SAEI_RFI_2014_12_22__FINAL.pdf

Request for Information (RFI)

U. S. Census Bureau

Enterprise Systems Architecture, Engineering, Development and Integration

Support Services

December 2014

INTRODUCTION

This Request for Information (RFI) is being issued as part of the U.S. Census Bureau’s (USCB) effort to conduct Market Research related to acquiring IT systems architecture, engineering, development and integration services from firms with experience supporting complex and mission-critical integrated IT solutions. This RFI is intended to assist USCB in understanding current business practices, technical capacity, and operational capability to assist in identifying potential industry sources.

The USCB is seeking sources to determine the availability and technical capability of businesses

(including the following small business subsets: Small Disadvantaged Business, HUBZone

Firms, Certified 8(a), Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business, and Woman Owned

Small Business) to provide the required services outlined in this RFI and in the attached draft

Professional Work Statement (PWS). It is extremely important that businesses responding to this

RFI do so with highly effective capabilities and experience statements.

All submissions become Government property and will not be returned. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Therefore, respondents are advised not to include proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information in submitted responses. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted.

However, based on the information provided, and as part of its ongoing market research, the

USCB reserves the right to contact individual respondents for additional information.

DISCLAIMER

This RFI is for informational purposes only. This is not a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The information provided in the RFI is subject to change and is not binding on the Government. This notice does not obligate the Government to issue a solicitation, award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. There are no funds available to pay for preparation of responses to this RFI. All information submitted in response to this RFI is strictly voluntary.

BACKGROUND

The USCB is facing an increasing set of challenges - from declining survey participation to flat or declining budgets and increasing data collection costs – that threaten its ability to consistently deliver high quality, timely, relevant and cost-effective information. Consequently, as an organization, the USCB is embarking on an era of change. The change involves retooling and revolutionizing the way it delivers its suite of business services and information technology

RFI

SAE&I Support Services support to both its internal and external customers. This translates to the USCB launching a multi-prong strategy to inspire innovation, realign organizational structures, and address immediate mission-critical problems. USCB is in the process of transforming from a vertical organization to a more functionally-based, efficient, cost-effective organization and managing investments in a much more corporate and evidence-based manner. The strategy to accomplish this transformation looks to identify and implement large-scale and complex integrated enterprise solutions developed following very structured and consistent business and technical support processes. Consequently, a number of strategic initiatives are underway across the

USCB enterprise, including:

1. Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP) – An integration of fourteen (14) complex IT solution components which deliver services and solutions that will work together to provide data collection and processing capabilities for all surveys and censuses, to include the ability to effectively scale up and scale down to meet the operational and performance needs of the 2020 Decennial Census.

2. Center for Enterprise Dissemination Services and Consumer Innovation (CEDSCI) – An integration of several complex IT solution components that will work together to provide the dissemination capabilities for all surveys and censuses.

3. Adaptive Survey Design Initiative (ASDI) – A common business service within

CEDCaP that includes the integration of several complex IT solution components that will work together to implement adaptive survey design in the operational control and management for all surveys and censuses during data collection.

4. 2020 Decennial Census Systems Engineering and Integration – An integration of over 30 operational components and close to 100 supporting systems within the overall 2020

Decennial Census Operations. The integrated solution in support of the 2020 Decennial

Census will integrate CEDCaP, CEDSCI, ASDI and other solution components that comprise the Survey Lifecycle (SLC) and Mission Enabling Support (MES) business capabilities specific to the 2020 Decennial Census. The USCB’s goal for 2020 is to design and conduct a census that costs less per housing unit than the 2010 Decennial

Census while maintaining a high degree of quality in the data collected. The effective and efficient integration and use of enterprise solutions when appropriate is necessary to support the successful achievement of this goal. Included in the risk mitigation strategy of conducting a successful 2020 Decennial census is the strict schedule of significant operational and systems testing to ensure the integration, availability and readiness of the systems and/or system of systems during peak decennial operations.

All these complex initiatives are interdependent and must work together to achieve the USCB mission. Crucial to success is understanding the logic and relationships between and among the complex initiatives, which in turn, is dependent upon having strong and integrated systems architecture, engineering, development and integration processes and expertise.

More detail on these strategic initiatives is provided later in this RFI document.

To assist with its business processes and technical transformation, the USCB plans to seek contractor expertise and resources to complete and integrate the full lifecycle of activities to design, develop, test, deliver and evaluate complex, integrated mission-critical IT solutions.

SAE&I Support Services

Via this RFI, the USCB is soliciting responses from vendors about their expertise in leading the integration of complex, mission critical IT systems, and to gain their perspective on the following:

1. Understanding the Government’s desire to have its key systems architecture and engineering staff play the lead role for each program-level integration, determining the best working model with roles and responsibilities between the Government staff and IT systems integration support contractor staff.

