NWC RFI - DRAFT - PWS for NWC AV Support-Maintenance 70FA3125I00000003_ 12.9.2024.pdf

DRAFT – PWS

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

National Watch Center (NWC)

National-Level Watch Center Audio-Visual Support

(RFI) 70FA3125I00000003

12/9/2024

Introduction:

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) National Watch Center (NWC) oversees a contract that provides service and technical support, maintenance, and more to the audio-visual systems within the agency’s watch centers, liaison offices within five partner agency locations, and response coordination centers (18 sites. The agency is interested in developing an improved contract that provides comparable services while also allowing for additional funding to go onto the contract to purchase audio-visual (AV) components when existing equipment is no longer able to be serviced or repaired and when these types of outages result in reduced operational capabilities.

Purpose:

The purpose of this RFI is inform both industry and the government on the development of an improved audio visual (AV) support contract that better meets FEMA needs to support the agency’s watch centers.

FEMA’s existing contract for this effort supports 28 locations, which are in 18 geographically separated locations around the U.S. A new contract may or may not support the agency’s 10 Regional Response Coordination Centers (RRCCs) and 1 National Response Coordination Center (NRCC), though remaining sites would still be spread over the same geographic area, with or without the RRCCs and NRCC.

Background:

FEMA coordinates the Federal Government's role in all presidentially declared Emergencies and Major Disasters, whether natural or human-caused, including acts of terror. To accomplish this mission, FEMA maintains 24-hour situational awareness through the FEMA Watch program. The program provides situational awareness that enables leadership at all levels to make informed decisions whether to activate incident support/management personnel and provides continual monitoring of incidents during activations.

This FEMA Watch capability is supported by multiple offices working in concert to support a common mission. Elements that support the Watch capability each fulfill unique responsibilities, operate under distinct authorities, and provide specialized capabilities, but are charged with providing for a common mission, maintaining awareness of potential and occurring incidents, conducting analysis to identify potential threats and determine impacts, notifying appropriate stakeholders of incident activity, and disseminating reports, particularly during the initial stages of incidents.

The combined group of watch centers, liaison offices, and response coordination centers includes:

The National Response Coordination Center (NRCC), National Watch Center (NWC), Regional Response Coordination Centers (RRCC), Regional Watch Centers (RWC) to include five MERS Operations Centers (MOC) performing watch support, and liaison offices (only the liaison spaces, not the entire NOAA Centers) located with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric

Administration (NOAA) Centers of Excellence, to include the National Hurricane Center (NHC), Storm Prediction Center (SPC), National Water Center (WC), Weather Prediction Center (WPC), and Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC).

Individually and collaboratively with each other, these operational centers facilitate domestic incident management and rely on regularly scheduled briefings, video teleconferences (VTCs), audio teleconferences (ATCs), and various audio/video informational feeds as a primary means of information sharing and operational coordination before, during, and after disaster operations.

Each of these sites use high-end audio, visual, and video teleconferencing equipment and services to support FEMAs response program.

Scope:

The scope of the contract we are seeking is to provide information technology and audio-visual (IT/AV) maintenance support, procurement, installation, replacement of components that are no longer serviceable, and warranty support to designated watch centers. This includes but is not limited to equipment/components, hardware, software, connectivity, cabling, programming, removal of old equipment from workspaces, packaging and shipping of components, and labor services for all systems to be maintained by this task order with intent to meet baseline standards and with consideration for the unique aspects of each regional watch.

History (why we want to improve and recompete this contract):

FEMAs National Watch Center (NWC) currently leads what is referred to as the ‘National Maintenance Contract’ (NMC) since 2016. The NMC has been recompeted over the years but has had very little change. When the contract began, most of FEMAs watch centers were relatively new and much of the equipment was warrantied. Over the years and particularly as warrantees have expired, most watch centers have realized increasing failures of system components, often not covered by warranties, which are increasingly not repairable. The current NMC does not allow the agency to fund the contract for purchase of components.

