) operations and technical support to ICBS with a 99.95% availability rate. This includes:

· Day-to-day operation of all software components including middleware

· Trouble-shooting all components

· Responding to Security Vulnerability Scans

· Development and deployment of routine changes and configurations

· Trouble-shooting bar code scan gun and printing issues

· Trouble-shooting and correcting user-introduced data issues

· Assisting technical specialists from other teams (NESS, network, other application teams, etc.)

· Integration with other applications System Overview The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (USFS) is the managing agency for the ICBS. This system supports the mission of member agencies of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG) (http://www.nwcg.gov/) by providing NFES inventory management and ordering capability to interagency incident support caches.

ICBS is comprised of:

· IBM’s Sterling® Warehouse Management System (WMS) v9.1

· Sterling® Distributed Order Management (DOM) v9.1*

· Sterling® WMS Mobile Terminal v9.1

· Loftware Print Server® (LPS) printing and reporting software v10.1

· Cognos® business analytics query/reports software v10.1

· IBM WebSphere Application Server (WAS) middleware v7.7.0.29

· IBM WAS MQ messaging integration middleware v7.5

· ORACLE Database v11g *Please Note: the IBM Sterling Distributed Order Management (DOM) software is also sometimes referred to as Order Management Software (OMS).

The commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) Sterling WMS and DOM products have been extensively customized to meet the unique needs of the interagency cache operations. These will be migrated from v9.1 to v9.4 by the current O&M vendor prior to the beginning of this new contract.

These products are accessed directly by agency provided PC or laptop and an internet connection. Cognos and Loftware functionality are integrated with the Sterling software so that the user can access them via ICBS drop-down menu choices.

The Sterling WMS Mobile application is installed on wireless bar code scanning devices (scan guns). As personnel move NFES product into, out of and within the cache facilities, they scan product and location bar codes and enter other information (e.g. quantities). This data is sent via agency-provided wireless local area networks (WLANs) to the hosted WMS application. This provides real-time total inventory visibility used as a decision-support tool by the national interagency support cache managers.

ICBS Instances/Hosting Environments:

There are four ICBS application instances, Production (Prod), Development (Dev), Quality Assurance (QA), and Training. These are hosted in the USFS Fire & Aviation Management IT (FAM IT) National Enterprise Support System (NESS) environment. All NESS infrastructure is supported by a separate FAM IT contract.

. ICBS Prod and Training are in the NESS environment at the USDA National Information Technology Center (NITC) located in Kansas City, Missouri. ICBS Development is in the “NESSDev” environment at the US Geological Survey National Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center located in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It is not expected that on-site support by ICBS O&M team personnel will be required at these or other locations except for occasional site visits detailed in the individual task sections.

ICBS Business Use ICBS is used primarily by approximately 400 USFS, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Idaho Department of Lands (IDL) and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) personnel who staff fifteen incident support caches (warehouses). Agencies that benefit from ICBS include: USFS, Department of Interior (DOI) BLM, National Park Service (NPS), Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA); Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA); State Forestry Agencies from all 50 States and many Municipal Agencies.

ICBS users make approximately 2.8 million transactions per year including incident issues, other issues, cache transfers, incident transfers, inbound processes, refurbishment, returns, kitting, billing, inventory adjustments, etc.

Key cache business functions supported by ICBS include the following (please see attachments for additional information on processes and terminology):

· NFES Catalog Management - The NFES catalog database currently includes approximately 3,950 discrete items. A “published” version of the catalog (which excludes most kit components and internal use cache items) is shared with the Resource Ordering and Status System (ROSS) through a dedicated interface. Hard copy NFES catalogs, containing a subset of the ICBS catalog database, are currently used by incident personnel.

· Application User Accounts and Permission Group Management

· Customer Management – Customers,organizations or individuals to whom NFES supplies can be issued or sold. The ICBS customer database currently includes approximately 10,950 customers.

· Supplier Management - Suppliers are local/regional/local entities from which caches can purchase supplies. The ICBS supplier database currently includes approximately 1,970 suppliers.

· Location Management – Locations are specific spaces within each cache which have specific attributes such as location number, length, depth, height, location (i.e. aisle, level, bay, bin), type (e.g. storage, overflow, etc.) and dedication (i.e. which NFES items are stored in this space).

