Sole_Source.pdf

UNITED STATES DEPATMENT OF AGRICULTURE

AGRICULTURAL MARKETING SERVICE

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES

WASHINGTON DC

JUSTIFICATION FOR OTHER THAN FULL AND OPEN COMPETITION:

SOLE SOURCE ACQUISITION OF CONSULTING SERVICES FOR ETDE / EDOCS

TRADE APPLICATIONS

1. Contracting Organization: The contracting organization responsible for this action is:

USDA, AMS, Cotton and Tobacco Program 3275 Appling Road Memphis, TN 38133

2. Description of Action: This action is for contractor services with Symphony Corporation located in Madison, Wisconsin to deliver enhancements for the Electronic Trade Document Exchange (eTDE) System and Electronic Document Creation System (eDOCs). The enhancements will include addition of new features and enhancement of existing features for commodities, trade documents, and countries/ports.

3. Description of Services: The purpose of this contract is to perform enhancement services for eTDE and eDOCs applications. This service is required and will continue to be required as long as there are outstanding enhancement requests for eTDE and eDOCs Trade applications. The original contract for enhancements to the eTDE / eDOCs was awarded to Symphony Corporation. Symphony will perform the enhancement services described in Appendix A in order to develop and implement the Trade system according to the agreed upon specifications and completion dates. USDA / AMS / ITS will cooperate with Symphony to accommodate requests for information and data necessary for completion of work.

4. Authority: The statutory authority permitting the sole sourcing of services is Far 6.302-1, 41 USC 3304, “Only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements”.

5. Applicability of Authority: The original contract for development and design of eTDE and eDOCs was awarded to Symphony by the Almond Board of California (ABC) and funded by grants from USDA / Foreign Agricultural Services (FAS). Moving forward, USDA / AMS / ITS will be handling the contracting with Symphony Corporation. Symphony is being sought because the enhancements required for eTDE and eDOCs are a continuation of the development for eTDE / eDOCs and the contractor from Symphony is the original designer and developer of both systems. As the designer and developer of eTDE and eDOCs, Symphony Corporation has the system expertise. No other contractor would have the necessary knowledge of eTDE / eDOCs Trade Systems.

To proceed with a full and open competition for this follow-on contract will introduce unacceptable delays for users of eTDE / eDOCs Trade applications including USDA/AMS users, Trade Industry Associations, Exporters and Government Officials from other countries. In case http://agnis/AMS Logo/AMS Final Color Text on Right 11-19-09.

of fixes needed for the existing system, delays can result in loss of money for exporters whose shipments are waiting in the ports at other countries. Furthermore, the effort to bring a contractor up to the same level of the institutional knowledge that the incumbent contractor offers would result in duplication of costs. A sole source approval is requested for continuation of this major Trade System due to the following reasons:

o The software is still being enhanced with new features and introduction of new documents, commodities and use of the system in new countries. These enhancements require intimate knowledge of the business practices, the eTDE/eDOCs workflows and design, coding of many on-line and batch components and the overall platform for the trade applications. To bring a new contractor on at this point would result in major duplication of costs as the new contractor would need to learn the design and coding of many complex components and then implement the new features. This will require more time by the new contractor and will result in additional cost for the project.

o In most cases, when new and isolated problems are discovered, due to the nature of international trade, these items need to be fixed within 24 hours or less. If this deadline is missed, the delay in getting the exporter’s shipment delivered will result in fines to be paid by the exporter and is unacceptable. The fixes must be done by the group who are experts in this set of Trade applications. Having a new contractor would result in significant delays in delivery time and more cost. This is not acceptable for our trade and business operations.

o The AMS Trade system consists of many components, a complex and multi-server platform, and large set of artifacts and programming code. A new contractor would need to be familiar with this environment. A transition to a new vendor would be time consuming and introduce major delays in delivering enhancements and fixes on-time.

o It will be necessary for USDA / AMS to train the new contractor in Business and Technical aspects of the eTDE and eDOCs applications. The USDA / AMS does not have resources and time to invest on this training.

6. Efforts to Obtain Competition: Symphony Corporation is the only contractor that can deliver extensive enhancement work for eTDE / eDOCs on-time and on-budget. When eTDE / eDOCs applications are at a state where enhancements and feature fixes are minimal, we will look to increase our vendor base.

7. Fair and Reasonable: Cost of the new effort will be negotiated and we have several years of data to evaluate the reasonableness of our effort.

9. Other Facts: Reference (40 CFR Part 141 and 21 CFR Parts 129/165).

10. Interested Sources: Symphony Corporation is the only company with extensive knowledge of the eTDE / eDOCs applications and platforms.

11. Technical Requirements / Personnel Certification: We hereby certify that the technical requirements and certifications are accurate.

12. Contracting Officers Certification: I hereby certify to the best of my knowledge this justification is accurate and complete.

Douglas Bailey, USDA / AMS / ITS

CIO, Requesting Organization

Approved:

Beverly Brown Contracting Approval Authority

Appendix A:

eTDE and eDOCs Enhancements

1. Add Certificate types to EC/ETDE Web Service interface and Port Web Service Interface:

Annex Checklist, Dairy Transit, Dairy Composite Transit, Dairy Composite EU, Egg Export

2. Implement Archiving (M&P, DY, Almond, Peanut, Egg)

3. Implement eTDE and eDOCs performance analysis and Design improvements

a. Enhance eDocs with Automatic multi browser compatibility

b. Implement eTDE/eDOcs components to use same encryption model

4. Implement Commodity / Entity Association

5. Implement association of an entity to multiple commodities

6. Implement Centralized Toolkit Design with Consistent Automated Correction Capability

7. Streamline eDOCs to handle generic certificate categories: Codex, OIE, IPPC

8. Provide Documentation for addition of new certificates to eDOCs

9. Provide Joint Design and Code Reviews – Agile Methodology

10. Capture automated test scenarios for eDOCS

11. Provide Report / Dashboard for Commodity and Volume

12. Implement Font Change for China Sanitary Certificate

13. Implement Reference Number for Composite Certificates

14. Implement Feed Certificate

15. Implement NOP Certificate

16. Implement Peanut Aflatoxin Certificate

17. Implement Almond Certificate (interface to Taces)

18. Implement Grass Certificate (OECD Seed Scheme) in eDOCs

19. Revisit Electronic signature decision

20. Deliver a collection of enhancements for Dairy Grading

21. Deliver a collection of enhancements for Peanuts