2. Determining the pros and cons of a single vendor support model versus a multiple vendor support model to assist the Government as the IT systems integrator for delivering multiple, yet interrelated, program-level integrated solutions.

3. Determining the ability of small or niche companies to support the complex IT systems integration needs of USCB; or the need for a large business to provide the breadth and depth of required staff IT systems architecture, engineering, development and integration expertise.

4. Best practices related to the effective integration of a system of complex IT systems within the Government.

REQUIRED CAPABILITIES

The USCB’s draft Performance Work Statement is attached to this RFI to provide industry with an increased understanding of the types of work that may be required to continue to execute the

USCB’s strategic vision described above.

The USCB seeks contractor support to complete and integrate the full lifecycle of activities to design, develop, test, deliver and evaluate complex, integrated mission-critical IT solutions.

More significantly, the USCB is looking to leverage the expertise and experience of a contractor with a proven track record of successfully delivering complex and high-risk integrated IT solutions by applying robust business and technical processes on multiple projects within its portfolio especially as they relate to the following:

1. Systems Architecture

a. Solution Architecture

b. Business Architecture

c. Data Architecture

d. Information Security Architecture

e. Application Architecture

f. Infrastructure Architecture

g. Mobile Architecture

2. Systems Engineering

a. Requirements Engineering

b. Performance Engineering

c. Design of Systems

d. Design of Processes

e. Quality Engineering

f. Infrastructure Engineering

SAE&I Support Services

g. Configuration Management Engineering

h. Data Engineering

i. Application Engineering

j. Security Engineering

3. Application Development, Testing, Deployment and Maintenance

4. Systems Integration and management of complex IT integration

5. Transition Planning

6. Technical Risk Management

Based on experience leading the design, development and delivery of complex integrated IT solutions, the contractor will be expected to lead or assist with activities and deliverables within the functional areas above. The support in these functional areas will be applied simultaneously to various programs across USCB. Programs and projects will vary in size and complexity and may require support in one or many functional areas. Program and project support may range from the need for subject matter experts in niche technical areas to a need to deliver a fully integrated solution.

More details are provided below on the following key strategic initiatives as mentioned previously in this RFI:

1. Census Enterprise Data Collection and Processing (CEDCaP)

2. Center for Enterprise Dissemination Services and Consumer Innovation (CEDSCI)

3. 2020 Decennial Census

CEDCaP

The CEDCaP program is an initiative to integrate and manage the development of an enterprise system of systems to handle the data collection and processing phases of the survey lifecycle for all censuses and surveys within the USCB. This program is also a collaborative effort between the USCB Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the other Directorates within the USCB to transform survey-specific solutions to an enterprise approach for all data collection and processing at the USCB.

The goal of CEDCaP is to consolidate and reduce costs associated with the development and maintenance of data collection and processing systems. As such, the USCB will retire unique, survey-specific systems and redundant capabilities and bring a much greater portion of the

Bureau’s total IT expenditures under a single, integrated and centrally managed program. The creation of program-specific systems will be halted and the capabilities will be incorporated into a consistent, reusable system of systems solution for data collection and processing that will be mature and proven in advance of the 2020 Decennial Census. CEDCaP will provide a new operating model for managing and standardizing common IT investments under a single, integrated approach across the Enterprise.

The mission of the CEDCaP Program is to use an Enterprise approach to data collection and processing for all censuses and surveys at the USCB. The benefits and the related critical success factors of CEDCaP are as follows:

SAE&I Support Services

Reduction of overall financial investment (cost savings and cost avoidance)

Reduction of risk to any single program

Development of systems and a system of systems that are integrated to the Census

Enterprise and Segment Architecture

Unified infrastructure complementary to the Architecture

Appropriate program documentation in compliance with the quality and access requirements established by the Office of Management and Budget and the Government

Accountability Office (GAO) study (GAO-12-54, February 2012);

Enterprise approach to data collection and processing for 100+ censuses and surveys;

Mature and validated enterprise solution to preface the 2020 Census

Targeted implementation of 100% electronic reporting of American Community Survey and the 2017 and 2022 Economic Census (by certain projects).

The CEDCaP Program is comprised of fourteen (14) projects and fifteen (15) systems (see tables below for descriptions).

CEDCaP Data Collection Capabilities

Project Systems Description

Corporate Listing and Mapping

System (CLMS)

Listing and

Mapping (LiMA)

CLMS is a composite of systems used for updating the

MAF and LiMA is the key application/system used in the field to ensure the addresses and geographical data that were provided by the MAF/TIGER are still accurate and valid, and if they are not it will make updates to the MAF/TIGER information.