· Alert and Exception Management – Notifications to designated users of inventory exceptions or problems that require investigation and resolution

· Issue – An issue is a document authorizing cache personnel to pull and ship items to customers. Issues include item numbers and descriptions, shipping instructions, billing and other information. Specific issue processes include: validate, process, confirm and schedule & release.

· Picking for Outbound Orders – the process by which a warehouse person picks from storage locations the quantities of line items that make up the issue and moves them as a load to a shipping location (typically performed using a scan gun)

· Complete and Confirm Shipment – making shipping (e.g. FedEx or UPS) and pick-up arrangements

· Process Inbound Orders – Create and confirm, receive and putaway

· Process Returns – This involves receiving NFES items at the cache from incidents or customers (typically after a wildfire has been contained and a need for the items no longer exists). 90% or more of NFES items are returned to caches after being issued to incidents. The processes involved in accepting returns, determining item condition, refurbishment or disposal, and ensuring correct credit to the returning customer are very complex.

· Physical Count – This is the business process by which caches conduct a complete physical inventory (usually on an annual basis) and account for discrepancies.

· Cognos Reports – Standard reporting against the ICBS database

· Loftware Reports – Standard reports that are generated by ICBS after completing processes, and generation of bar-coded product and location labels

· Printing – printing to networked printers in each cache

· Ad Hoc Move – Recording the movement of items from one location to another (typically with a scan gun) to ensure inventory accuracy

· Kitting and De-Kitting Processes – A user inputs the number of defined NFES kits to build and ICBS creates move tasks for the items needed to assemble them. The reverse of this (breaking down kits into components and putting them away in designated locations) is called De-Kitting.

· Reserving – designating a quantity of specific items as not being available to issue

· Cache Transfer Process – Document the transfer of a number of items from one cache to another. This process is completed by receiving cache personnel using the receipt function

· Incident Transfer Process - Using ICBS to document changing custody of issued items from one incident to another (based on documentation received from the incident or field unit)

· Pay.Gov Process – An interface between ICBS and Pay.gov allows authorized personnel at the Great Basin Cache to charge customer credit cards for sale of NFES items – typically Publication Management System (PMS) forms, manuals and training materials

· Stores Extract/Reporting Process – Functionality that supports the required monthly review and extract of financial transactions for reporting to the BLM financial system – performed by three BLM caches Four key interfaces provide specific capabilities: user authentication, incident and order information, credit card sales transactions and enhanced querying/reporting. For additional information please see the attachments referenced in Section 1.4 below:

· NAP (NESS Application Portal) The NAP application provides authentication for ICBS users who use the PC-based (“console”) ICBS web application. Scan gun (mobile terminal) ICBS users authenticate via the NAP LDAP rather than the NAP application).

· ROSS (Resource Ordering and Status System) An interface between ROSS and ICBS allows for real-time exchange of incident order information and sharing of a single NFES catalog database hosted within ICBS. Note: The ROSS system is slated to be replaced with the Interagency Resource Ordering Capability in the near future.

· Pay.gov An interface between ICBS and the US Treasury’s Pay.gov system allows authorized ICBS users to process credit card sales for NFES items to customers. A separate interface between the BLM’s Collection and Billing System (CBS) and Pay.gov enables payments from these buyers to be deposited by Pay.gov into the appropriate BLM accounts.

· FamWeb Data Warehouse Twenty-two ICBS Cognos reports have been configured to produce data from the active ICBS OLTP database as well as from archived ICBS data in the FamWeb Data Warehouse.

Attachments In addition to requirements contained in the PWS, the following documents are included as attachments and incorporated by reference.

*Acronyms are included in Attachment VII ICBS/CACHE TERMINOLOGY and therefore may not be consistently spelled out in this PWS document.

Applicable System/Program Documentation The following files are included for reference for purposes of proposal preparation.

ICBS-Pay.gov-CBS Interface Diagram

4/23/2012

ICBS REQ_20_PayGov Internal Configuration

4/23/2015

Period and Place of Performance; Hours of Operation Contract Period and Renewal Options Desired Transition Start Work Date: January 3, 2017

The contract period shall extend for 14 months from the date of award with a phase-in transition period of two (2) months. However, at the option of the Government and per the resultant contract clauses, the Optional periods maybe exercised to continue services.

