Task Order 2 for IPVFB-Rev 1-20-12.doc

Attachment F

Solicitation No. PBGC01-RP-11-0019

Sample Task Order 2

Task Order 2: O&M Services and Enhancement of Actuarial Expert Systems

Performance Work Statement

1.0 Purpose

The Purpose of this Performance Work Statement is to establish a task order as part of the Actuarial Expertise and Systems Support contract vehicle to obtain Steady State / Operations & Maintenance and Enhancement support for existing Actuarial Systems that support the development, operation and evaluation of PBGC’s Integrated Present Value of Future Benefits (IPVFB) application and related tasks.

2.0 Scope of Work

For over 15 years PBGC has used an application called IPVFB to calculate the present value of future benefits (PVFB). The IPVFB system values eligible pension plans using seriatim (individual participant) data from the PBGC payment database. PBGC values the remaining pension plans at the pension plan level using a non-seriatim database maintained by actuaries within ASD. The IPVFB system combines the pension plan valuations to obtain PBGC's total liability for the PVFB. The IPVFB is currently a Windows, LAN-based system using Windows 2003 whose component computer programs are written in FORTRAN, C++, Oracle Stored Procedures, Visual Basic, and Crystal Reports. (PBGC expects to change the computer environment of the system over the course of the next few years to more modern languages (e.g., Java)).

PBGC currently calculates the PVFB each fiscal year as of four dates: December 31, March 31, June 30, and September 30. The September 30 valuation is the most important of the four, because it is the fiscal year-end valuation. The December 31 valuation is not as extensive as the other valuations. PBGC conducts all valuations under strict and often demanding schedules (including weekends) which PBGC must meet. The calculation of the PVFB includes the use of actuarial knowledge, PBGC’s IPVFB Application and any other information and/or data required to properly calculate the PVFB.

The contractor shall provide information technology expertise as needed in support of the Actuarial Expertise as required in Task Order 1.

PBGC will use this task order obtain Steady State / Operations & Maintenance and Enhancement support to existing Actuarial expert systems that support the development, operation and valuation of PBGC’s PVFB. Also, the contractor may be asked to provide support for actuarial studies and related special projects that will enhance the accuracy, reliability, or auditability of the PVFB process, and other such efforts.

The services described below relate to the calculation of the PVFB. In what follows, the term PVFB shall mean the present value of future benefits and expenses for PBGC's Single-Employer and Multiemployer Programs and the present value of nonrecoverable future financial assistance for PBGC's Multiemployer Program.

Examples of such support are:

a. giving ongoing expert advice to users on all areas of the IPVFB system, its operation, and its capabilities;

b. leading the effort to analyze, prioritize and conduct meetings to determine system enhancements;

c. maintaining a "problem log" of reported IPVFB problems. The "problem log" is an up-to-date list of IPVFB system problems which have been reported to the contractor either by application users or by the contractor's own personnel;

d. determining the scope and cost (in time and dollars) of proposed enhancements or corrections to the existing IPVFB system;

e. making those enhancements or corrections to the IPVFB as requested and approved by the Subject Matter Expert (SME) according to an agreed upon schedule;

f. providing regular progress reports (both oral and written) to management, weekly or as required.

g. developing and maintaining a Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) for IPVFB and participating in the COOP exercise.

Currently, there are two main IPVFB system documents:

a. IPVFB User Procedures Guide,

b. IPVFB Technical Reference Guide.

PBGC will provide these documents electronically upon request. The contractor shall:

a. become familiar with the structure and content of the IPVFB documentation;

b. determine the scope and cost (in time and dollars) of proposed enhancements or corrections to the documentation;

c. make approved enhancements or corrections to the documentation according to an agreed upon schedule;

d. Provide regular progress reports (both oral and written) to management, weekly or as required.

3.0 Performance Measures

TBD

PBGC will use the agreed upon performance measures to evaluate the contractor’s performance in meeting the scope and objectives of the task order.

4.0 Period of Performance

The Period of Performance will be for 1 year from the contract start date.

5.0 Operations Support

In order to maintain the IPVFB application in production and provide user support, the contractor shall do the following in order to meet the customer’s needs and the organization’s goals and objectives to provide timely, accurate and responsive customer service.

1. Respond to and resolve operational problems and Service Desk tickets assigned to the IPVFB team. Contact users and provide technical assistance to ensure issues are resolved timely. Effectively communicate with the users to provide the status of the open issues.

2. Provide Service Desk support, follow OIT Service Management, Incident and Problem

Management processes (using HP Service Manager Incident Queue or any future tools), and participate in root cause analysis in order to resolve production and user support issues. The Service Desk is the single point of contact for the PBGC users on a day-to-day basis. The Service Desk has the total ownership of the incident reported by users; therefore it is the obligation of the Service Desk to inform users of the status of incidents.

3. Conduct analysis of problems reported by users. Recommend business, functional and/or technical improvements for the affected systems and business processes, including the addition of business and technical features to existing software. Provide alternative solutions to improve the related processes and assist in exploring possibilities of using new features, functions and modules.

4. Develop, run and evaluate ad-hoc reports to ensure the reports meet the business and sponsoring organizations requirements.

5. Effectively respond to questions about the IPVFB system outages and errors. Resolve technical issues with Information Technology Infrastructure Operations (ITIO), production Oracle Database Administrators (DBA’s), network support, other PBGC teams, other systems and databases such as Genesis.

6. Monitor stored procedures; preset automated jobs, and other executables that are run periodically in production to support operations.

7. Enhance controls to ensure complete and correct processing of periodic jobs.

8. Conduct analysis of problems reported by user and recommend business, functional and technical improvements for the affected systems and business processes in order to ensure the IPVFB application is providing the greatest benefit to users.

