RFI-APFOBusApps-2009.pdf

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) – BUSINESS APPLICATION SOLUTIONS

Document Number: USDA-RFI-APFO-2009

1 Introduction The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Farm Service Agency (FSA), Aerial Photography Field Office (APFO) is requesting information from industry on available commercial off the shelf (COTS) web-based business application solutions for improving and simplifying internal process and operational systems, and meeting specialized government requirements. Solutions must also meet Federal Desktop Core Configuration requirements:

http://nvd.nist.gov/ncp.cfm?fdcc_chklst. APFO is requesting general COTS pricing information to formulate project cost estimates and subsequent budget requests. Potential solutions may have to be integrated in an incremental manner depending on cost estimates. Key inputs to the Oracle environment are contract and customer related. Solutions will need to be customizable, flexible and scalable in order to adapt to the current database (Oracle). The Government does not presently intend to award a contract, but wants to obtain price, delivery, other market information, or capabilities for planning purposes. Response to this notice is not an offer and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract.

2 Background The USDA, FSA Aerial Photography Field Office (APFO) has been collecting aerial photography since the 1930’s that is used in the management of many USDA farm, forest, and agriculture programs. APFO has the responsibility to acquire, inspect, archive, and distribute, digital and analog aerial imagery, geospatial and other datasets. APFO also has the responsibility to provide to the public and others, at the cost of reproduction, all dataset holdings.

Additional information regarding APFO’s existing dataset holdings and customer base is available at: http://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_File/vault_holdings.doc.

3 Current Operations

3.1.1 Scope

The APFO Menu System is comprised of several tightly integrated Oracle(R) Forms, Oracle(R) Reports, C programs, Perl Scripts, Shell Scripts, PL/SQL scripts to handle requirements for the acquisition, inspection, archive, and distribution of analog and digital products. A customized Oracle Form is often used as the front end interface to specify parameters for more complex processing. The following is a high level definition of current applications systems and the functional business requirements. Any questions about the functionality of these requirements may be submitted to lori.uhlhorn@slc.usda.gov.

3.1.2 Postal/Shipping

Shipment of products by multi-carrier (FEDX, USPS, UPS) with partial shipments, multi-box orders, and revised orders. Need to relate shipping information to work orders and reports.

3.1.3 Inventory Control

Tracking of inventory of production consumables, bar code creation, location and consumption scanning, data file transfers, quarterly counting and adjustments, property inventory, and vendors/suppliers.

3.1.4 Work Order Processing (WOES)

Customer data for multiple Federal, State, and public agencies and individuals. Data handling for customer inquiries in various forms. Numerous product requests and orders with multiple variables on product type and format with multi tier discount pricing.

Various forms of financial transactions and reconciliations and reporting. Work order facilitation with work flow throughout APFO production lab through shipping of product.

This incorporates revised or amended orders.

3.1.5 Time and Production

Identify, track, and report direct and indirect labor hours and units related to defined activities and projects. Supervisory approval of employees' entries.

3.1.6 Contracting

Contract management system for planning and monitoring the acquisition of digital and analog aerial imagery and other datasets.

3.1.7 Procurement

Procurement Requests (AD700), Vendor/Supplier Relationship.

3.1.8 Personnel

Dynamic Organizational Hierarchy, Track Position Assignment/Detail, Track Occupation/Title, Position Funding, Pay Scales, Training, Employee/Personnel Actions.

3.1.9 Source Imagery Management

Ingestion, quality control and management of multiple imagery formats and other digital datasets.

3.2 Operational Policies and Constraints

Access to business applications is granted based on the user’s id (UID) being associated with a Role and managed by APFO staff independent of Active Directory

There is only one shipping station.

Each can of film has a unique spot number.

Digital imagery is stored on the Hierarchical Storage Management system (HSM) and adheres to stringent file naming standards.

Personnel and Production data of a specified individual is limited to the individual and the individual’s line of management for the assigned time frames. The exception is the Director and Operations Branch Chief, who have access to all data.

3.3 Description of current environment

Each government employee and authorized contract employee has access to a USDA Common Computing Environment (CCE) configured desktop computer.

3.3.1 Hardware

APFO utilizes servers in multi environments with OS consisting of UNIX, Linux, and Windows Server 2000 and 2003 and WindowsXP.

3.3.2 Current Software

Forms 6.0 (Form Builder) Version 6.0.8.24.1, Reports 6.0 (Report Builder), Oracle9i Enterprise Edition Release 9.2.0.6.0 - 64bit Production, with the partitioning, OLAP and Oracle Data mining options, JServer Release 9.2.0.6.0, Oracle(R) Toolkit Version 6.0.8.24.0, PL/SQL Version 8.0.6.3.0, Oracle(R) Procedure Builder V6.0.8.21.0 Build #0, Oracle(R) Query Builder 6.0.7.0.0, Oracle(R) Virtual Graphics System Version 6.0.5.38.0, Oracle(R) Tools GUI Utilities Version 6.0.5.33.1, Oracle(R) Multimedia Version 6.0.8.20.1, Oracle(R) Tools Integration Version 6.0.8.17.0, Oracle(R) Tools Common Area Version 6.0.5.32.0, Oracle(R) CORE Version 4.0.6.0.0 – 4.0.6.0.0, Oracle(R) Enterprise Manager Version 9.2.0.1.0, Oracle(R) SQL Builder Version 1.1.2.25, Microsoft(R) Office Visio 2007, Microsoft(R) Office 2003 (Access(TM), Excel(R), InfoPath(R), Outlook(R), PowerPoint(R), Publisher, Word), Business Objects(TM), Crystal Reports(TM), 11 ESRI(TM) ArcMap(TM) Version 9.1, ESRI(TM) ArcView(TM) GIS 3.3, Tool Crib (used to communicate between densitometer and Oracle Form), Friendship Shipping, RFT (Remote File Transfer), Sneller Systems Inc., DCS (Data collection), Sneller Systems Inc., EarthWhere. Current non-commercial applications on the system are comprised of the following approximated configured items: Oracle(R) Forms 202, Oracle(R) Reports 160, Oracle(R) Stored Functions 3, Oracle(R) Stored Procedures 12, Oracle(R) Stored Triggers 3, Pro*C programs 107, C programs 20, Perl script programs 9, Scripts 150, Post script 14, .cron 3, pl 14, par 8, txt 4, xmd 10, xls 2.