Place of Performance and Federal Holidays The contractor will provide services at its facilities unless otherwise noted or if on-site support is requested by the Government. The main Government office associated with this system is located in Boise, Idaho. The Contractor shall maintain an adequate work force for the uninterrupted performance of all tasks defined within this PWS. When hiring personnel, the Contractor shall keep in mind that the stability and continuity of the work force are essential.

Recognized Federal Holidays

The contractor must maintain an adequate workforce necessary to maintain the uninterrupted performance of the ICBS Prod and Training systems 24/7/365 which includes Holidays.

All meetings with the Government falling on a Federal Holiday will be cancelled unless explicitly rescheduled by the COR. Federal Holidays include:

ICBS Availability and Business Hours ICBS is available to users on a 24/7/365 basis except for preapproved scheduled maintenance and planned outages.

Contractor Response Times When Contractor response is required, a Government SME or other designated official will categorize an issue as Urgent, Very High, High, Medium or Low based on knowledge of fire and cache business activity level, impact and any other business-related factors.

For required response times please refer to Section 2.3.7 Performance Standard OM-3.

To ensure timely response, the Contractor shall designate an on-call number and e-mail.

High/Low Firefighting Season Although fire suppression and non-fire incident activity can occur at any time, the historically highest volume of firefighting on a nationwide basis occurs from about May 1 through October 31 each year. The historic low season for fire occurrence is typically from about November 1 through April 31.

ICBS software releases, with the exception of emergency bug fixes, are typically conducted during the low fire season. The high fire season sees an increase of system use and an increased need for user support. Historically, the workload of ICBS developers has transitioned from development to operational support as the need for troubleshooting activities increases.

However some key cache activities and high levels of ICBS use occur during periods in which firefighting activity is low. Most notably, supply return processing and refurbishment continues long after firefighting activity decreases. Depending on the severity of the fire season this can last for several months. Cache personnel also perform their annual physical inventory count processes between September and March. Catalog updates (including annual cost/price adjustments) occur between January and March.

ICBS outages for maintenance activities are planned and scheduled in advance in consultation with a Government SME to ensure minimal impact to ICBS users.

Contract Outcomes and Objectives The following outcomes are expected from the ICBS support contract:

· Ongoing Operational and Maintenance (O&M) Support for Production and Training environments which support ICBS and ensure 24/7/365 application access with a 99.5% availability rate.

· Ongoing O&M support for Development and Quality Assurance (QA) environments

· O&M Support of COTS software (e.g. Sterling, Cognos and Loftware) including configuration, customization, setting and version changes.

· Quality and timely user support for issues that Helpdesk personnel, Government SME or other Government-authorized entities cannot resolve - including emergency on-site incident support when requested by the Government. This includes trouble-shooting and resolving problems with the console (PC-accessed web application) and mobile applications, user data input errors, and assisting with networked printing, bar code scanning and wireless local area network (WLAN) trouble-shooting.

· Security patching and vulnerability management and remediation.

· Quality documentation support to meet USFS requirements for training, corporate financial, engineering infrastructure, USDA capital planning & investment control, CPARS and security requirements.

· Routine system improvements in the course of general O&M including bug fixes, user change requests, and changes related to software upgrades and other minor improvements.

· NOTE: because of the high degree of customization of the Sterling software, migration to new Sterling versions is beyond the scope of O&M and would be added to this contract only by modification.

SCOPE

Required Services The performance requirements of the ICBS O&M effort are defined below. These performance requirements are designed to directly support objectives stated above. The specific services/tasks of this PWS are:

200x 300x 400x

Options: Three one-year options March 1, 2017 – February 28, 2018 and one-year increments thereafter at the discretion of the Government

201x 301x 401x

ICBS O&M

ICBS Exit Transition of O&M/Program Management responsibilities to new Contractor System O&M, maintain all documentation, system maintenance related upgrades During 2 month transition the incumbent contractor is responsible for O&M and the incoming contractor is in the Phase-In process. The incumbent contractor will work with the incoming contractor.

Hand-off program, processes, access to applications, documentation, scripts, source code, configuration (files) and responsibilities to a new contractor.

Options: Three one-year options

2 months

March 1, 2017 – February 28, 2018 and one-year increments thereafter at the discretion of the Government

Approximately 2 months from the end of the last executed optional year.

Line Items marked with an “x” are optional items as defined in the contract clauses.

ICBS Program Management Outcome: Contract program management support ensures effective, accurate, on-time and compliant operations.

