5_Amend0004FedBizOppsQandA.doc

Government Responses to Questions submitted on the AT21 RFP

April 13, 2007

Q96. The final RFP (Section M-3, c, 3, f) includes a reference to the Cost Data Requirement List in the PWS. (f) The Offeror’s proposed contract reporting clearly meets the Cost Data Requirement List specified in the PWS. The Offeror provides adequate samples and clearly describes how any proposed alternates to the PWS specified reporting meet the intent of the requirement. The PWS contains only a Contractor Deliverables table in Section 1.6.2. Is there a Cost Data Requirements List that has not been provided or is the evaluation criteria section referring to the Contractor Deliverables table in section 1.6.2 of the PWS?

Government Reply: The reference should have been to the Contractor Deliverable Table in PWS section 1.6.2. Section M-3 (c) (3) (f) has been updated to reflect this change. See Amendment 0004.

Q97. Please clarify what is meant by "samples" in the following section (Section M-3, c, 3, f): (f) The Offeror’s proposed contract reporting clearly meets the Cost Data Requirement List specified in the PWS. The Offeror provides adequate samples and clearly describes how any proposed alternates to the PWS specified reporting meet the intent of the requirement." Are we to submit samples of each item on the list or a smaller subset? Are we to submit complete copies of the deliverables? Sample we might use could be anywhere from 5-50 pages. If we are to submit samples of actual deliverables, may they be attached in a page-unlimited appendix so as not to count against the 50 page limit for the volume?

Government Reply: Examples are only required for CDRL deliverables proposed in an alternate format other than the format specified in the PWS. Examples should be limited to 20 pages each and may be submitted in a page-unlimited appendix. See changes in Amendment 0004, Sections L and M.

Q98. Ref: Attachment 8, Data Deliverables Proposal

Question: Is the offeror required to provide a price per deliverable, if the price for the deliverables is provided within WBS # 1.1.1.4 (Documentation) and is not separately broken out?

Government Reply: The data deliverable worksheet has been deleted from the Cost Template. See Amendment 0004.

Q99. Reference: Appendix H to Section C (PWS); Page: 33; Paragraph: 6.1.1

Question: Most of the back-end requirements for meeting on-time delivery requirements are not within the control of the AT21 prime contractor (i.e. order entry accuracy, warehouse pick accuracy, shipped without damage, and invoicing). How will USTRANSCOM hold the contractor accountable when the TCCs are still managing the actual movements?

Government Reply: The final AT21 CDD defines Perfect Order Criteria as: Faultlessly installed (as applicable), correct configuration, customer-ready, no damage. The calculation: perfect order (%) = [order entry accuracy (#errors per 1000 order lines)] x [Warehouse Pick Accuracy] x [Percent Delivered on Time] x [Shipped without Damage] x [Invoiced Correctly] contained four footnotes (ascribed to #errors, warehouse pick accuracy, shipped without damage, and invoiced correctly) that stated: “Measured within AT21 as applicable and relevant based on the data available.” These footnotes bound the On-Time Delivery KPP to address data elements that can be collected, managed, and tested. Clearly, “percent delivered on time” represents the key USTRANSCOM-managed measure, but these remaining criteria should also be considered relevant for calculating On-Time Delivery to the degree that the metrics can be afforded statistical significance.

The Government acknowledges that some of the back-end requirements, such as warehouse pick accuracy, are outside the control of USTRANSCOM. The Offeror should address these bounds and focus the calculation on what can be collected, measured, and controlled sufficiently to enable fair and accurate testing, such as on-time delivery.

Q100. Reference: Appendix H to Section C (PWS); Page: 35; Table 5: 6.2.1 – 6.2.13

Question: Can USTRANSCOM please define how the KPIs/metrics are derived in Table 5: Increment 1 System Attributes? Are these KPIs measured only against orders that have been validated for data quality and accuracy within the Contractors Order Management system, or is there some other measure that USTRANSCOM will use?