The critical need the agency has is twofold: first to continue to provide a prompt service (call center, trouble shooting, maintenance, repair, warranty facilitation, etc. and also replace unserviceable equipment. Second, and the significant difference, will be FEMAs ability to add funding to the contract in the event that an equipment component is unserviceable and the only solution to restoring watch center capabilities is to replace the part(s).

Without the ability to do add funds and purchase necessary components, the agency’s only option equipment is to do individual contracts actions. The challenge to this for our critical 24/7 watch centers is the typically long delay from identifying the need to completing a repair/replacement due to the lengthy (months-long) acquisition process each time. During these long periods, the watch centers may have limited capabilities. The ability to add funds to the contract and having the vendor for this contract purchase and replace the unserviceable system components will enable watch centers to become fully mission capable again in days or weeks versus months.

Additional Points:

Each location to be supported by a new contract is required have consistent capabilities that enable the identification of all hazard threats at all times and be capable of response operations associated with a broad range of hazards, incidents, and events. The capabilities to be maintained must position these watch centers to respond at every possible opportunity. Any and all replacement equipment for these locations will conform to FEMA standards for approved hardware systems.

Period of Performance The Period of Performance for a new contract would be a 1-year base, with an additional 4 option years.

• Option Period 1: 12 months

• Option Period 2: 12 months

• Option Period 3: 12 months

• Option Period 4: 12 months

Place of Performance The current contract supports watch centers (11), watch center liaison offices located within NOAA facilities (5), and RRCCs (10). All-together, these sites are located in 14 states and the District of Columbia. A new contract may exclude the 10 RRCCs, however the remaining sites to be supported would still be found in the same locations as RRCCs and watch centers reside at the same FEMA regional office.

FEMA and NOAA sites within the scope of this contract (award may not include NRCC/RRCCs)

HQ

National Watch Center (NWC) 500 C St. SW, Washington, DC

National Response Coordination Center (NRCC) 500 C St. SW, Washington, DC

Region 1 Maynard MOC 65 Old Marlboro Road, Maynard, Massachusetts 01754

Regional Response Coordination Center (RRCC) 63 Old Marlboro Road, Maynard, Massachusetts 01754

Region 2 Regional Watch Center (RWC) 26 Federal Plaza, Suite 1802, New York, NY 10278

Regional Response Coordination Center (RRCC) 201 Route 34 South, Colts Neck, New Jersey 07722

Region 3

Regional Watch Center (RWC) 615 Chestnut Street, 6th Floor, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106

Regional Response Coordination Center (RRCC) 615 Chestnut Street, 6th Floor, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106

Weather Prediction Center (WPC) 5380 University Research Ct, College Park, MD 20740

Region 4

Regional Watch Center (RWC) 3005 Chamblee Tucker Rd, Atlanta, Georgia 30341

Regional Response Coordination Center (RRCC) 3005 Chamblee Tucker Rd, Atlanta, Georgia 30341

Thomasville MOC 434 S. Pinetree Blvd, Thomasville, GA 31792

National Hurricane Center (NHC) 11691 SW 17th St, Miami, FL, 33165

National Water Center (WC) 205 Hackberry Ln, Tuscaloosa, AL 35401

Region 5 Regional Watch Center (RWC) 536 S Clark Street, 6th floor, Chicago, Illinois 60605

Regional Response Coordination Center (RRCC) 536 S Clark Street, 6th floor, Chicago, Illinois 60605

Region 6

Denton MOC 800 N Loop 288, Federal Regional Center, Denton, Texas 76201

Regional Response Coordination Center (RRCC) 800 N Loop 288, Federal Regional Center, Denton, Texas 76201

Storm Prediction Center (SPC) 120 David L. Boren Blvd. suite 2300 Norman, OK 73072

Region 7 Regional Watch Center (RWC) 11224 Holmes Road, Kansas City, Missouri 64131

Regional Response Coordination Center (RRCC) 11224 Holmes Road, Kansas City, Missouri 64131

Region 8

Denver MOC Denver Federal Center, Building 710a, Lakewood, Colorado 80225

Regional Response Coordination Center (RRCC) Denver Federal Center, Building 710, Lakewood, Colorado 80225

Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305

Region 9 Regional Watch Center (RWC) 1111 Broadway Suite 1200, Oakland, California 94607

Regional Response Coordination Center (RRCC) 1111 Broadway Suite 1200, Oakland, California 94607

Region

Bothell MOC 200 228th St SW, Bothell, Washington 98021

Regional Response Coordination Center (RRCC) 130 228th St SW, Bothell, Washington 98021

Classified Space Considerations Some watch centers or spaces within some watch centers are unclassified, many watch centers or spaces within many are at the secret classification level, and a few spaces are classified as top secret. All work associate with the maintenance contract is to be complete at the unclassified level, however, work may be accomplished in secure spaces as required and authorized, though there may be times that operations would prevent uncleared personnel to enter a classified space. The following are examples of current requirements that FEMA may include in a new contract:

• Contractor personnel will be required to pass appropriate background investigation and obtain a DHS security clearance to enable badging and systems account creation as required. Contractor personnel will be required to sign a DHS FEMA Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) prior to commencing work as applicable.

• Contractor shall safeguard any sensitive information they encounter.

• The Contractor must comply with the provisions of Department of Homeland Security MD 4300.

All equipment, software, and services must comply with DHS, FEMA IT, and the Office of IT Security standards.

FEMA Region Map

Technology/Equipment Compliance All developed solutions and requirements shall be compliant with the FEMA Enterprise Architecture (EA).

All IT hardware and software shall be compliant with the FEMA EA technical Reference Model (TRM) Standards and Products Profile

Trouble-tickets, Warrant Process, and Preventative Maintenance We are seeking similar service response to what we currently have in a new contract. Each RWC, MOC, RRCC and NOAA Center in the scope of this contract must have an identified trouble-ticket process with prompt responses for the duration of this contract (initial year and four option years). Examples of what the coverage should include are as follows:

• Assigned Field service technicians trained on the covered system with trained back-ups on standby.

• A call center for initial reporting of issues, dispatching of technicians, parts procurement, and service tracking.

• Preventive maintenance checks & services performed by factory trained Field service technicians (at least two per year per covered location)

• No charge for labor for equipment repairs performed on-site and, in the contractors Depot

Facilities

• Guaranteed quick response (we would like to continue with what we currently have, a 2-hour phone response and 8-hour emergency on-site response)

• Service and support provided primarily during normal working hours (M-F 8:00AM – 5:00PM) with a clear justification for after-hours or weekend support if necessary to support operations for the 24/7 watch centers.

• No charge for transportation of equipment to and from the contractor’s facility as required to effect in-shop repair of covered equipment.

• No charge for installation of firmware and software up-grades on system components

• No charge for updates and upgrades to the uncompiled source code or to maintain copies of code; Inventory and storage of all source code for applicable systems, compiled and uncompiled.

• Unlimited phone support

• Consultation on system up-grades

• Detailed inventories of covered equipment

Future watch center relocations:

FEMA Region 5 is currently relocating their RRCC from downtown Chicago to Aurora. If a new contract continues to support RRCCs, that separate location (approx. a few hours’ drive from the regional office) would need to be considered, though it would be newly built out and would likely have all new equipment and components, mostly under warranty.

Meetings, Update, and Reporting:

FEMA will expect the vendor to attend a post-award conference (virtual or in-person) with two weeks of contract award. This will provide the forum to discuss technical and contracting objectives and provide for a questions & answers session for both the government and the vendor.

FEMA will expect the vendor to conduct periodic preventative maintenance inspections and provide reports on the findings for each location. The vendor must also provide the COR a monthly status report throughout the life of the contract and to meet on a recurring basis for conversation (virtual meetings weekly/bi-weekly/as-needed).

Additional Services:

FEMA will expect the vendor to provide equipment assessments, pricing, recommendations, etc. to support market research on potential projects. This does not come up often. An example of this would be when new equipment is needed for a watch center and an assessment will aid FEMA in ensuring the right equipment for the application is considered and priced accurately to support FEMA’s budgeting, planning, and etc.