Government Furnished Property (GFP), Facilities and Services Hosting Environments: The Government will provide access (in accordance with established Government Security Regulations and Agency Policy) to hosting environments (Production, Training, QA and Development) for ICBS. Access to these environments will be through a VPN connection. These environments are located at one or more NESS Hosting Sites. System Administration and Database Administration Services for hosting environments are provided through another contract.

Subject Matter Expertise: The Government will provide SMEs for supporting the contractor’s efforts to document business and application design requirements, as required. SMEs will also be used by the Government for contract inspection activities (e.g., document review, User Acceptance Testing). In some instances, SMEs are Government personnel or are contractor personnel provided through another contract.

Computers and Infrastructure: Computers, supporting software, networked printers, wireless bar code scanning devices, wireless local area network (WLAN) and network connectivity for field testing shall be available at designated cache testing sites.

The Government is not responsible for providing laptops, network access, peripheral equipment (e.g. printers, scanners, keyboards, monitors, phones, PIV card readers, etc.) and supplies for the contractor or any subcontractor personnel working on this contract.

Government Laptop Computers and Accounts: The Government may opt to provide Forest Service laptops and active directory accounts for contract personnel.

Bar Code Scanning Devices: The Government will provide one bar code scanning device (as well as any required auxiliary components such as charger, cord, etc.) of each type in use in caches to the contractor team for purposes of testing and development activities.

Configuration Management System: The current application used for tracking ICBS baseline software code is the open source Concurrent Versions System (CVS). Information on this product can be found at: http://www.nongnu.org/cvs/. At its option, the government may substitute a different product for this purpose.

Test Case and Defect Management System: The current application used for tracking and documenting ICBS change requests, production issues (defects), testing and trouble-shooting is the HP Quality Center (QC) Application Lifecycle Management application. A licensed copy of QC is installed in the EROS NESSDev environment for FAM IT project use, with a specific working space for government and contractor members of the ICBS Team. All members of the contractor’s team will be issued a QC user account and will use the system for documentation. Information on this product can be found at: http://www8.hp.com/us/en/software-solutions/alm-software-development-testing/. At its option, the government may substitute a different product for this purpose.

Database Management Software: Upon request the Government will provide a software tool to assist the team in database analytics, monitoring and administration. Currently a Dell TOAD® software license is provided by the Government to the Contractor.

IBM Sterling Software: The Government will provide all licenses for the IBM Sterling® software modules that comprise the ICBS system. Cognos® and Loftware® licenses are bundled in the Sterling license package.

Helpdesk Management System Access: At the option of the Government, access to the USDA/Interagency Incident Applications (IIA) Helpdesk ticket management system (Bomgar Remedy on Demand®) may be provided to one or more contractor personnel. Historically, government SMEs have accessed the IIA Helpdesk ticket system, escalated tickets as needed to the ICBS O&M contractor and have entered ticket documentation for each ticket.

PIV Cards and Security Tokens: All personnel having access to Government-owned software, hardware or hosting environments must have a United States Social Security Number and will be required to pass a “NACI” background investigation. To initiate this process, each person will submit a completed “USDA SECURITY BACKGROUND CHECK INPUT SPREADSHEET” (see Section 1.3 Attachments) to the designated COR. These are required within 15 business days of the contract award date.

Upon successful adjudication of the background investigation and an annual online USDA IT Security Awareness training course, they will be issued a government Personal Identification Verification (PIV) card. USDA-issued PIV cards are called LincPasses. LincPasses remain the property of the Government and must be returned to the Government when a contract is terminated or individuals leave the project (please see “452.204-71 PERSONAL IDENTITY VERICATION OF CONTRACTOR EMPLOYEES” in Section 5 “CONTRACT CLAUSES” below for more information).

The Government may, at its option, issue a temporary security token to a contract team member while awaiting the results of their background investigation. These tokens remain the property of the Government and must be returned to the Government upon demand.

Contractor Furnished Property (CFP) The contractor shall provide all personnel with equipment, tools, materials, supervision, facilities, connectivity, and non-personal services necessary to meet the objectives defined in this PWS except as specified as Government Furnished Property.

Telework The contractor may, at its discretion, allow its employees and any subcontractors to telework. Teleworking shall not incur any location allowance or additional costs to the Government. Any cost to implement or prepare the contractor’s employees for teleworking shall be bore on the contractor. All team members must be located in the United States.