(MAF-Master Address File, TIGER-Topilogically

Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing)

Integrated Capture and Data Entry

(iCADE) iCADE iCADE is the Bureau’s response paper processing system that receives data from MOCS for the cases that need to be contacted for paper responses. iCADE captures the responses in paper format, transfers it to electronic format, and then passes the data back to

MOCS.

Internet Internet

(Centurion)

Centurion is the Bureau’s secure Internet data collection system used to collect data from potential respondents of a survey and census. Once the data is received online it passes the information back to

MOCS.

SAE&I Support Services

Project Systems Description

Enumeration Enumeration

System

Enumeration system is an app that sits on a mobile device and is used by field interviewers/enumerators for the mobile collection of respondent survey/census information/data.

Unified Tracking

System (UTS) –

MOCS Integration

(UMI)

UTS UTS will collect, track, and report on survey paradata

(i.e. metrics data about the processing of the survey that will be used for tracking progress and improving future operations). UTS will be the central aggregation point for paradata for all surveys, and provide overall dashboard monitoring and reporting of the survey response data collection process.

eCorrespondence eCorrespondence eCorrespondence will modernize the Business Help

Site (use for the Economic Census) which currently provides an “online user help desk” that targets business respondents. Its functionality will be expanded to include individual respondents, allowing them to create user accounts, set survey response mode preferences, check filing status, view FAQs and communicate with the Census help desk via secure message and chat, among other features.

Multi-Mode

Operational

Control System

(MOCS)

Multi-Mode

Operational

Control System

(MOCS)

The first system that the project will deliver is MOCS, which assigns and consolidates cases to different response modes, based on predetermined criteria. It determines what is the best initial contact mode for a candidate respondent; for example, deciding whether the respondent should receive a form (paper) or be invited to fill out data via the internet. For non-responses, it determines the most likely contact mode

(e.g. phone or personal visit) that would result in a successful interview. Finally, this system will track the status of the case (open, closed, etc.).

CAES

(Concurrent

Analysis and

CAES will house statistical models used to provide the analytical input data necessary for multi-mode operational control business rules to assign the cases, SAE&I Support Services

Project Systems Description

Estimation) and in some cases provide the input near real-time.

Field Operational

Control System

(FOCS)

Respondent

Contact

Management

Service (RCMS)

RCMS will maintain previously collected contact information for respondents (i.e. addresses, phone numbers, apartment codes, etc.) in a near real-time basis, to be used by the workload planning and collection processing system (see below) for case assignment and additional case information.

Interviewer

Management

Service (IMS)

IMS will maintain interviewer related data (i.e.

surveys worked, multi-lingual skills, re-interview observation results, past performance, availability, location, accountable inventory, etc.), to be used by workload planning and collection processing system for case assignment.

Workload

Planning and

Collection

Processing

(MOJO)

Workload management system for field related data collection. Used as the standard tool for field managers to control, track, and manage survey/census workloads and the field workforce. Introduces the use of field worker characteristics (i.e. location, language, availability, experience, etc.) with additional parameters (i.e. situational, weather, case propensity, best time to contact, priority, etc.) to allow field automation of workforce planning (i.e. staffing needs, case routing, case assignment, etc.)

Desktop Case

Management

(DCM)

DCM is a subsystem within FOCS which will provide desktop case management for interviewers working from a desktop (i.e. telephone agents, etc.) to manage and work their specific case(s).

Mobile Case

Management

(MCM)

MCM is a subsystem which provides mobile device level case management and dashboard for disconnected mode to allow field workers to manage/work their specific case(s). This includes transmission of case data, status, and miscellaneous utilities for the device.

SAE&I Support Services

CEDCaP Enabling Capabilities

Project/Systems Description

Service Oriented

Architecture (SoA)

Middleware

Service oriented architecture including implementation of an

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and Application Programming

Interface (API) policies allows us to provide well-defined interfaces

(services) with clear business semantics and runtime enforced security and workload policies. It’s the infrastructure needed to allow our systems to communicate to one another in a standardized and agreed upon language. This interaction may include passing needed data from one system to the other (interface) in an agreed upon format.

Enterprise

Development, Integration, and Test

Environment

(EDITE)

This project will deliver standardized centrally managed development, testing, and staging environments. The staging environment will emulate our production environment and is the area where systems receive final preparation including performance testing prior to moving into our production environment.

IT Infrastructure

Scale-up for 2020

Decennial Census

The focus of this project will be to determine which CEDCaP systems will be impacted by the huge 2020 volumes and determine the best plan of action to ensure they can scale to meet the expected volumes. These plans may include making changes to the physical structure and design of the identified systems (i.e. use of external resources, service providers, cloud services, etc.).

Administrative

Records and

Response Data-

Data Access Layer

(ARRD-DAL)

ARRD-DAL will deliver a standard service that will allow any of the CEDCaP systems (or any other system in the future) the ability to gain access specific data repositories that house administrative records, previous survey/census data, and/or respondent information.