4 Future Operations Solutions will need to consist of easily integrated, flexible, scalable, web based and adaptable to new business applications as business processes change and grow.

4.1 Priorities for Implementation

#1 - Work Order Processing The current work order entry system was originally custom designed early 1990’s and based on analog imagery requests and orders. With the introduction of digital imagery, geospatial and other datasets, the need for evolving customizable business solutions is required. In the near future, a custom built web based ordering system will allow customers select their area of interest and place an order for a digital dataset. Integration of this and other custom applications and the future solution is imperative. The public accounts for more than 60% of the orders.

#2 - Contract Management System (CMS) The CMS records and manages contract initiation, deliverables tracking, acceptance/rejection tracking, acquisition equipment attributes, vendor data, and information and performance tracking of vendors and their acquired digital and analog datasets.

#3 - Postal System Current system relies on batch processing to indicate orders shipped. It is desirable to provide real-time ship status and notification to customer orders. In addition, a method of tracking received shipments is needed. These received shipments are generally related to a Purchase Order, Procurement Request or contract deliverable.

#4 - Bar Code Scanners and Printers Bar Code scanner and printers are used for inventory receipt and tracking. A scalable solution that is flexible to track and distinguish different inventories is beneficial. System requires flexibility to include new raw materials such as Portable Hard Drives.

#5 - Time and Production The time and production system captures units based on production for individual employees on a nightly process. It is desirable to display production in a real time.

#6 Procurement System The Procurement Requests is currently being used to reconcile receipt of the goods with the credit card statement. Solutions will need to integrate with the Inventory and Shipping

4.2 Organizations and Role Access

The APFO organization is dynamic. The organization hierarchy has effective date ranges;

a new base is defined each fiscal year, to include funding codes. Validation of the supervisor or branch chief’s access to employee/section activity is only available for the time frames the supervisor or branch chief is designated for. Privacy Act Information (social security, birth date, ethnicity, veteran’s preference, gender, and disability) is stored in a separate table and only few have access.

4.3 Transactional DataSets

Each dataset category has a distinct inter-dependent paradigm for Project Management, Catalog, Inspection, and Ingestion. It is desirable to treat APFO data as an organizational asset and have an enterprise scale framework to manage the multiple existing and future unique data sets. The framework needs to be able to define and modify multiple processes and process steps for each data set and have traceability to business rules for the iteration/year acquired.

4.4 Assumptions and Constraints

Any future solicitation, if released, will require Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) ready and backward compatible to Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4). Any future solicitation, if released, will require the following Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL3) version 3 best practices. (itil_toolkit.com, itl.community.com)

5 Request for Information

5.1 Instructions to Respondents

Responses to this RFI are due no later than 4:30 P.M. (Mountain Time) on September 16, 2009. Responses may be mailed to Contracting Officer, Jacque A. La Croix at 2222 West 2300 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84119-2020 or submitted electronically to apfo.contracts@slc.usda.gov. The electronic copy of your responses must be in an Adobe Systems(R) PDF (Portable Document Format) format and readable by the Adobe Acrobat Reader(TM). Any proprietary data that is included in the response must be marked appropriately at the paragraph level (page level is acceptable for full page table, graphs, etc). Any response marked proprietary at the document level will not be considered.

At a minimum, please respond with the following information:

1. Concept for a new or modified system.

2. Description of the new or modified system.

3. Support Concept.

4. Operational scenarios.

5. Summary of impacts.

6. Operational impacts.

7. Organizational impacts.

8. Summary of advantages.

9. Summary of disadvantages/limitations.

10. Alternatives and trade-offs considered.

11. Estimated Costs

12. Transition Strategy

When submitting hardcopy response, two copies are required.

5.2 Contact Information

Clarifications or questions regarding this RFI may be submitted in writing to:

lori.uhlhorn@slc.usda.gov. All clarifications or questions must reference this RFI.

NOTE: This RFI is being issued solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute an Invitation for BIDS(IFB), a Request for Proposals(RFP), a request for Quotations(RFQ) or an indication that the Government will contract for any of the items and/or services contained is this notice. All information received in response to this notice that is marked Proprietary will be handled accordingly. Responses to the notice will not be returned.

In submitting a response, you are solely responsible and accountable for all of the expenses associated with your response. The following provision is applicable to this notice and herby incorporated by reference: FAR 52.215-3 Request for information for Solicitation for Planning Purposes (Oct 1997). The full text of this clause is available at:

http://www.acquisition.gov/far/index.html