Travel The Contractor shall include all travel costs in their firm fixed pricing/proposal. In person meetings shall be coordinated with and preapproved by the COR.

If the contractor identifies other trips, those should be detailed in the assumptions portion of the proposal. The travel proposal will be reviewed and considered when preparing the travel estimate that will be included in the resultant contract. After award, if the Government requests trips outside of the PWS or Contractor’s Proposal, it shall reimburse travel expenses as an ODC.

Trip Name/Purpose This list is not exhaustive. The Contractor may include additional travel in their PWS response.

Number of Contractor personnel Required:

The Contractor may propose a different number of individuals.

Trips Timeframe

Transition-In

Kick-off Meeting

Technical Meeting

Recurring Program Meetings

Transition-Out

Technical Meeting

Contract Project Management Plan (CPMP)

1. Within 10 business days of the award of a contract, the Contractor shall deliver a draft Contract Project Management Plan (CPMP) to the CO and COR for review and comment. At a minimum the plan shall address the requirements listed below using standard management practices such as a work breakdown structure (WBS), or equivalent, and a resource loaded Integrated Master Schedule (IMS). Review and update cycles of the CPMP shall be in accordance with PWS Section 3 “Deliverables.”

2. The Contractor shall follow project management best practices, as defined by the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) or equivalent, in successfully developing and executing the CPMP. The Contractor shall be responsible for project management including, but not limited to:

a. Meeting and complying with:

i. Privacy Act, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Section 508 and Federal Acquisition Regulations as provided herein, and the terms and conditions as referenced in the resultant contract.

ii. Project Plans and Schedules, Contractor staffing needs, WBS

iii. PWS requirements

b. Project Schedule to include due dates of major milestones, deliverables, releases, informal and formal testing, and reviews. Software development shall include a requirements definition phase, a preliminary design review, a critical design review and user acceptance testing which includes testing against the requirements, and some ad-hoc testing activities. The CO or designee shall approve/disapprove the contractors proposed technical solution or provide comments. The schedule shall be resource loaded and baselined for tracking purposes.

c. Documenting and maintaining configuration baselines for the following ICBS application focus areas:

i. Development Source Code

ii. Production Source Code

iii. System Architecture as it relates to ICBS

iv. All project related documentation (e.g. plans, technical documentation, etc.)

v. Reference Data Set (e.g. data dictionary, logical data model, etc.)

vi. Scripts for Release

vii. Test Plans and Scripts (Includes testing after NESS upgrade, Network activities, development efforts, and version updates)

viii. User Acceptance Testing

d. Managing personnel (including development, training, and evaluation) and processing security clearance requests (HSPD-12) in a timely manner so as to not disrupt service

e. Managing and ensuring quality control

f. Staffing, to include determining the number of FTEs (full-time equivalents) and labor categories required for each task and subtask, to include subcontractors

g. Team location (e.g. will team members work virtually or be collocated in a central contractor-provided facility?)

h. Allocating and scheduling resources

i. Coordinating and communicating with Government management and technical resources, including participation in regularly scheduled and ad hoc meetings

j. Serving on teams managed by Government Project Managers

k. Monitoring and reporting status. The Contractor shall report critical errors and other potential problems to the COR and ICBS leadership team immediately upon occurrence and in the weekly status report and meetings.

l. Establishing and implementing processes and procedures.

m. Providing assistance to the Government in establishing priorities and meeting the needs of USFS and its partner agencies.

n. Providing effective and responsive planning and execution of projects, as agreed to during the development of the Project Plans

o. Ensuring that all deliverables and activities performed under the contract are completed successfully and are on-time and within budget; and that any and all deviations are approved by the government and documented with justification

p. Providing timely and accurate invoices to the Government

q. Tracking and managing all Government Furnished Property (equipment and information) in collaboration with Government personnel. GFP status shall be tracked and statused during the bi-annual Performance-based Contract Evaluation Meeting. The resultant contract references specific GFP clauses and terms and conditions

r. Returning employee’s PIV LincPass, security tokens, and any Government Furnished Property when a Contractor staff member leaves the project permanently

s. Removal of any Government email accounts, login privileges and access to applications and the USFS network immediately upon the removal/release of a Contractor staff member from the project

t. Team location (e.g. will team members work virtually or be collocated in a central contractor-provided facility?)