Watch Center Refreshing:

Each fiscal year, the NWC expects to receive funding for at least one watch center refresh (upgrade of all or some of the covered AV system components). Some years the agency has not provided funding, while in some years, the agency has provided enough funds for more than one refresh. The following table will provide some insight to the watch centers’ last or scheduled refreshes, those with no comments have not been refreshed.

The significance of this is to provide some insight to offerors on the condition of FEMAs watch centers, based on the life-expectancy of equipment and identifying when last upgrades were complete, those that are in-process (funded and scheduled), and those that are planned. Refreshed equipment will typically have a warranty period and will typically have less trouble-ticket submissions.

Refresh Details (RWC/MOC/RRCC)

Site/Location FY Notes/Comments

R I MOC (Maynard) TBD

RRCC TBD

R II

RWC (NY-Brooklyn) 2021 Full refresh (site relocated)

RRCC (Earle) TBD

R III

RWC 2018 Core refresh

RWC Pending 2025 Refresh planning underway

RRCC TBD

NRCC (HQ) 2023-24 Full Refresh

NWC (HQ) Room 200E 2020 Full Refresh

NWC (HQ) Room 200G 2022 Full Refresh

WPC (College Park) TBD

R IV

RWC 2020 Full refresh (site relocated)

RRCC 2020 Full refresh (site relocated)

NHC (Miami) 2023 Refreshed Apr FY24

WC (Tuscaloosa) TBD

MOC (Tville) 2024 Video wall only

R V RWC 2019 Core refresh

RRCC 2024 Relocating to new site, everything new

R VI

RWC TBD Refresh scheduled for late FY25 install

MOC (Denton) 2022 Crestron system Refresh

RRCC 2025 Pending 2025 Refresh planning underway

SPC (Norman) TBD

R VII

RWC 2018 Full refresh (site relocated)

RRCC 2018 Full refresh (site relocated)

R VIII

MOC (Denver) 2024 Pending refresh installation for Feb 2025

RRCC TBD

SWPC (Boulder) TBD

R IX

RWC 2025 Pending refresh installation for mid-2025

RRCC TBD

X MOC (Bothell) TBD

RRCC 2024 Core refresh

Regional Facility Definitions (for reference):

Mobile Emergency Response Support (MERS) Operations Center (MOC): The MOC serves as a hub for FEMA response support operations. MOCs receive, process, manage, and disseminate critical information to field elements and deployed MERS Coordinators. MOCs monitor national, regional, and local news and weather stations for information about potential incidents and provide seamless reporting and situational awareness to leadership at all levels of government.

Regional Response Coordination Center (RRCC): A standing multiagency center that FEMA operates in each of the 10 regional offices. RRCCs are staffed by Regional Response Coordination Staffs (RRCS) and are the primary situational awareness and coordination centers for support to FEMA's incident management at the Unified Coordination Group level. The RRCCs are the focal point for regional resource coordination.

Regional Watch Center (RWC): The RWCs maintain a 24-hour regional situational awareness to conduct analysis, determine possible impacts, and identify potential and occurring incidents within their respective areas of responsibility.

Previous Evaluation Process (may be changed prior to issuance of solicitation):

The vendors competing for this contract will be assessed on their ability to successfully perform the requirements of the contract based on staffing (qualified workforce), past performance measures, materials (authorized equipment and best solutions), and price (cost to the government.

• Factor 1: Work Plan (may be developed after award in coordination with FEMA COR) & Proposed Personnel o Demonstrated ability to provide staffing necessary to accomplish the tasks outlined in the Statement of Work, to include the minimum amount of time it takes to deploy personnel fit (qualified/experienced) to perform and the hiring and recruitment process.

o Demonstrate a clear understanding of the requirements of this effort and fully describe the proposed solution to achieve requirements and address the technical approach and methodology (at minimum, functions and disciplines involved for each objective, skill levels, quantity of resources, and methods of operation).

o Demonstrate that technicians will be in proximity to respond to identified places of performance withing required time frames.

o Demonstrate capability to provide call center and technician dispatch support.