Content Metadata

(CoMet)

The project will deliver the system that survey “owners” use to design how their paper, internet, mobile, or telephone survey should appear (e.g. what questions should be asked, how should they be asked, when should they be asked, etc.) The system will also store common terminology, questions, context, etc. in a library, available for use by all surveys.

SAE&I Support Services

Project/Systems Description

Control and

Response Data

System (CaRDS)

This project will deliver a system that is the front and back door to data collection. Prior to collecting data, the survey sample, or in the case of the Census, the universe of cases to be used, needs to be passed to an Operation Control System for handling. The CaRDS system will pull personal or business data from the Census Bureau’s

Master Address List as the target group of the survey/census and send it to MOCS, so it knows who are the survey participants. At the end of Data Collection, CaRDS also processes the response data

(edits/prepares/cleanses the data) and sends it to the dissemination systems for the purposes of public use.

CEDCSI

The objective of CEDSCI is to enable the USCB to disseminate data in form of Application

Programming Interfaces (APIs), web tools, data visualizations and maps in a streamlined and integrated manner. The USCB will need contractor support and expertise to design, develop, test and deploy the integrated IT Platform on which the CEDSCI solution will reside.

The Census Bureau publically disseminates vast amounts of data in multiple formats such as public use micro data sample files, aggregated data, and estimates along with analysis reports.

The Census Bureau utilizes over 100 different applications to prepare and release data. Each application has its own computing environment and supporting data storage. The current architecture for data dissemination involves numerous different processes, methodologies, technologies and applications. There is no standardized and consolidated data dissemination process at Census. For example, during data preparation, data is summarized and aggregated at different geographies, rolled up at different levels in different dimensions and stored in a multitude of different formats. In addition, data (via metadata) is defined differently across program areas. As a result, the opportunities to combine different datasets in a way that provides better information and insights for the customers of Census Bureau data are seriously decreased.

Furthermore, when the data sets and data products are released to the public, the complexities of the data preparation transfer to the end users. Specifically, the wealth of data the Census Bureau has to offer to the public is not presented in a coherent, standard, easily discoverable fashion therefore; the available data is not readily searchable from a single location. Consequently due to the lack of tabulation, aggregation and metadata consistency, users are prevented from easily combining different datasets, and different values of similar data (ex. population data) across surveys are not easily explained.

Increased hardware, maintenance, and software licensing needs and associated administrative costs related to the current state of both the data product preparation environment and data release environment are unsustainable. These issues are further compounded by the costs of developing and maintaining discrete, program specific systems across the Census Bureau, many

SAE&I Support Services of which duplicate the functionality of one or more other dissemination systems. This lack of coordination hinders the USCB’s efforts to modernize via an API, the web portal transformation and the introduction of mobile applications.

Conceptually, the enterprise Data Dissemination Solution aims to do the following:

Enable enterprise governance processes which utilize consolidated customer feedback to better determine the dissemination tools and data products needed for Census Bureau customers and guide the program areas to prepare and release these tools and products

Maintain standardized content, survey-level, and presentation metadata for both structured and unstructured data through central repositories

Consolidate the data product preparation environments and infrastructure

Enable easy access to data and products by streamlining interactive tools and enabling data access via an API

Decouple the data from the actual presentation and use internal APIs and shared data services to allow flexible deployment of new products and tools.

2020 Decennial Census

In planning for the 2020 Decennial Census, the 2020 Census Program is committed to designing and conducting a census that costs less per housing unit than the 2010 Census while maintaining high quality results. To achieve its cost and quality targets and meet its strategic goals, the

USCB must make fundamental changes to the design, implementation, and management of the decennial census.

The rising costs of the 2010 Census were largely driven by five factors: (1) the increasing diversity of the population; (2) the demand for the Census Bureau to strive for improving accuracy over previous censuses; (3) the lack of full public participation in the self-response phase of the census, requiring the hiring of a large field staff for non-response follow-up; (4) the failure or challenges with linking major acquisitions, the schedule, and the budget; and, (5) substantial investments in major, national updating of the address frame just prior to enumeration.

The first two factors, increasing diversity and the demand for a very high level of accuracy, are beyond the Census Bureau’s control. As a result, the 2020 Census program has focused on the other key cost drivers: (1) expanding, automating, and tailoring multiple modes of data collection to encourage self response from the diverse subgroups of the population, including use of the

Internet; (2) reengineering the field operational infrastructure to take advantage of efficiencies gained through using electronic data collection methods; (3) reengineering the headquarters IT infrastructure to establish integrated cross-program capabilities through a revamped acquisition strategy; (4) reengineering the processes used to update the address frame and maps over the decade; and (5) using existing administrative data records in order to reduce field costs, and using Adaptive Design to implement and manage data collection more efficiently.

