Product_Origin_Supply_Chain_Intelligence_RFI.pdf

U.S. ABILITYONE COMMISSION | REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

MARKET RESEARCH ONLY - NOT A SOLICITATION | Page 1

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI)

Product-Origin and Supply-Chain Intelligence Pilot

RFI NOTICE. This RFI is for market research and acquisition planning only. It is not a solicitation, offer, or commitment to award. Responses will inform requirement development, competition, pricing, performance standards, and potential acquisition strategy. Respondents are not reimbursed for response costs.

1. Purpose and Government Need The U.S. AbilityOne Commission seeks market information on established services that can provide independent product-origin and supply-chain intelligence. The core need is to augment existing Program data by identifying external manufacturer, supplier, foreign-sourcing, and import information and credibly correlating that evidence to specific AbilityOne products.

The contemplated pilot is a bounded external-intelligence and risk-identification exercise. It should produce incremental, decision-relevant information without recreating routine Commission, CNA, or NPA processes and without substituting for final Government legal or compliance determinations.

2. Required Pilot Outcomes

• Discovery: Identify material manufacturer, supplier, sourcing, or import information not present in the Government baseline.

• Product correlation: Tie external evidence to the specific AbilityOne product, not merely to an NPA, distributor, importer, or company.

• Actionability: Produce evidence-supported risk indicators that enable the Government to determine whether additional documentation or follow-up is warranted.

• Traceability: Provide source provenance, analytical rationale, confidence, and evidence gaps for each material finding.

• Portability: Deliver findings and supporting metadata in an exportable, machine-readable format usable without continued access to a proprietary interface.

3. Core Capability Requirements

• Identify manufacturer of record, underlying manufacturer relationships, suppliers, distributors, private-label relationships, foreign manufacturers, and relevant third parties where reasonably supportable.

• Identify relevant importers, shippers, import transactions, and other foreign-sourcing indicators.

• Correlate manufacturer, supplier, sourcing, and import evidence to individual products or product families using available identifiers and descriptive data.

• Compare external evidence with reported country-of-origin (COO) or domestic-origin information and identify material inconsistencies.

• Assign defined confidence levels, document inconclusive results/evidence gaps, and recommend a

Government follow-up category without conducting the downstream investigation.

• Return product-level findings, evidence references, confidence metadata, and data definitions in a reusable machine-readable format.

MARKET RESEARCH ONLY - NOT A SOLICITATION | Page 2

4. Scope Boundary The core pilot should not include final COO/BAA/TAA/FTC Made in USA determinations; population-wide determinations; substantial-transformation or bill-of-materials origin analysis; direct supplier/manufacturer verification; new NPA/manufacturer questionnaires; site visits; general NPA compliance assessments; routine PLIMS/Procurement List administration; creation of a new enterprise compliance dashboard; or remediation/deeper investigation after a product is flagged. Government-authorized follow-up would be separate.

5. Government-Furnished Baseline and Validation The Government expects to furnish available baseline data so the provider is not asked to recreate standard Program information, including NPA/CNA association; NSN/AbilityOne identifier; SKU; UPC/GTIN and other available identifiers; product name/description; brand/co-brand; reported COO; available manufacturer information; and relevant product documentation.

The sample may span product categories and manufacturer clusters and may include control cases with reliable ground truth. Respondents should identify minimum data requirements, explain how incomplete data affects price/confidence, and state whether blind control cases can be supported to test discovery, correlation, and false-positive/false-negative risk.

6. Minimum Performance Expectations

Objective Draft Minimum Standard External discovery

Each reviewed product receives a documented result or an explanation that sufficient external evidence was not found.

Product correlation

100% of material findings include explicit product-correlation rationale and confidence level.

Evidence traceability

100% of material risk indicators include source provenance and evidence references sufficient for Government review.

Completeness / usability

At least 98% completion of mandatory fields (excluding documented source unavailability) and at least 90% first-pass acceptance without material correction.

Timeliness 100% of agreed milestones met, subject to documented Government-caused delay.

Data portability

100% of final findings delivered in the agreed machine-readable format with supporting metadata.

7. Industry Response Requested To support the Commission’s market research and minimize industry burden, respondents should address the following items as directly as possible. Responses should focus on capabilities available today or through an established commercial service.

1. Capability: Describe how your solution identifies manufacturer, supplier, foreign-sourcing, and import information and correlates it to specific products.

2. Method: Identify principal data sources, analytical methods, and minimum Government-furnished data required.

3. Confidence: Explain how confidence levels, evidence gaps, and source provenance are documented.

4. Validation: Describe how you would support Government-selected control cases and measure false-positive/false-negative risk.

5. Pilot and Pricing: Propose a minimum viable pilot, schedule, product coverage, ROM pricing, and relevant volume or reuse efficiencies.

6. Deliverables and Data Rights: Describe machine-readable outputs, supporting metadata, and any restrictions on Government retention or use.

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7. Security and Accessibility: Summarize applicable security/privacy controls and Section 508/ACR- VPAT status, if applicable.

8. Experience and Business Information: Provide relevant experience, UEI, business size/status, NAICS recommendations, contract vehicles, and acquisition feedback.

8. Pricing and Commercial Model Provide ROM pricing for a minimum viable pilot and scalable options. Clearly identify product/product-family coverage, review depth, unit economics, reuse efficiencies across related products, incremental pricing for deeper review, platform/data/licensing costs, one-time versus recurring charges, commercial pricing model, minimum commitments/renewals, and optional investigative services. The Government has not established a target price or funding commitment through this RFI.

9. Response Instructions and Acquisition Basis Responses should be concise and not exceed 10 pages, excluding a cover page and optional commercial literature/price sheet. Do not submit classified information. Mark proprietary information appropriately.

Participation is voluntary and does not affect eligibility for any future acquisition. This RFI supports FAR Part 10 market research and FAR 15.201 early exchanges; any future acquisition, if pursued, would be separately authorized and may use performance-based methods consistent with FAR 37.102 and Subpart 37.6.