RFI Pricing and Cost Managment Software.docx

Request for Information (RFI) is in support of the current PWC To-Be Pricing Study for the Office of Supply Operations (SO), General Supplies and Services, under contract GS-10F-0466N.

Synopsis of Information Sought

GSA is interested in obtaining market research information on pricing and cost management software options to provide flexible commercial software support to the GSA Global Supply end-to-end supply chain service program, as more fully described below.

Background Information on the Office of Supply Operations, General Supplies and Services

The U.S. General Services Administration, Office of General Supplies and Services’ (GSS), Office of Supply Operations (SO), under the Global Supply brand, provides end-to-end supply chain services for a broad array of products to Federal agencies, making the purchase of general supplies an easy process while allowing Federal agencies more time to focus on their own mission. GSS adds value to the Federal government purchasing process by providing full-service offerings—sourcing, contracting, inventory management, delivery, returns, and vendor management—with flexible ordering and payment options.

The SO is a $1.5B business line that provides consumer packaged goods, office supplies, hardware, and other products to US Federal civilian agency and military customers world-wide, as well as state, and local governments on a limited basis. SO satisfies customer orders through multiple ordering channels such as web shopping, system-to-system requisitions, store sales, and phone/fax. In addition to its on-line ordering service, SO operates three acquisition centers, two main distribution centers, three call centers, and 32 retail stores world-wide. Customer orders are fulfilled using various methods including distribution center shipments, direct vendor shipments, walk-in/walk-out sales, and special orders. The Department of Defense is SO’s largest customer, representing over 84% of Global Supply sales. Federal customers, and to a limited extent, state, and local governments, make up the remainder of the customer base. SO supports the full range of Government operations including normal day-to-day operations, contingency operations, and emergency operations (e.g., wild land fire suppression and disaster response).

Retail Store Information:

· 32 retail stores, world-wide that support US Government and military customers

· The stores normally include walk-in/walk-out and referral sales. Most stores have inventory on shelves, but some are referral only. Most stores contain GSA-owned inventory, but several stores contain majority vendor managed inventory. Some stores ship to local customers

· $186M in sales

· 1.6M transactions

· $40M in inventory (includes store inventory and forward positioned stock at Strategic Inventory Partnerships). Does not include vendor managed inventory

Distribution Center Information:

· Approximately $150M in inventory at the distribution centers

· Approximately 5,000 items in stock (at each distribution center)

· Approximately $740M in sales in FY10

· Approximately 2.9 million lines shipped per year between the distribution centers

A summary of SO’s business volume for fiscal year 2010 is contained below in Table 1:

TABLE 1. GSS Office of Supply Operations Business Volume for FY10 ($$ in 000's)

There are efforts underway to modernize the current IT support system for the entire supply chain, including the acquisition processes and the financial processes. GSA is in the process of re-architecting the legacy, custom-developed acquisition software around a services-oriented architecture. Concurrently, a new financial system, based upon a COTS package, CGI Federal’s Momentum, is being implemented. The GSS supply chain pricing and cost management software systems must interface with these applications.

The current GSS supply chain applications undergoing re-architecture include the core of the legacy IT environment supporting GSS supply chains consists of two mainframe systems: Federal Supply Schedule (FSS)-19 and Customer Supply Center (CSC). These COBOL software applications consist of multiple modules that support much of the supply chain functions enabling delivery of products to GSS customers. Developed over 20 years ago, the software architecture is outdated with a non-relational database, embedded business rules, batch processing, and few web-based interfaces. CSC, developed to support additional functionality not provided by FSS19, now has functionality that is redundant and some of its business rules are inconsistent with those of FSS-19.

Although these systems are outdated and lack functionality, they still provide the capability to exchange data with external, government-wide databases, such as the Central Contracting Register and Federal Procurement Data System–Next Generation, which are used in the acquisition processes. They also enable participation in the National Supply System, facilitating the cataloging of new NSNs and accepting electronic requisitions from DoD customers. However, many of these interfaces are batch, rather than real time, and use an outdated 80-character format, rather than industry standards, such as electronic data interchange (EDI) or extensible markup language (XML). Other federal agencies are modernizing their supply chain systems and adopting these newer protocols. As they do so, GSS’ systems will require updating to maintain these interfaces. In addition to updating their systems, GSS will also need to reengineer business rules and processes to leverage additional capabilities offered by the availability of new data via these interfaces.

Objective

SO is interested in obtaining market research information on pricing and cost management software options that provide flexible solutions for the Global Supply program. This information is for market research purposes only. SO is in the process of developing a new pricing strategy and it is imperative that SO understands what pricing software and cost management software options exist in the commercial marketplace in order to develop the GSA requirements.

This is a formal request to obtain information on software that can perform the following functionalities:

Cost Management

Flexibility to perform complex and simple cost drivers including many-to-one and one-to-many allocations (i.e., assign many resources to one distribution channel at aggregate or detailed level).

Support multiple types of drivers (e.g., evenly assigned, percentage, weighted, sequencing, bill-of-cost, sales volume and calculated drivers, units, direct one-to-one).

Maintain, adjust, and change cost allocation as desired (e.g., annually, semi-annually, weekly, or daily).

Ability to efficiently create and save actual, prior periods, develop new baseline/ actual projections or forecast based on new input assumptions. Ability to produce a shell/ template for next planning period.