Quality Control/Requirements

1. The Contractor shall maintain a Quality Control Program (QCP) that ensures the Government receives the level of quality that is consistent with the requirements specified in this PWS. The QCP shall be included in the proposal submission, and finalized upon contract award. Any proposed modifications to the QCP proposal during the life of the contract shall be approved by the COR.

2. The Contractor shall develop a QCP that provides for the monitoring of the quality of the services, work products, and deliverables required under the contract. The Contractor shall develop the QCP based on accepted industry standards such as ITIL, ISO 9000, IEEE 12207, CMMI or other accepted industry QA (quality assurance) standards. The QCP shall detail the processes, procedures, and metrics for assuring quality. The QCP shall also include, at a minimum, a description of the following:

a. Methods and processes to be used for identifying and preventing defects in the quality of service performed and the prevention of recurring defects;

b. Monitoring and control of critical processes and product variation;

c. Quality assurance testing of developed products (including adherence to ADA Section 508 requirements);

d. Methods for ensuring consistency and usability of the user interface;

e. Load testing and response time testing of end nodes

f. Peer Reviews of Design and Code;

g. Effective root cause analysis and corrective action system; and

h. Continuous process improvement.

3. During performance of the contract, the Contractor shall maintain a quality control inspection system that contains procedures and processes that are consistent with the monitoring and control processes identified in the approved QCP.

4. The Contractor shall maintain records documenting all corrective actions and process improvements undertaken during contract performance. The records shall validate the Contractor’s compliance with the processes contained in the QCP. The Contractor shall make the records available to the Government during contract performance and for a period of five (5) years after final payment under the contract.

An electronic copy of QCP records shall be housed on Government servers (i.e. at a NESS data center host site) designated by the COR, and access shall be described in the transition plan at the end of the contract.

5. The ongoing records of inspections, inspection results, and corrective action required and preformed shall be maintained by the Contractor throughout the term of the contract. This information shall be the property of the Government and made available to both the Contracting Officer and the COR upon request. An electronic copy of the records shall be housed on COR-designated servers.

Contractor Employee Knowledge, Skills, Abilities and Certifications Project/Program Management The Contractor Program Manager must have had training and experience in project/program management, the software development life cycle, and in leadership and communications. Project Management Institute (PMI) Project Management Professional (PMP®) certification is strongly recommended.

Software Architecture It is recommended that the Contract Senior Software Architect have training and experience in the software development life cycle, project/program management, application usability, leadership and communications, and in the areas of software development and management listed below.

General Software Coding Extending the Sterling product and writing custom software code requires software programming language skill in Java, Java Script, SQL, and familiarity with DoJo and Angular JS frameworks.

Secure Coding Prior to the start of the base period of performance, at least one member of each programming team working on any code (including C, Java, JSP, JavaScript, .Net, ASP.NET, Visual Basic) to be delivered to the USFS shall have earned the Global Information Assurance Certification for Secured Software Programming or equivalent.

Sterling Applications It is recommended that the team possess advanced experience in the use IBM/Sterling Service Definition Framework (SDF), Sterling Distributed Order Management (DOM), and Sterling Warehouse Management (WMS). Extensive order life cycle experience is required to configure and extend DOM to allow for manual order capture as well as orders received through the SDF into DOM to be fulfilled in the WMS. Extensive WMS experience is required to configure and extend the management of orders throughout the fulfillment process including Value Added Service (VAS) and Refurbishment.

Section 508 Compliance

1. Training:

To ensure that deliverables of this contract comply with Section 508 requirements, it is recommended that at least one team member has completed training prior to the start of the base period of performance in designing accessible web products and software. This training is available from private training institutions and via GSA’s 508 Universe (please see http://training.section508.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=Training).

2. Deliverables:

Please see Attachment XIII - SECTION 508 ACCESSIBILITY OF ELECTRONIC AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY for specific Section 508 requirements for this acquisition.

English Language Proficiency

All Key Personnel supporting this contract and team members who will communicate with Government ICBS project management team members or with ICBS users shall fluently speak and be able to effectively communicate in the English language. The government shall maintain the right to determine whether the proposed representative has sufficient lingual capabilities and the Contractor shall immediately replace any individual not acceptable to the government.

Meetings, Reports and Information Requests While the Government cannot list all required meetings, reports and information requests that will occur over the life of this contract, the following information provides a “business rhythm” that potential vendors may use as a guideline.