Government Reply: Yes, where data/interfaces to other systems are required, these data shall comply with the AT21 System Performance Parameter for Data Availability/Access/Qualification: Provide 95% {100%} confirmed accurate data from the authoritative source; data is current as determined by established business processes (Reference CDD, Table 7, paragraph 6.4.3). In relation to BPR, Focus Warfighter, and Objective solution required for AT21 to integrate within the operational environment, those attributes are described as USTRANSCOM Objective assessment based on user feedback and analysis of integration of Focus Warfighter concepts, AT21 business processes, and transition planning.

Q101. Reference: General Question; Page: N/A; Paragraph: N/A

Question: Can USTRANSCOM please provide a roadmap or program milestones for how it anticipates applying the key performance parameters, measures and other metrics for system and contractor performance to the delivery of the AT21 solution, as USTRANSCOM provided for the Defense Transportation Coordination Initiative (DTCI) solicitation?

Government Reply: The applicable KPPs and KPIs will be measured at FOC for each increment. The contractor is expected to create the roadmap for achieving these requirements (Reference PWS 1.5.2.1.2 Blueprinting).

Q102. How will USTRANSCOM expect the contractor to provide 6-Sigma capability at the data level while the source requirements data cannot attain that level?

Government Reply: The CDD requires three sigma (99.73%) (approximate three errors in one thousand tolerance) as the THRESHOLD data level. Six sigma, approximately three errors in one million) is the {OBJECTIVE} requirement of accuracy which is rapidly becoming the industry standard. Given the fact that the AT21 CDD requires Provide 95% {100%} confirmed accurate data from the authoritative source; data is current as determined by established business processes (CDD paragraph 6.4.3), the universe of data on which 3-Sigma analysis would apply should be attainable. This translates into three errors in one thousand tries on data that is at least 95% accurate {100%}. The expectation on data quality for measuring 3-Sigma {six sigma} is on the data AT21 receives and validates not on all the data in all data sets. Reference CDD, table 5, Increment 1 System Attributes, pages 35 – 39.

Q103. The Government's response to Question 35 "How many end users are there?" appears to conflict with CDD Table 8, page 41. This table indicates a Threshold of 100 concurrent web users & 15 concurrent thick client users, with an Objective of 500 concurrent web users & 30 concurrent thick client users. The Government answer to Q35 states: "At end state, the number of projected users is expected to approximate 6,000 with processing capability to support 1,000 concurrent users." Which set of numbers take precedence?

Government Reply: The CDD refers to threshold and objective users at the end of Increment 1 (FY10). The larger totals reflect the number of users at the end of Increment 3.

Q104. The key personnel identified are Project Manager, Chief Engineer, and Business Process Engineer. In Attachment 8, Cost Template Worksheet Labor Category, the Key personnel are: Task Order Project Manager, Principal Systems Architect, Principal Engineer, and Principal Business Process RE-engineering Specialist. Are there three key personnel at minimum or four key personnel?

Does the Task Order Project Manager map to the Project Manager?

Does the Principal Engineer map to the Chief Engineer?

Does the Principal Business Process Re-engineering Specialist map to the Business Process Engineer?

Government Reply: Attachment 8: Labor Summary Tab has been corrected to list three "Key" categories as reflected in Section H-4 Key Personnel and the PWS. See Amendment 0004.

Q105. Section L, Para 5(c) asks for “level of skills” in the personnel matrix; please define the nomenclature and definitions of how the Government wants levels defined.

Government Reply: Skills are abilities in specialized technical or functional areas. Skill levels are commensurate with the training and experience in a particular technical or functional area. The Government has not established arbitrary thresholds for levels of skill.

Q106. Reference Att. 8 Cost Template, "Labor Summary" tab, and response to Q17 We assume that all Labor Categories proposed under the CPAF and FFP CLINs should be provided on this worksheet. It is further assumed that the rates for all Labor Categories (CPAF and FFP) should be provided at Total Cost (exclusive of Fees). Please confirm.

