Text & Data Mining Software (COTS)

AMENDMENT 0001: The purpose of this amendment is to extend the quote submission deadline to May 7, 2019 at 4:00pm EDT. Incorporate Attachment 3, Questions and Answers, hereto for further details. All other terms and conditions shall remain in full effect unless otherwise changed by this amendment.
This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in Subpart 12.6, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice.

This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; quotes are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued.

The solicitation number for this requirement is PUR1900840001. This solicitation is issued as a Request for Quotes (RFQ).

The solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular 2019-01.

This requirement is issued as a full and open competition. The associated NAICS code is 511210, Software Publishers.

Background
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent Federal agency with the primary missions of investigating civil aviation accidents in the United States and significant accidents in the other modes of transportation -- railroad, highway, marine and pipeline -- and issuing safety recommendations aimed at preventing future accidents.

Minimum Requirement/Functionality
The NTSB has a requirement for a commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) text and data-mining software application to support its accident investigations and safety research. The software will be used by five or fewer analysts and researchers in the NTSB Office of Research and Engineering who routinely conduct complex text and data analyses of operational and safety data. The software shall be able to accept all common data sources and formats and shall support merging of text and numeric data from different local and remote sources. The software shall provide statistical modeling, natural language processing, and machine learning functions; such as text and semantic search, text and document classification, clustering, entity extraction, taxonomy creation, prediction, anomaly detection, and time series analyses.

The software shall also allow staff to conduct analyses using large volumes of text and structured data. The software shall also support creation of custom reports and the ability to incorporate it into business processes in the form of analysis models. The software license shall be comprised of user assistance information and product enhancements, which includes interface features with other applications used within the Office of Research and Engineering, Safety Studies and Statistical Division. The software shall be able to run on workstation and laptop computers in a Microsoft Windows environment.

The requested software is intended to be used for data analysis in a research environment. The software will be used by trained researchers who will develop specific analysis projects as needed to support safety investigations or safety research projects; it is not intended to be an enterprise application or to have widespread use. The COTS software is intended to be deployed as a desktop or server-based application on the agency's intranet inside a firewall. File sources, sizes, and numbers will vary by analysis project, but total data size for a typical project will be less than 500GB.

The period of performance for the software license and technical support is from date of award through twelve (12) month for the base period; with a potential of four (4) one (1) year option periods. The purchase order will be a total of five (5) years if all options are exercised.

Description of Requirement
The NTSB has a requirement for:

Line Item Number 0001: Text and Data-Mining Software License and Support Services, Quantity: 1 Each, Period of Performance: BASE YEAR.

Line Item Number 0002: Text and Data-Mining Software License and Support Services, Quantity: 1 Each, Period of Performance: OPTION YEAR 1.

Line Item Number 0003: Text and Data-Mining Software License and Support Services, Quantity: 1 Each, Period of Performance: OPTION YEAR 2.

Line Item Number 0004: Text and Data-Mining Software License and Support Services, Quantity: 1 Each, Period of Performance: OPTION YEAR 3.

Line Item Number 0005: Text and Data-Mining Software License and Support Services, Quantity: 1 Each, Period of Performance: OPTION YEAR 4.

Technical Acceptability
Technical Acceptability will be based on the described minimum features/functionality of the requirement. All responsible sources may submit a capability statement, proposal, or quotation, which shall be considered by the NTSB. Offerors shall submit a White Paper providing a detailed description of the COTS software being quoted to assist the NTSB in determining the software's technical acceptability. The White Paper shall be no more than 10 pages.

The quoted software shall be Section 508 Compliant. Offerors shall submit a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) to assert Section 508 Compliance.

Basis for Award
The NTSB solicits your quote for commercially available off-the-shelf text and data-mining software application to support its accident investigations and safety research. This RFQ will result in the award of one (1) firm fixed-price purchase order.

Award will be made to the Lowest Price Technically Acceptable quote. For award purposes the Government will evaluate offerors quoted price by adding the total price for all options to the total price for the basic requirement (base year). The Government may determine that an offer is unacceptable if the option prices are significantly unbalanced and if pricing is not provided for all requested years. Evaluation of options shall not obligate the Government to exercise the option(s).

Awardee shall be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) at time of award.

Clauses and Provisions
Review Attachment 1 - Clauses and Provisions of this requirement.

Submission of Quotes
Your quote shall be received no later than 4:00 p.m., Eastern Day Time (EDT), on May 2, 2019. LATE QUOTES MAY NOT BE CONSIDERED in accordance with FAR provision 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors - Commercial Items.

Quotes shall be transmitted via email to:

Janice R. McCoy
Email: janice.mccoy@ntsb.gov

The maximum size of an email, including attachments, which the NTSB email server can accept is 15 megabytes (MB). Therefore, the Contractor may choose to send their proposal in separate emails, if the combined file size of any email received by the NTSB email server will exceed 15MB. Contractors are encouraged to remove excess graphics from their proposals to ensure proposals remain under the file size limit. It is the Contractor's responsibility to ensure that the designated point of contact has received your proposal at the email address of the contact specified above by the proposal due date.

Questions Regarding the Combined Synopsis/Solicitation
All questions regarding this combined synopsis/solicitation shall be directed to Janice R. McCoy, Contracting Officer via email at janice.mccoy@ntsb.gov. ALL QUESTIONS MUST BE RECEIVED BY 2:00 p.m. EDT on April 24, 2019.

Electronic Dissemination of Combined Synopsis/Solicitation
Access to this combined synopsis/solicitation and amendments shall be posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website: www.fbo.gov. Amendments to the combined synopsis/solicitation shall be publicized in the same manner as the initial synopsis/solicitation. All Offerors are cautioned that it is your responsibility to frequently check back to the website to ensure that you have received all issued amendments.