9. Provide support to ITIO to resolve application production issues.

10. Provide alternative solutions to improve the related processes and assist in exploring possibilities of using new features, functions and modules that will increase operational efficiency of the IPVFB application and reduce complexity of applications without introducing workarounds.

11. Prepare recommendations for training based on any operational changes.

12. Maintain and update operation procedures, operations guide, and supporting documentation to reflect revisions and corrections of errors to the IPVFB application.

13. Support system administration duties as needed.

14. Support application and system audits from external and internal auditors.

15. Participate in corporate-wide IT initiatives such as Security Plan Updates and assist with the application’s security certification and accreditation related tests.

16. Provide after-hours and weekend support to users/stakeholders as requested by PBGC during quarterly processing and other critical times.

17. Provide technical assistance to PBGC as needed. Examples include, but are not limited to, migration of applications to future versions of software, database and operating systems on servers.

18. Retire applications. The contractor may propose processes, and methods for retiring and archiving applications, as long as they do not conflict with the current PBGC and BAPD guidelines and are approved by the COTR.

19. Plan and Participate in Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) testing for the IPVFB applications; develop COOP testing scenarios; work with users and COOP team to execute COOP tests and document results. Contractor shall identify key resources to ensure COOP, in case of COOP incident and shall ship the necessary resources to COOP location.

20. Support activities for transitioning applications from/to other teams.

21. Support other PBGC teams responding to questions related to the IPVFB application, and conducting analysis of issues that affect continuing operations.

22. Provide other production support as needed.

6.0 Maintenance Support

Maintenance support enables systems to operate according to the most recent set of approved requirements and does not change functionality, features or capability of the existing applications. The timing of maintenance requests are generally predictable; however, the nature of the request may not be as predictable. In order to respond to requests and changes that impact the IPVFB application, the contractor shall perform the following:

1. Perform and complete project initiation, planning, analysis, design, development and testing and implement any approved changes to the existing IPVFB application in compliance with the Information Technology System Life Cycle Methodology (ITSLCM) or any future methodology.

2. Schedule and coordinate the maintenance releases with the appropriate teams and deliver the releases on time and within budget.

3. Deploy quality maintenance software releases in production and minimize downtime in production due to quality issues.

4. Analyze and evaluate software problems to perform corrections/minor changes (e.g., data fixes) to support applications users. Validate the corrections, minor changes and enhancements identified, define the requirements, design the correction, analyze the impact of the correction on the application, test the corrected application, analyze and evaluate the test results for the corrected application, and then implement the corrected application according to an approved plan.

5. Conduct appropriate system testing types for projects (e.g., unit testing, parallel testing, regression testing, end-to-end testing, integration testing, performance testing, load testing, functionality testing) to ensure the quality of releases. The contractor may be required to use automated testing tools.

6. Deploy all software changes through releases according to established PBGC Software

Configuration Management Procedures and Change and Release Management Policy, Processes and Procedures and PBGC security policies to ensure the agency standards are accurately captured and incorporated into the releases.

7. Coordinate maintenance support efforts and implement maintenance changes with OIT and other impacted systems to ensure the smooth deployment of the application. Support includes obtaining and understanding relevant technical information including installation instructions, release notes, file listings, known problems document, data dictionary changes and support policy guidelines.

8. Maintain, coordinate and provide technical assistance and support for the testing and upgrading of all standard software with the Testing Center Operation (TCO) group and in all environment location instances including the Common Development Environment – Team Specific (CDE-T), Common Development Environment – Integrated (CDE-I), Integration Testing Center (ITC) and alternative sites (to support COOP).

9. Continuously evaluate emerging technology for applicability to the IPVFB application and provide system improvement recommendations for new technology initiatives. Maintain and modify the IPVFB application to meet new technical requirements, including end of life service. Reduce complexity of applications without introducing workarounds.

10. Conduct an impact analysis when a new software version adds new or modified functionality or when any current version that is being used must adapt to a new operating system or server environment.

11. Provide technical assistance to migrate the IPVFB application, database and operating systems on servers to future software versions.

12. Provide comprehensive analytical support to determine new requirements for existing IPVFB application software. Implement and maintain processes for proactively researching, identifying and recommending new technologies. Implement capabilities that will eliminate duplication, increase organizational efficiency, improve customer satisfaction and capitalize on industry best practices.

13. Conduct technical and functional reviews of the latest application releases and provide technical and functional support to areas such as OIT and BAPD staff in maintaining the IPVFB application.

14. Effectively coordinate the notification of the deployment of maintenance releases to users, stakeholders, Service Desk, COTR, and other impacted parties in a timely manner in order to provide impacted parties time to prepare for the release.

15. Develop and publish Release Notes for each maintenance release so that users understand the changes that were made to the release.

16. Propose/Recommend processes and methods for retiring and archiving existing legacy application applications to eliminate redundant system functionality in production.

17. Maintain and update the information, instructions and technical requirements targeted to software developers (e.g., schemas), and troubleshoot software-related issues that develop.

18. Provide after-hours and weekend support to users/stakeholders as requested by PBGC during quarterly processing and other critical times.

19. Comply with PBGC’s ITSLCM and EA guidelines to maintain and support IPVFB application and related systems.

20. Present defects at the periodic status meetings, with COTR and business representatives, to prioritize and decide on releases and schedules. The contractor’s Serena PVCS Tracker and Version Manager repository shall be audited at any given time. Results of the audit may require the contractor to fix deficiencies in their repository in a given time frame.

PBGC Ver. 1.0