• Factor 2: Project Management Plan & Oversight o Demonstrate project management and oversight capability, a plan to manage vendor workforce, seeking to minimize FEMAs supervision.

o Demonstrate ability to direct and control the operation of this requirement both programmatically and on a daily basis in an efficient and cost-effective manner.

o Detail the qualifications of the proposed Project Manager to include how risk will be managed, identified, and mitigated.

o Describe in detail how any subcontracted work will be managed and integrated to ensure efficient and effective services are provided.

• Factor 3: Quality Control Plan o Offeror’s ability to propose and execute a quality control plan, whereby the contractor manages and monitors the process and takes the appropriate corrective action to correct performance to meet program objectives.

o The plan shall discuss the offeror’s policies and procedures to ensure compliance with the contract requirements and its methods of documenting and enforcing quality control procedures of both the prime contractor and subcontractors.

• Factor 4: Prior Experience/Past Performance o The Government will consider the relevance of prior experience information obtained in relation to similar complexity and magnitude, considering such factors as similar size, scope, and complexity completed by the vendor.

o Identify three any contracts similar complexity and magnitude (preferably as the Prime Contractor) with the federal government, agencies of state and local governments, and commercial customers or private sector clients completed in the last three (3) years or currently in process.

▪ The following information shall be provided for each referenced contract:

1. Contract Title

2. Contract Number

3. Government Agency/Organization

4. Total Contract Price/Costs

5. Contract Completion Date

6. Contract Type

7. Description of the Contract

8. Brief discussion of how the work performed is relevant to this solicitation.

9. Contracting Officer’s/Client’s name, address, telephone number and email address o The Government will consider the above information, as well as information obtained from any other sources, when evaluating an offeror’s past performance.

o CPARS ratings for the Quality, Cost, Schedule, and Management factors will be utilized.

o The Government’s knowledge of Offeror’s past performance of recent contracts (within the last 3 years) may be utilized.

o The past performance evaluation will assess the offeror’s record of relevant (similar in complexity and magnitude of this procurement, considering such factors as similar size, scope, and complexity) and recent work for government and commercial customers or private sector clients.

o Offerors with no recent or relevant past performance will be assigned a rating of neutral for this factor.

Questions and specific information requests:

Please answers to the following in your response:

1. Company name and Unique Entity Identifier, as registered in www.sam.gov

2. Provide a point-of-contact name, phone, address, and email:

3. Provide your business size for the NAICS codes of 541612 and 541619:

4. What strategic sourcing vehicles (SSVs), government-wide acquisition contracts (GWACs), indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQs) contracts, or other contract vehicles are you a part of that are relevant to our requirement?

5. Can your company provide this solution on your own or would you partner/subcontract with another company? Do you have an existing relationship in place, or would you need to establish this with a potential partner/subcontract?

6. Have you provided similar services of similar scope and across a similarly wide-ranging geographic area? Please reference above for geographic details.

7. This contract will require the vendor to have a Call Center for a single point of initial contact for supported sites to request technical support by phone, email, or both and for dispatch of a designated and qualified technician (requirements shown above). Staffing the call center 24/7 is not a requirement but an initial phone response and emergency 8-hour response (for the loss of mission essential/critical capabilities) should be included. Provide a brief description of your organizations experience staffing and maintaining a call center.

8. Included above is the previous evaluation strategy, our team is planning on revisiting the strategy and changes may occur prior to release of a final solicitation. How does your company want to be evaluated for this requirement? Do you have any recommendations for evaluation criteria we should consider including for the new solicitation or removing from the previous process?

9. One of two key aspects of a new contract is to allow for FEMA to fund the contract to have the contractor directly install a replacement equipment item or component if that is the only solution to restore capabilities (non-working part is deemed to be unserviceable). This scope was not previously included. Please see the 'scope' and 'history' sections above for details. Provide a brief description of your organizations experience with installing and integrating AV components within existing systems.

10. Please include any comments, questions, or suggestions related to the above draft requirements.

11. Do you have any concerns about this requirement, which if not addressed, may adversely impact your decision to bid on this requirement?

http://www.sam.gov/