State Postal Services Sorters 11-02-09 final.doc

State Postal Services Sorters. – RQS Specifications/Requirements of bid.

I. The State Postal Services currently has 2 MLOCRS located at 2 separate locations :

· 1 MLOCR capable of sorting at least 20,000 letters per hour: at least 32 bins capable of outgoing sorting capabilities to be delivered to 45 Commerce Drive in Augusta Maine.

· 1 MLOCR capable of sorting at least 35,000 letters per hour with incoming and outgoing sorting capabilities with at least 80 bins to be delivered to 68 Sewall Street in Augusta, Maine.

II. Pricing & Billing Requirements on 32 Bin MLOCR location at 45 Commerce Drive, Augusta Maine.

· All costs for equipment adjustments, if any, to accommodate for future USPS postage increases.

· Capable of sorting at least 20,000 letters per hour.

· At least 32 bins

· All costs for supplies (estimated by usage).

· All maintenance/service required.

· Shipping, delivery, setup included in bid.

· Billing must be by quarterly invoice sent to State Postal Services, 88 State House Station, Augusta Me 04333-0088 and must be itemized by each location covered under the agreement.

· Equipment is to be leased on a 5 year term. State Postal Services reserves the right to extend the term with the mutual agreement of the parties.

· Software must be capable of exporting a CSV file of the billing data for each individual day. See exhibit 1

· Ink jets must be a continuous printer.

· Verifiers on equipment must be capable of grading and verifying barcodes to Merlin standards and produce information about the problems with the barcode.

· Equipment must include a double detector.

· Equipment must come equipped with software and hardware to produce the full service IMB barcode.

· The winning bidder must be able to implement the full service IMB along with technical and personnel services needed to implement it included in bid.

· Computers must have the capability of storing mail run data for up to 1 year.

· Include in bid electrical requirements for each machine.

· Include dimensions of equipment.

· The maximum footprint is 56 feet long and 32 feet wide. This footprint takes in to account 8 feet of clearance on all sides for operators and service technicians. Equipment will not be accepted if it exceeds these dimensions.

· Bid responses must include numbers of service technicians (and their qualifications) who are available to support this contract.

· Bid responses must include the area in which technicians cover.

· Include preventative maintenance requirements such as frequency and down time required to complete.

· Include if equipment has the ability to achieve discounts by combining the mailings from both sites on to one job allowing for higher rates of discounted mail.

· Specify if equipment has racks available.

· If racks are an additional expense please include the price as an option.

· Pricing & Billing Requirements on 80 Bin MLOCR location at 68 Sewall Street in Augusta, Maine.

· All costs for equipment adjustments, if any, to accommodate for future US postage increases.

· capable of sorting over 35,000 letters per hour

· At least 80 bins

· All costs for supplies (estimated by usage).

· All maintenance/service required.

· Shipping, delivery, setup included in bid.

· Please include pricing for hand writing recognition software if there is a per piece charge.

· Billing must be by quarterly invoice sent to the State Postal Services, 88 State House Station, Augusta Me 04333-0088 and must be itemized by each location covered under the agreement.

· Equipment is to be leased on a 5 year term. State Postal Services reserves the right to extend the term with the mutual agreement of the parties.

· The MLOCR must have support to set up and maintain the incoming mail sorting capabilities.

· 60 bins are needed to sort the incoming mail.

· The MLOCR must read hand-written letters on the incoming sort scheme.

· Software must be capable of exporting a CSV file of the billing data for each individual day. See exhibit 2

· Ink jets must be a continuous printer.

· Verifiers on equipment must be capable of grading and verifying barcodes to Merlin standards and produce information about the problems with the barcode.

· Equipment must include a double detector.

· Specify if equipment has racks available.

· If racks are an additional expense please include the price as an option.

· Equipment must come equipped with software and hardware to produce the full service IMB barcode.

· The winning bidder must be able to implement the full service IMB along with technical and personnel services needed to implement it included in bid.

· Computers must have the capability of storing mail run data for up to 1 year.

· Include in bid electrical requirements for each machine.

· Include dimensions of equipment.

· The maximum footprint is 58 feet long and 23 feet wide. This footprint takes into account 4 feet of clearance on all sides for operators and service technicians. Equipment will not be accepted if it exceeds these dimensions

· Bid responses must include numbers of service technicians (and their qualifications) who are available to support this contract.

· Bid responses must include the area in which technicians cover.

· Include preventative maintenance requirements such as frequency and down time required to complete.

· Include if equipment has the ability to achieve discounts by combining the mailings from both sites on to one job allowing for higher rates of discounted mail.

IV. Delivery Installation Restrictions

· One MLOCR must be up and processing mail before the other installation can begin.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR BOTH MLOCRS

The company to provide comprehensive initial training to all staff who will operate the equipment, so that they are fully trained and comfortable operating the rented equipment on day 1. All training must meet the State’s needs and schedule. Training must be done on site. This department cannot afford equipment to be nonoperational due to training inadequacies.

This department cannot afford to be down due to staff inexperience based on the operation of equipment.

Vendor to provide auto-replenishing on all supplied items. Vendor must monitor supply levels at all times. Vendor must supply and maintain a minimum of sixty (60) days on all supplies. Vendor must provide a toll free supply number for emergency situations when we may be in danger of running out of an item because of changes in monthly volumes.