Government Reply: An additional labor summary tab has been added to allow for submission of FFP labor on one tab and cost reimbursable labor on the other. See Amendment 0004.

Q107. Reference Att. 8 Cost Template, "Labor Summary" tab, and response to Q17: The formulas on this worksheet sum Total Cost ("Total" columns) in Row 84, require a percent of FFP profit to be entered in row 85, and then sum the Total Cost and Fee percent together in row 85. This seems to be an error. If the correct formula was meant to be multiplication, then that would indicate that the Total Cost was for FFP Labor only, which is contradictory to the instructions to list all labor, CPAF and FFP. We assume that Row 85 is meant to indicate FFP Labor Profit/Fee Dollars, not Profit/Fee percent. Please confirm.

Government Reply: An additional labor summary tab has been added to allow for submission of FFP labor on one tab and cost reimbursable labor on the other. FFP labor rates should include fully loaded rates. See Amendment 0004.

Q108. Section C (PWS); Page: 18; Paragraph: 1.5.3.2 (Software Maintenance Support) Can you provide further details regarding the services to be performed on a FFP basis? Should this CLIN include the COTS maintenance agreement costs?

Government Reply: IAW Paragraph 1.5.3.2, Software Maintenance Support shall include configuration updates or technical resolutions required in response to Problem Reports submitted as part of Paragraph 1.5.3.1 Help Desk functions. COTS recurring maintenance agreement costs would be included under FFP.

Q109. Section J; Page: Attachment 8; Paragraph: SW License Fees Tab Should this include both the license agreement and maintenance agreement costs or should the maintenance agreement costs be priced separately under the FFP CLINs for Software maintenance Support?

Government Reply: Attachment 8: No, the Software License Fee worksheet should only include the license agreement. Recurring maintenance agreement costs should be priced separately in the FFP CLIN.

Q110. Section J; Page: Attachment 8; Paragraph: Data Deliverables Tab If the estimated costs included in the CWBS tab and Labor Summary tab for the AT21 Development CLINs include the labor required to prepare the data deliverables, do they still need to be priced separately under this tab, or can the response be listed as “Not Separately Priced”?

Government Reply: Data Deliverable worksheet has been deleted from the Cost Template. See Amendment 0004.

Q111. The WBS shows both Program Management (WBS 1.3.2) and Task Management (WBS 1.3.2.4) tasks. Will there be multiple tasks issued under the AT21 contract. If not, what costs should be included in Task Management relative to Program Management?

Government Reply: The Cost Template has been updated to remove WBS 1.3.2.4, Task Management. See Amendment 0004.

Q112. The WBS elements provided as the cost template. Costs associated with Change Management (WBS 1.1.1) and Business Process Re-engineering (WBS 1.1.2) are normally directly related to systems implementation and deployment, How will changes in policy, and procedure and training be implemented and if those actions are included, where in the WBS will these hours and costs be represented.

Government Reply: IAW Paragraph 1.5.2.1.1, Business Processes, and 1.5.2.1.3 Change Management, the Contractor will be responsible for recommending changes to business processes and supporting the Government during implementation. The Offeror’s proposal should describe how these changes will be implemented. Offerors may customize the CWBS. Under the standard WBS template provided, proposed changes to policy and procedures would be included in WBS 1.1.1 and 1.1.2, with related training included under WBS 1.5.

Q113. The Statement of Work indicates there will be a Critical Design Review for each release. A critical design review is typically conducted to review very low level functions at the program level and below. What type of review is expected for a COTS or GOTS implementation where that data may not be available?

Government Reply: The Critical Design Review (CDR) will confirm that the overall Operational, System, and Technical Architectures do in fact satisfy the system requirements baseline. The CDR is traditionally where the functional users and PMO formally review, identify, and provide recommendations for the developer to take whatever remedial actions necessary to address design issues prior to code generation.