3. Recurring and Ad Hoc Meetings The Contractor shall participate in virtual or face-to-face ICBS-related meetings at the request of the Government. If the contractor identifies other trips or meetings that would be beneficial to the program those should be detailed in the assumptions portion of the proposal.

Meetings will include (but are not limited to):

Meeting Type

interim and year-end Virtual or at Contractors site or in Boise

4. Reports Weekly Status Report The Weekly Status Report (WSR) shall be provided each week. The Contractor shall prepare the WSR in their format with concurrence from the COR.

The reports shall include (at a minimum):

· Accomplishments

· Key tasks/milestones

· External resource needs/dependencies

· Risks, issues, mitigation steps and action items

· System up-time log (ref: section 2.3.1.1)

· Other items of importance to the effective management of the program Performance-based Contract Evaluation Report At half-year intervals beginning six months after the start of the base contract period, the Contractor shall prepare a report that details the Contractor’s achievement of contract requirements and overall status of the preceding period. The Contractor shall provide a proposed report format for approval by the COR. This report addresses similar topics as the Weekly Status Report but the focus is at a macro level to show overall program status focusing on achievement, risk mitigation, and process improvement.

With this input from the Contractor the COR will prepare a formal contract evaluation report and will arrange a meeting to review the Contractor’s performance with the Contractor and CO. The intent of these mid-year and end-year evaluations is to identify areas in need of improvements and corrective actions – if any – to be taken by the Contractor. It is also to give positive feedback on support.

Annual Status Report Within 10 business days immediately following the end of the base period and after each option year, the Contractor shall provide an annual report which includes a summary of all significant activities. This will be used as input to the Government’s formal the Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) report. The Contractor’s Annual Status Report shall include:

· Progress and status of all activities

· Identification of significant issues with analysis of alternatives and recommendations for resolution

· Milestones and achievements

· Annual statistics: (i.e. numbers of: Change Requests [CRs] and Production Issues [PIs] addressed; system restarts; vulnerabilities mitigated; security patches applied; printers added/removed; scan guns reimaged; deployments; etc.)

· Cost and Schedule status (including planned vs. actual details)

· Calendar of upcoming events

· Action Item log detailing necessary action, responsible party, due date, and status of action

· Risk Management log detailing remediation strategies and status updates

· System up-time log

· Other items of importance to the effective management of the program

5. Information Requests The Contractor shall provide timely responses to time-sensitive requests for data/information related to ICBS received from the CO, COR and Cache SMEs.

Examples of requests include: Change Request (CR) and Production Issue (PI) information; software capability; server names; COTS software technical specifications/settings/configuration; ports and web service specifications; compatibility of system components with other products; etc. The COR or designee will screen these requests and will provide a due date to the Contractor for all ad hoc requests.

ICBS Program Management Performance Standards The following performance standards apply to the Program Management support:

ICBS Program Management

Issues are proactively identified and resolved. Failures are brought to the attention of the COR and effective dialogue through appropriate lines of communication takes place.

CPMP are executed in accordance with schedule and budget, as indicated in the PWS/contract.

No deviation unless preapproved by the COR. All deviations shall be documented in the weekly and annual status reports.

COR/designee review of CPMP.

ICBS O&M Transition (including Phase-In and Phase-Out)

Outcome: ICBS performance is maintained throughout the Phase-In Transition period. The new contractor is able to operate and maintain the system at the end of the Phase-In period and is prepared for exit at the end of the task period of performance.

The contractor shall establish and maintain an ICBS Phase-In Transition Plan which will be used to guide transition of work from contract award to the start of work date(s). This plan should include at least three sections: the ICBS O&M Phase-In Transition Plan and Schedule, Staffing plan, and the Exit Plan.

The Government anticipates a transition period with the incumbent contractor of approximately 60 days.

Phase-In Transition Plan This task is considered integral to the future success and smooth transition to a new contractor and therefore will be separately priced to ensure resources, support level, and management oversight is appropriate.

The contractor’s ICBS O&M Phase-In Transition Plan and schedule shall begin no less than thirty (30) calendar days prior to the Start of Work date. The O&M Transition Plan shall identify start and completion dates for all events required to prepare for and meet ICBS O&M requirements. The Contractor shall identify key milestones and activities that will ensure efficient use of transition time with existing ICBS O&M support incumbent contractor. The Contractor shall have a proactive and well-formulated plan.

The contractor’s Phase-In Transition Plan shall outline its strategy to effectively…