SAE&I Support Services

This effort is high-profile and high-risk due to fixed deadlines and the size of the undertaking.

While the Decennial Census is mandated by the U.S. Constitution, Title 13, Section 9 of the U.S.

Code provides additional detail about the scope of the 2020 Census:

The 2020 Census shall cover the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the

U.S. Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, the

Pacific Island Area of American Samoa, and federally-affiliated Americans overseas.

Census Day for the 2020 Census shall be April 1, 2020; the Census shall have a geographic boundary reference date of January 1, 2020; apportionment counts shall be delivered to the President by December 31, 2020; and redistricting counts shall be delivered to the states by April 1, 2021.

The 2020 Census shall conclude upon delivery of all products; the subsequent headquarters closeout activities shall be completed by September 30, 2023.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR RESPONDING TO THIS RFI

Responses should be submitted in Microsoft Word format and should not exceed six (6) pages with Times New Roman font greater than or equal to 12 pt. This is the overall total page limit for responses to this RFI. Interested parties should not provide general marketing material in order to allow sufficient space for adequately, directly, and substantively responding with the information of most interest to the Government as indicated below.

Responses to this RFI shall be submitted to Molly Shea via email at acq.mosc@census.gov, no later than 12:00PM EST on January 19, 2014. The subject line for responses should be marked

“[Company Name]—RFI Response—USCB Enterprise SAEI”.

Response Format:

Respondents are requested to provide information in a manner that uses the provided letter and numbering format below.

A - GENERAL INFORMATION

A1. Organization Name (please list any previous names used) and DUNs number.

A2. Organization contact person’s name, position, email and phone number

A3. Information regarding the number of employees, certifications, and commercial recognitions and associations.

A4. Industry (NAICS) Codes (North American Industry Classification System) and business size for each NAICS code.

A5. Vehicles and contracts currently held (vehicle, agency, contract number, expiration date), including GSA Federal Supply Schedule contracts or other Government-wide Acquisition

Contracts (GWACs) vehicles (i.e. NITAAC, ALLIANT, NASA SEWP etc.).

A6. Company ownership (public, private, joint venture).

A7. Business classification/Socio-Economic Status (e.g. large, small, 8(a), women owned, HUB-zone, Small Disadvantaged Business, Service-Disabled Veteran Owned).

A8. Provide an overview of the kinds of services or core capabilities the firm offers.

SAE&I Support Services

B – CAPABILITY AND EXPERIENCE INFORMATION

No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s).

B1. Does your organization have experience as the lead of an effort to implement a large IT integration and system of systems effort in all of the areas/platforms described in the

Performance Work Statement? If so:

a. Briefly describe relevant experience (up to three similar engagements), of similar size, scope, scale, and complexity to the USCB requirement. Provide examples of risks that your organization had to overcome in providing the services described.

How successful was your organization in mitigating the risks described?

b. Did your organization undertake the past projects alone, or as a team with other teaming partners? Clearly describe your organization’s role in the project to include your position as the prime contract holder or a subcontractor.

c. If your organization’s role in question B1(b) above was as a subcontractor to a large business prime contract holder, what type of small business subcontracting goals were required to be met? How instrumental was your organization in assisting the large business in meeting or exceeding the established subcontracting goals?

B2. Does your organization have the innate capabilities to deliver services in all functional areas or do you anticipate partnering with other organizations for the delivery of some of the services? Describe the types of teaming arrangements your organization entered into on projects of similar, size, scope and complexity.

B3. Has your organization delivered integrated IT solutions and provided systems architecture, engineering, development, testing and IT integration leadership and support on a scale

(size and complexity and timeline) similar to the USCB’s need described above within the past five years? If so:

a. Briefly describe relevant experience (up to three similar engagements) that your organization has of similar size, scope, scale, and complexity to this requirement.

Provide examples of risks that your organization had to overcome in providing the services described. How successful was your organization in mitigating the risks described?

b. Did your organization undertake the past projects alone, or as a team with other teaming partners? Clearly describe your role in the project to include your position as the prime contract holder or a subcontractor.

c. If your organizations’s role in question B3(b) above was as a subcontractor to a large business prime contractor holder, what type of small business subcontracting goals were required to be met? How instrumental was your organization in assisting the large business in meeting or exceeding the established subcontracting goals?

SAE&I Support Services

B4. Does your organization have experience with assuming a mentor-like role to a large agency or company undergoing significant process re-engineering in either the way it conducts business or provides information technology services to its end users, or both?

Describe the experience in detail including specifics of how your organization contributed to the re-engineering effort and the techniques your organization used to direct and steer the agency towards the successful achievement of its goals.