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This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items prepared in accordance with the format in Subpart 12.6, as supplemented with additional information included in this notice.

This announcement constitutes the only solicitation; quotes are being requested and a written solicitation will not be issued.

The solicitation number for this requirement is PUR1900840001. This solicitation is issued as a Request for Quotes (RFQ).

The solicitation document and incorporated provisions and clauses are those in effect through Federal Acquisition Circular 2019-01.

This requirement is issued as a full and open competition. The associated NAICS code is 511210, Software Publishers.

Background
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is an independent Federal agency with the primary missions of investigating civil aviation accidents in the United States and significant accidents in the other modes of transportation -- railroad, highway, marine and pipeline -- and issuing safety recommendations aimed at preventing future accidents.

Minimum Requirement/Functionality
The NTSB has a requirement for a commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) text and data-mining software application to support its accident investigations and safety research. The software will be used by five or fewer analysts and researchers in the NTSB Office of Research and Engineering who routinely conduct complex text and data analyses of operational and safety data. The software shall be able to accept all common data sources and formats and shall support merging of text and numeric data from different local and remote sources. The software shall provide statistical modeling, natural language processing, and machine learning functions; such as text and semantic search, text and document classification, clustering, entity extraction, taxonomy creation, prediction, anomaly detection, and time series analyses.

The software shall also allow staff to conduct analyses using large volumes of text and structured data. The software shall also support creation of custom reports and the ability to incorporate it into business processes in the form of analysis models. The software license shall be comprised of user assistance information and product enhancements, which includes interface features with other applications used within the Office of Research and Engineering, Safety Studies and Statistical Division. The software shall be able to run on workstation and laptop computers in a Microsoft Windows environment.

The requested software is intended to be used for data analysis in a research environment. The software will be used by trained researchers who will develop specific analysis projects as needed to support safety investigations or safety research projects; it is not intended to be an enterprise application or to have widespread use. The COTS software is intended to be deployed as a desktop or server-based application on the agency's intranet inside a firewall. File sources, sizes, and numbers will vary by analysis project, but total data size for a typical project will be less than 500GB.

The period of performance for the software license and technical support is from date of award through twelve (12) month for the base period; with a potential of four (4) one (1) year option periods. The purchase order will be a total of five (5) years if all options are exercised.

Description of Requirement
The NTSB has a requirement for:

Line Item Number 0001: Text and Data-Mining Software License and Support Services, Quantity: 1 Each, Period of Performance: BASE YEAR.

Line Item Number 0002: Text and Data-Mining Software License and Support Services, Quantity: 1 Each, Period of Performance: OPTION YEAR 1.

Line Item Number 0003: Text and Data-Mining Software License and Support Services, Quantity: 1 Each, Period of Performance: OPTION YEAR 2.

Line Item Number 0004: Text and Data-Mining Software License and Support Services, Quantity: 1 Each, Period of Performance: OPTION YEAR 3.

Line Item Number 0005: Text and Data-Mining Software License and Support Services, Quantity: 1 Each, Period of Performance: OPTION YEAR 4.

Technical Acceptability
Technical Acceptability will be based on the described minimum features/functionality of the requirement. All responsible sources may submit a capability statement, proposal, or quotation, which shall be considered by the NTSB. Offerors shall submit a White Paper providing a detailed description of the COTS software being quoted to assist the NTSB in determining the software's technical acceptability. The White Paper shall be no more than 10 pages.

The quoted software shall be Section 508 Compliant. Offerors shall submit a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) to assert Section 508 Compliance.

Basis for Award
The NTSB solicits your quote for commercially available off-the-shelf text and data-mining software application to support its accident investigations and safety research. This RFQ will result in the award of one (1) firm fixed-price purchase order.

Award will be made to the Lowest Price Technically Acceptable quote. For award purposes the Government will evaluate offerors quoted price by adding the total price for all options to the total price for the basic requirement (base year). The Government may determine that an offer is unacceptable if the option prices are significantly unbalanced and if pricing is not provided for all requested years. Evaluation of options shall not obligate the Government to exercise the option(s).

Awardee shall be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) at time of award.

Clauses and Provisions
Review Attachment 1 - Clauses and Provisions of this requirement.

Submission of Quotes
Your quote shall be received no later than 4:00 p.m., Eastern Day Time (EDT), on May 2, 2019. LATE QUOTES MAY NOT BE CONSIDERED in accordance with FAR provision 52.212-1, Instructions to Offerors - Commercial Items.

Quotes shall be transmitted via email to:

Janice R. McCoy
Email: janice.mccoy@ntsb.gov

The maximum size of an email, including attachments, which the NTSB email server can accept is 15 megabytes (MB). Therefore, the Contractor may choose to send their proposal in separate emails, if the combined file size of any email received by the NTSB email server will exceed 15MB. Contractors are encouraged to remove excess graphics from their proposals to ensure proposals remain under the file size limit. It is the Contractor's responsibility to ensure that the designated point of contact has received your proposal at the email address of the contact specified above by the proposal due date.

Questions Regarding the Combined Synopsis/Solicitation
All questions regarding this combined synopsis/solicitation shall be directed to Janice R. McCoy, Contracting Officer via email at janice.mccoy@ntsb.gov. ALL QUESTIONS MUST BE RECEIVED BY 2:00 p.m. EDT on April 24, 2019.

Electronic Dissemination of Combined Synopsis/Solicitation
Access to this combined synopsis/solicitation and amendments shall be posted on the Federal Business Opportunities website: www.fbo.gov. Amendments to the combined synopsis/solicitation shall be publicized in the same manner as the initial synopsis/solicitation. All Offerors are cautioned that it is your responsibility to frequently check back to the website to ensure that you have received all issued amendments.

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