When it comes to Non-developmental items (NDI) (e.g., Commercial Items, GOTS, and reuse software) appropriate engineering analysis, demonstrations, reviews, change management activities need to be conducted to assure readiness to begin configuration, but not to the level of detail required when generating code.

Q114. Labor hours and costs are requested as separate cost element within the WBS. For example testing activities are included in 1.4 System Test and Evaluation and many of the hours in this WBS element result in a test plan and test documents and test deliverables. Therefore, it would appear those same labor hours and costs are requested in the Deliverables section of the WBS. If this is true, this situation could cause double counting of some hours if these are used in aggregate to develop a total cost. How does the government want to aggregate costs or is there a presumed separation of costs that is not explained? If the government wants the cost of deliverables separated from the cost of development and preparation what cost should be reflected in the work elements and what costs should be represented in the deliverables section?

Government Reply: Any costs that are specific and unique to the data deliverable should be captured under WBS 1.6.1 or Offeror's equivalent work element. If costs can be applied to two or more WBS elements, the Offeror should distribute those costs, without duplication, using a documented, traceable allocation method. For additional guidance on WBS preparation, see MIL-HDBK-881.

Q115. Section J (PWS); Attachment 7 Demo Disk What is the relationship between the offline demo and the end state of the program.

Government Reply: There is no direct relationship between the offline demo and the end state of the program. The offline demo is purely for proposal evaluation and is meant to demonstrate the Offeror’s approach and methodology in describing their solution using the Government-provided scenario.

Q116. Capability Development Document; Page: 27; Paragraph: 6 What is the number of move requests (ULNs) that UST expects to process using AT21 for each year for the duration of the contract? What is the breakout of these volumes across the various request types (Deployment, Sustainment, Redeployment, Aeromedical, POTUS, SAAM, etc.)?

Government Reply: Historical data for the average annual volume of request types is provided in Section J, Attachment 11. See Amendment 0004.

Q117. Capability Development Document; Page: 27; Paragraph: 6 How many unique cargo and PAX items per ULN on average?

Government Reply: In the demonstration data, there is an average of 17.5 pieces and 14.2 PAX per ULN. Many of these pieces will be alike (several individual T60081 cargo trucks may be in a ULN). From the AT21 ACTD, there is an average of 10 rows of level 4 data per ULN (all T600081 cargo trucks would be in a single line). The frequency of the number of level 4 records in a ULN varies widely.

Q118. Capability Development Document; Page: 27; Paragraph: 6 How many queries can be expected for each request through its processing lifecycle? How often is each ULN expected to be handled by an AO?

Government Reply: Each ULN is handled multiple times by AOs and scores of different agencies. From the period of 45 days prior to movement until arrival at final destination in theater, these ULNs are reviewed on a near daily basis. USTRANSCOM has no specific expectations as these values will depend on the Offerors proposed business processes. Because supply chain management cost is an element of total cost and AO touches on a ULN requires human effort and time, fewer touches may mean less cost.

Q119. Capability Development Document; Page: 27; Paragraph: 6 How long does UST expect to store fulfilled requests before archiving? Does this differ by request type, contingency, or COCOM?

Government Reply: Two years, and no differences among request type, contingency, or COCOM.

Q120. Capability Development Document; Page: 27; Paragraph: 6 What is the purpose for storing fulfilled requests? Reporting? Analytics? Operations?

Government Reply: For the purpose of this answer, a fulfilled request is defined as delivered to the customer, billed, and paid for. Fulfilled requests would be queried to support all the examples given: reporting, analytics and operations.

Q121. Capability Development Document; Page: 27; Paragraph: 6 What is the total number of transportation invoices (Manifests, BOL, etc.) expected to be processed by USTRANSCOM?

Government Reply: The government estimates more than 4M transactions per day at end-state.