B.4 What contract types was your organization operating under when providing the services described in the answers to the questions above? Describe any lessons learned regarding the contract type used. Does your organization have any suggestions related to contract type for the effort described in this RFI?

B.5 Does your organization have any other suggestions related to an acquisition strategy that would contribute to the USCB’s successful execution of its strategic goals outlined in this

RFI?

B.6. What were some of the most meaningful evaluation criteria used in solicitations your organization responded to related to the types of services outlined in this RFI and in the draft PWS?

B.7 Describe any other information not previously included in your organization’s response to this RFI that would be important for the USCB to consider in determining your organization’s standing as a potential source for the requirements outlined in this RFI and in the draft PWS.

DRAFT RFP Systems Engineering and Integration XXXXXX-XX-XX-XXXX

Section C – Performance Work Statement

Pre-Release Draft

C.1 Background

The United States Census Bureau (USCB) is the primary source of basic statistics about the population and economy of the Nation. These statistics are collected to assist the Congress and

Executive branches of the Federal Government, state and local governments, colleges and universities, and the general public in the development and evaluation of social and economic programs. Major USCB programs include periodic censuses, current surveys and programs, intercensal estimates of population and housing totals, statistical analyses, and reimbursable work. Periodic censuses include the decennial census of population and housing; the census of governments; and the economic censuses covering business, construction, manufacturers, mining, and transportation. The censuses provide the sampling frames for survey programs and serve as benchmarks for surveys that are essential for understanding current demographic and economic conditions of this nation. The decennial census of population and housing also provides a baseline for postcensal and intercensal estimates of population and housing.

Economic data collected in a wide range of monthly, quarterly, and annual surveys provide input to important economic indicators.

The Associate Director for Information Technology & Chief Information Officer's (ADITCIO) vision is to provide a consolidated, integrated, secure, and highly available information technology (IT) infrastructure to support the USCB in fulfilling its mission as the leading source of quality data about the Nation's people and economy. The IT Directorate provides information technology solutions to advance the USCB's strategic goals of customer service, high-quality data products, and market-competitive data collection and processing. Integrating program area business plans and the Strategic IT Plan with the USBC's Strategic Plan enables the establishment of enterprise-wide IT practices, policies, and priorities.

C.2 Purpose

The purpose of this task order is to obtain contractor services to support the varied systems engineering and integration needs in multiple offices and programs throughout the USCB. The services provided will further the ADITCIO’s goal of ensuring consistent application of systems engineering and integration practices across the enterprise and amplify the Government’s development of an in-house capability.

C.3 Objectives

To support an enterprise approach to systems engineering and integration practices, the

ADITCIO requires the Contractor to adhere to USCB standards and policies in force at the time services are provided, including:

• Enterprise Architecture (EA) Program Policy, which includes:

• Systems architecture policies and standards

• Systems engineering policies and standards

• Enterprise Systems Development Life Cycle (eSDLC)

• Enterprise requirements development and management processes

• Project management policies and guidelines

• IT security policies and standards

• The USCB’s Policies and Procedures Manual (PPM)

• Physical security policies and standards.

All effort under Task Order must comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

The Contractor is also required to provide services to support the capabilities described in the

USCB’s application of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Framework.

These capabilities are:

Acquisition Management

Program/ Results Management

Risk Management

Process Management

Organizational Change Management

Enterprise Lifecycle

Enterprise Architecture

Requirements Management

Modeling & Simulation

Integration & Validation.

In addition, it is the expectation of the ADITCIO that services provided under this task order will be fully supportive of the following excerpts from the USCB mission level business requirements:

• 2013 – 2017 Strategic Plan (v 1.0, April 25, 2013):

o Objective 3.1: Improved alignment of program responsibility, authority, and resources within the USCB through implementation of the 10 guiding principles for USCB operations.

o Tactic 3.1.5: Utilize shared services for IT and other activities when there is a positive benefit cost ratio.

• Census Bureau’s Mission Enabling Support (MES) functions, specifically:

o MES 4008.1 Sourcing & Acquisition – Planning, developing and implementing strategies to assure that products and services are available when needed to meet mission requirements; conducting pre-award and post-award contract activities

(Task Managers).

o MES 6006.1 Enterprise/Mission Architecture – Developing enterprise/mission architecture to capture the business needs of the organization resulting in a common understanding of data, services and processes across the organization in order to deliver shared services. Results captured into a comprehensive solutions framework with clearly defined architectural components.

o MES 5000.2 Systems Development Life Cycle – applying standard approach to full life cycle of IT systems development, including ensuring appropriate testing and documentation.

o MES 5001.1 Requirements Identification and Analysis – eliciting and gathering system software applications requirements from users, analyzing their validity, and documenting the results using standard IT systems engineering processes.

o MES 5002.5 Quality Assurance – verifying that organization standards, processes, and procedures designed to build quality into production software are followed, including appropriate application security documentation and registration in the enterprise architecture.