Any change or improvement, e.g. retrofits made by the manufacturer, must be incorporated on equipment at no cost to the State when such change is ascertained by manufacturer to improve performance and/or quality of existing equipment (this is to include any patches or upgrades).

Service/Maintenance on the department’s equipment is very important and the State expects that we receive prompt responses, accurate diagnoses/repair with the successful vendor and will hold them to a high standard. The State will expect that the servicing technician will properly test/operate equipment before closing out the call to avoid any unnecessary call back for the same issue/problem.

Service/Maintenance will have four (4) hours or less response time for each service call. A phone call will not be considered a response. There will be a toll-free number to call for service. Servicing technicians must be certified on any equipment that requires service.

It is very important that we receive service in a reasonable amount of time. If it becomes problematic that service is unable to provide the appropriate response times these actions will be taken:

1. After the 2nd missed response time in a 30 day period the quarterly payment will be reduced by 1% for every time the technician is not responsive for the agreed upon response time.

2. If service response time problems continue over a 3 month period the State of Maine may choose to have both pieces of equipment removed and replaced by a competitor without paying penalties. The vendor is responsible for all fees and cost of removal of equipment.

Vendor must maintain service history on each piece of equipment and must be available to the State upon request. This history must include the following information on each call:

1. Date and time of call for service

2. Name of caller

3. Nature of problem

4. Date and time that technician arrived at site

5. Actual problem

6. Parts used

7. Date and time equipment became fully operational

Vendor must maintain an ample parts inventory for all the equipment that we rent so that equipment can be repaired the day of the service call. On the rare occasion that a part is not on hand, available from another company site or technician, it will need to be ordered Next Day so that the machine is not down any longer than 24 hours from the time the problem was diagnosed.

Contractor will be responsible for furnishing Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) upon installation of machines on all supplied items or items needed to operate machine. Contractor will be responsible to incorporate into regular equipment training, safety training on all the items needed to operate equipment.

The State will not be responsible to pay for replacement or repairs from lighting strikes, power surges, etc. that could damage equipment. It will be the responsibility of the vendor to supply the proper surge protecting/power filtering device for each unit that will meet their current manufacturers’ specifications for protection if required.

Vendor must have technical support for the State to call if/when problems arise (Help Desk) as far as pre -press issues/operational issues, etc. Technical Support must have a toll-free number.

It is the State’s intention to award both MLOCRs to the same vendor.

All equipment is to be new equipment; no refurbished or retro-fitted equipment will be considered

Please include the plan to implement the full service IMB barcode and the resources that will be available at no cost to help meet the USPS requirements concerning Move Update.

The software on both machines must be the same; this will allow the operators to be trained on one piece of equipment but be able to operate both.

Provide a list of all clients and contact information for those clients using the specific equipment offered in the bid.

1. Please make sure to designate if they are using the equipment for in bound sorting also.

2. If they operate multiple machines and in turn combine the mailings on one postage statement to achieve the higher discounts.

3. If they are processing using the Full Service IMB.

4. Whether or not they have on-site service.

The State of Maine reserves the right to contact any of the bidders’ clients for reference checks, whether they are included on the list required above or not. Failure to provide the required client list and contact information may result in disqualification of a bidder’s bid.

Bids will be evaluated on the criteria listed below

1. Price will make up 50% of the score

2. Service will make up 25% of the score

3. Equipment will make up 25% of the score

The Bidder’s current and/or former clients may be contacted for the purpose of confirming the quality of the equipment as well as the quality of the Bidder’s service provision. Information gleaned from these sources may impact the initial scores assigned by the evaluators.

Exhibit 1 Field list for CSV export for Machine located at 45 Commerce Drive:

Operator, account, Card #, Date, Total additional postage needed, Class ID, Machine ID, Pieces, Blank field

Operator ID is already assigned to each employee; it is a 4 digit numeric code, this field can be defaulted to 0114 if machine is unable to distinguish between operators in the middle of a job.

Account is the 11 and 12 digit code on the left hand side of the meter card

Card # is the 7 digit code on the right of the card number

Total postage is the amount of postage necessary to complete the postage charge for each account after the metered postage on the piece is accounted for, This charge needs to include the postage that is needed to upgrade rejected pieces to full rate.

Class ID is metered or permit depending on the mail type

Machine ID will be 11

Pieces is the total pieces including the rejected pieces

Blank field is a field with no information.

This is a sample.

0114,01001A5120012,00924351,10-02-06,13.70,metered,11,47,0 0807,01310A7320012,00924360,10-02-06,8.80,permit,10,25,0

Exhibit 2

Field list for CSV export for Machine located at 68 Sewall Street:

Operator, account, Card #, Date, Total additional postage needed, Class ID, Machine ID, Pieces, Blank field

Operator ID is already assigned to each employee; it is a 4 digit numeric code, this field can be defaulted to 0114 if machine is unable to distinguish between operators in the middle of a job.

Account is the 11 and 12 digit code on the left hand side of the meter card

Card # is the 7 digit code on the right of the card number

Total postage is the amount of postage necessary to complete the postage charge for each account after the metered postage on the piece is accounted for, This charge needs to include the postage that is needed to upgrade rejected pieces to full rate.

Class ID is metered or permit depending on the mail type

Machine ID will be 12

Pieces is the total pieces including the rejected pieces

Blank field is a field with no information.

This is a sample.

0114,01001A5120012,00924351,10-02-06,13.70,metered,12,47,0 0807,01310A7320012,00924360,10-02-06,8.80,permit,12,25,0