Q122. Reference Section L-6, page 111 of 133, paragraph (e)(3) and Q53 on Amendment 3 - Concerning the work breakdown structure, does the Government require offerors to provide prices for every CWBS line item ( including areas not shaded in green) in the Government-provided cost template?

Government Reply: The Government does not require offerors to provide prices for every CWBS line item, but the government expects to see levels of detail to at least the levels shown on the CWBS template.

Q123. Reference Section L-6, page 111 of 133, paragraph (e)(3) and Q53 on Amendment 3 - We define Levels as follows Level One 1.0

Level Two 1.1, Level Three 1.1.1, Level Four 1.1.1.1, Level Six 1.1.1.1.1 The CWBS template only has dollar ($) associated and that is on Level One. Based on the above structure, we request clarification as to what level of detail pricing is required. For instance, do we only provide a price at Level Two (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc.), that rolls up to Level One (1.0)? Or are we required to provide a price at Level Four (1.1.1.1, 1.1.1.2, etc.) and Level Three (1.1.1, 1.1.2, etc.) as well? We interpret "minimum level of detail required in the template" as providing a cost information in each cell. We also interpret the flexibility to provide "[P]roposals containing greater detail are acceptable" to mean that if we want to add to the current minimum number of WBS lines, then we can do so. For instance, if we want to add a WBS line at Level Six (1.1.1.1.1.1) we can do so. And if we do add Level Six effort, we are required to cost information for this as well. Therefore, please provide what your "minimum" requirement is with regard to each Level presented in the current CWBS. In other words, should we interpret that the CWBS template has a dollar ($) sign in each and every cell, but was omitted?

Government Reply: The government concurs with the offeror's definition as stated in the question. The template only includes dollar signs at the roll up level. The Offeror must provide costs to at least the levels shown in the CWBS template but may add additional levels of detail if they modify the template.

Q124. Reference 4.9 of PWS: USTRANSCOM will review all deliverables received, and will return any deliverables having deficiencies, to the Contractor within five (5) working days of receipt, unless otherwise noted in this PWS. The Contractor shall make the corrections and deliver the final revised deliverables to USTRANSCOM at no additional cost to the Government within five (5) work days of receipt of the initial draft. In the last line, bolded text, is this supposed to be (10) work days to be consistent with paragraph 1.6.2 of the PWS and Section E Paragraph E-2?

Government Reply: PWS paragraph 4.9 has been updated to reflect 10 days. See Amendment 0004.

Q125. How much time will elapse between contract award date and program start-up date?

Government Reply: The Government anticipates there will be approximately 2 weeks between contract award and contract start; however, the exact amount of time is dependent upon the proposal evaluation process.

Q126. Exceptions were added to Volume 2 per Amendment 003 to the RFP. Would the government consider increasing the page limit for Volume 2 from 50 to 52 pages since the addition of the "Exceptions" section 3?

Government Reply: The page limit for Volume 2 will not be changed.

Q127. For the demo, we would like to request that the government provide the new data, business rules, and processes to the contractors the day of setup (one day prior to the demonstration), or at a minimum at the beginning of the day of the on-line demonstration. This would give the contractor team time to reconfigure the system to reflect the changes, while allowing other demo day agenda items to proceed on schedule.

Government Reply: The government will provide the new data, business rules, and processes to the contractors at the beginning of the day of the on-line demonstration.

Q128: Section: L-6.5.(b); Proposal Preparation Instructions; Proposal Content; Volume 2 Please confirm that Section 2 of Volume 2 (completed Section J, Attachment 10) is not considered part of the volume page limit.

Government Reply: Attachment 10 of Section J would be considered part of the Volume 2 page count.

Q129: Section: L-6.5.(b); Proposal Preparation Instructions; Proposal Content; Volume 2 Please confirm that Section 3 of Volume 2 (Exceptions to RFP terms and conditions) is not considered part of the volume page limit.

Government Reply: Any exceptions to the RFP terms and conditions would be considered part of the Volume 2 page count.