• U. S. Census Bureau’s Business Plan for Change (v 1.0, April 25, 2013), specifically:

o Simplify Processes and Systems - We will reduce complexity through shared services and generalized solutions. We will aggressively move to identify common processes and systems and to standardize them across all our operations.

We will reengineer our processes and systems to reduce complexity by eliminating unnecessary or inefficient workflows and functionality.

• 2014 – 2018 Strategic IT Plan (February 2014):

o Goal 1: Mission Excellence: Empower the Effective Use of IT in Support of the

Census Bureau’s Mission o Goal 3: Organizational Excellence: Information Technology is Anticipatory, Responsive, Cost Effective, and Adaptable.

• Guiding Principles in the 2012 – 2016 IT Infrastructure Strategy and Roadmap (v 1.1, October 25, 2012), that this solution supports include:

o Principle #1: Increase bureau-wide operational efficiency - Simplify IT or reduce complexity.

o Principle #3: Enable bureau-wide collaboration - Support the use of common platforms and support a services-based approach.

C.4 USCB Enterprise Standards Profile Framework

This framework consists of several technology domains (each with their own sub-domains) that are part of the USCB’s Enterprise Architecture. The Contractor shall provide support to the

Enterprise Service Profile Framework technical domains as specified in the work orders.

Domain descriptions are as follows:

1. Application Technology Domain. This domain has 3 sub-domains:

a. Application Development Tools: The Application Development Tools sub-domain includes the software required to develop and build applications using either a specific coding language or framework as its foundation. Current examples include

Microsoft Visual Basic, Eclipse, PHP, Perl, and Oracle JDeveloper.

b. Application Integration: The Application Integration sub-domain includes the software that translates data messages between two or more incompatible applications. Current examples include a message bus, integration broker engines like Tibco, or any publish/subscribe technology.

c. Web and Application Software: The Web and Application Software sub-domain includes the infrastructure software platforms that enable software development for web applications. Current examples include Apache, Jboss, Weblogic and

Websphere.

2. Collaboration and Electronic Workplace Domain. This domain consists of six sub-domains:

a. Administrative Management and Reporting: The Administrative Management and

Reporting sub-domain includes technologies that enable electronic administration of project management capabilities and operational reporting requirements that are extended to existing applications and systems. Current examples include MS Project, Primavera, and Crystal Reports.

b. Collaboration: The Collaboration sub-domain includes technologies that enable asynchronous and synchronous information sharing/knowledge transfer. Current examples for "synchronous" sharing of information/knowledge include video teleconferencing (VTC), instant messaging, and document editing. Current

"Asynchronous" examples include e-mail, calendars, secure file transfer, and blogs.

c. Content Authoring and Publishing: The Content Authoring and Publishing sub-domain includes technologies that enable aggregating, composing, or publishing content to the Internet or other media channels or technologies that support the creation of graphic-specific content. The content may be in the form of a website but is not defined as a standalone application. Current examples include Adobe

Dreamweaver, Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Acrobat.

d. Workstation Applications: The Workstation Applications sub-domain includes the common enterprise applications and business-specific applications that reside on the end user's workstations (Desktops and laptops). Common enterprise applications currently include the core productivity tools (e.g., MS Office Suite), media programs

(e.g., Windows Media Player), user utilities (e.g., WinZip), and user interfaces (e.g., Internet Explorer, Firefox) found on user's workstations.

e. GIS and Content Modeling Solutions: The GIS (Geographic Information System) and

Content Modeling sub-domain includes technologies that enable the viewing, modeling, and manipulation of the geographic aspects of data. Content modeling solutions use tools to represent architectural, business and technology maps that organize and represent IT-based systems. Current examples include AutoDesk's

AutoCAD Product Suite and CA's ERWin Data Modeling Software.

f. Enterprise Content Management: The Enterprise Content Management (ECM) sub-domain includes technologies that support the strategies and methods used to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver content/documents to an intended source. This includes technologies that support workflow and document management, web content management, and digital asset management. Current examples include OpenText's

ECM Suite and EMC's Documentum.