Restrict functionality to the user based upon roles and profiles. Support different user access and edit rights to view and alter cost allocations.

Support documentation of all system actions/changes in an "audit trail log."

Extract, transform, and load existing cost data from multiple sources (e.g., financial systems, non-financial systems, business forecasting systems, legacy systems, other internal systems: DoD Defense Logistics Management System (DLMS), CRM and SCM systems).

Trace detailed cost flows (i.e., visually illustrate allocation assignments and flows in a wire diagram).

Perform dimensional margin analysis and calculate and report margin contributions by different business dimensions (e.g., item, item class, customer, or distribution channel).

Pricing Software

Set item-specific price limits to control variation.

Restrict functionality to the users based upon roles and profiles. Support different user access and edit rights to view and alter prices for goods.

Support approval and escalation process using workflow of what is being approved.

Support documentation of all system actions/changes in an "audit trail log."

Support Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) integration (e.g. integrate with business forecasting, legacy systems, and other internal systems such as DoD Defense Logistics Management System (DLMS) and Salesforce).

Adjust prices as desired (e.g., annually, semi-annually, weekly, or daily).

Process prices for goods with different unique identifiers (e.g. both National Stock Numbers (NSNs) and Part Numbers).

Support multiple currencies for processing transactions.

Support different types of services (e.g., Software as a Service (SaaS)).

Plan Outline:

A. The primary objective of this announcement is to obtain initial pertinent information including, but not limited to, brochures, technical information, briefs and any other relevant information from commercial vendors that illustrates the contractor’s software capability to meet all the cost and pricing functionalities listed above. Vendors are requested to provide three (3) copies of all submitted documentation and information. This RFI is for market research purposes only. No pricing data should be submitted in response to this RFI. This RFI is for market research purposes only to determine what commercial software capabilities are available as GSA updates its internal processes.

B. Following a review of the submitted documentation, GSA will identify vendors to be invited to present live demonstrations of software identified as feasible to meet the GSA future requirement. Vendors will be selected based on software capabilities alone. Where more than one vendor suggests the same software, only one vendor will be invited to demonstrate that software product. The ultimate goal of GSA is to understand what aspects of commercial software are most valuable to meet the GSA requirements through demonstrations of the vendor's software capabilities. It is anticipated that all demonstrations will be scheduled after October 1, 2011. This information will not be utilized in any form for evaluation purposes. This RFI is for market research purposes only. No pricing data should be submitted.

Once GSA further defines its requirement, which may be based in part on the software demonstrations resulting from the RFI, the requirement may be posted on GSA e-Buy or on fedbizopps.

Rules of Engagement

If selected for the demonstration, the follows rules will be in effect for all vendor demonstrations:

1. The number of presenters will be limited to no more than 3.

2. The demonstrations will take place in a secure facility in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia. Therefore, a Government escort will meet the vendor representatives at the entrance to assist the vendor in gaining access to the building. Vendors are cautioned to allow sufficient time to get through security and be ready to begin the demonstration at it appointed time.

3. Parking in the building requires a pass. Parking passes will not be issued. There are public parking garages in the Crystal City area as well as public transportation. The Crystal City Metro Station is within walking distance to the facility. The building may be easily accessed via the tunnel or from the street.

4. Copies of the demonstration materials must be provided to the Government attendees at the start of the demonstration. Ten (10) copies of these materials are required.

5. Demonstration will start and end on time according to the following schedule:

a. 15 minutes for preparation

b. 60 minutes for demonstrations

c. 15 minutes for government question development

d. 30 minutes Q@A

6. Vendor demonstrations shall not exceed 60 minutes. The government will monitor the time and will signal the half way point of the demonstration as well as when 5 minutes remains on the time limit.

7. If the demonstration does not fill the allocated time, the vendor representative should indicate that the demonstration is completed. The time will be documented and the group will move forward with next item on the schedule.

8. There will be no interruptions during the demonstration. Questions by the Government will be reserved for the Q&A session.

Responses Due Responses to this RFI including the information packets identifying software’s capabilities are due on October 20, 2011 by 5:00 P.M., Eastern Standard Time. If you have any question, please send email to Daniel.r.miller@gsa.gov.

Responses may be mailed to the following address:

General Services Administration Center for Innovative Acquisition Services 2200 Crystal Drive Room: 706 Arlington, VA 22202

Attn: Daniel Miller

No Obligation

Issuance of this Request for Information does not obligate the Government in any way to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP), or Request for Quotes (RFQ) if applicable, and does not guarantee the vendor will be invited to give a demonstration. The Government will review the information submitted and demonstrations in response to this RFI. If the Government proceeds with an acquisition, a solicitation may be posted. Information submitted for this RFI will not be sufficient for any RFP or RFQ. Instead, interested parties must provide a separate response to any solicitation.

Primary Point of Contact:

Daniel Miller Contract Specialist GSA Federal Acquisition Services Center for Innovative Acquisition Development Arlington, VA 22202 daniel.r.miller@gsa.gov

Secondary Point of Contact:

Daniel Olsson Contracting Officer GSA Federal Acquisition Services Center for Innovative Acquisition Development Arlington, VA 22202

Daniel.olsson@gsa.gov Request for Information Only