3. Data Management Technology Domain. This domain consists of six sub-domains:

a. Data Analysis and Business Intelligence Tools: The Data Analysis and Business

Intelligence Tools sub-domain includes software that analyzes business transactions and uses various techniques to measure business-driven metrics. This includes technologies that support data mining techniques to uncover patterns and relationships of specific data sets and building data cubes that analyze data to drill down to specific business-driven outcomes. Current examples include IBM's Cognos and SAP's Business Objects.

b. Data Quality: The Data Quality sub-domain focuses on the reliability and effectiveness of data, particularly in a data warehouse where extract, transform, load

(ETL) processes are essential. Technologies in this sub-domain support updating, standardizing, and de-duplicating records to create a single view of data, even if it is stored in multiple, disparate systems. Current examples include Informatica and

Business Integrator.

c. Database Administration Tools: The Database Administration Tools sub-domain includes software tools used by Database Administrators (DBAs) and Programmers to manage the performance and reliability of relational database management systems

(RDBMS). Current examples include TOAD and DBArtisan.

d. Database Management Systems: The Database Management Systems sub-domain includes relational database management systems (RDBMS) that enable users to manage and store information in a structured manner. Current examples include MS

Access and Oracle-based database management systems.

e. Meta-Data Management Tools: The Meta-Data Management Tools sub-domain includes tools that enable users to exchange metadata and provide seamless access to that same data.

f. Statistical Analysis: The Statistical Analysis sub-domain includes technologies that enable the science of making effective use of numerical data relating to groups of individuals or experiments. This includes technologies that support collection, analysis, and interpretation of data (e.g., design of surveys and experiments). Current examples include SPSS and MATLAB.

4. Networking and Telecommunications Domain. This domain consists of three sub-domains:

a. Telephony: The Telephony sub-domain includes technologies that enable a VoIP

(Voice over Internet Protocol) infrastructure, interact with callers through voice-prompted menus, and connect callers to other individuals. The sub-domain includes technologies that support the convergence of IP technologies. The sub-domain also includes technologies that support automated dial distribution systems for business units such as internal help desks, sales, and service departments. Current examples include handsets, messaging software, and messaging call switches.

b. LAN/Wan Infrastructure: The LAN / WAN Infrastructure sub-domain includes physical technologies that enable the transmission of voice, video, and data elements across a network infrastructure (Logical/Physical, LAN, WAN). Technologies include routers, switches, and wireless access points.

c. Remote Access: The Remote Access sub-domain includes software/hardware technologies that enable remote access to the LAN, including virtual private networks

(VPN), application virtualization (e.g., Citrix), and mobility software running on mobile devices (e.g., RSA soft token).

5. Platform and Storage Domain. This domain consists of eight sub-domains:

a. Mobile Communications: The Mobile Communications sub-domain includes the technologies that enable the use of smart phones (e.g., Blackberry's) and tablets to access existing enterprise resources (e.g., e-mail, calendars, instant messaging) as per the enterprise's security guidelines. The scope here would be the infrastructure that supports the services being offered through the smart phones and tablets, as well as, the physical devices themselves.

b. Operating Systems: The Operating Systems sub-domain includes operating systems that enable various platforms within the enterprise (e.g., servers and workstations).

Current examples include the Microsoft Windows family of operating systems, Linux, Novell Netware, and Xen operating systems.

c. Image Management: The Image Management sub-domain includes the technologies that support the management of operating system images that are found on the various platforms (e.g., workstations and server) across the enterprise. Current examples include Microsoft Windows Deployment Services, Microsoft Deployment

Toolkit, Systems Center Configuration Manager, and Norton Ghost.

d. Virtualization: The Virtualization sub-domain includes software and technologies that enable and support a virtual environment. Examples include VMware's vSphere and

Sun Solaris Containers/Zones. This sub-domain includes desktop virtualization (i.e., Virtual Desktop Infrastructure or VDI).

e. Peripheral Devices: The Peripheral Devices sub-domain include hardware and software, such as printers, copiers, scanners, and faxing machines, that support the day-to-day business operations.

f. Servers: The Servers sub-domain includes hardware-specific devices that enable the services that are provided to business units. Servers include rack (e.g., 1U server) and blade-based technologies.

g. Storage: The Storage sub-domain includes hardware and software technologies that support shared, secure, storage access for the existing services offered (e.g., servers).

Current examples include Storage Area Networks (SAN) and associated components

(e.g., storage fabric, etc.), backup and recovery infrastructure (e.g., Symantec

NetBackup, Tape Libraries, etc.), and storage virtualization and management software.

h. Workstations: The Workstations sub-domain includes PC desktops and laptops that support the enterprise to perform day-to-day functions for end-users. Examples include thick and thin clients, related accessories (e.g., monitors, keyboards, and mice), and software that supports the health and stability of the workstation infrastructure.

6. Security Domain. This domain consists of seven sub-domains:

a. Identity and Access Management: The Identity and Access Management (IdAM) sub-domain includes technologies that support the discipline of Information Security that addresses on-boarding, maintenance, and off-boarding of user identities and controlling access to resources by associating user rights and restrictions with established identities. This sub-domain includes single sign-on (SSO) and federation.

b. Accountability: The Accountability sub-domain includes technologies that support the capture and traceability of actions performed on a system tied to a specific system entity (user, process, device).