Braille Printers

This is NOT a solicitation. The Social Security Administration is performing market research to identify capable GSA vendors to provide 2 Embosser printers for the Braille Services Team at the Social Security Administration (SSA) Headquarters in Baltimore. The requirement is for an embosser capable of printing large volumes at a continuous high-speed. All interested parties capable of providing this machine are invited to submit information that includes company name, address, contact name, and telephone number, company literature, make, model, part number and description. The Government does not intend to pay for information received and does not intend to provide evaluation results to the sender. Instead, the knowledge obtained from information submitted will be factored into subsequent procurement set-aside determinations and/or solicitation requirements. No award will be made based on this synopsis. The information received will be used in SSA's assessment of capable sources. Requests for copies of a solicitation and/or telephone calls WILL NOT be honored or acknowledged. No cost or pricing data is required or requested. Responses must be submitted by 4:00 p.m. EST on August 6, 2008 to Sandy Wicks, Contract Specialist, Office of Acquisition & Grants, 1st Floor - Rear Entrance 7111 Security Boulevard, Baltimore, MD 21244-1811or emailed to sandra.wicks@ssa.gov. Salient Characteristics for Embosser: The embosser produces braille documents that are used by visually impaired SSA employees. At least 75% of their workload depends on this equipment to produce braille documents. The machine that would handle such a workload must have the following specs: The embosser must be a high speed, high volume machine capable of producing documents at a minimum 200 character per second, and 600 pages per hour rate for approximately eight (8) hours per day. The type of paper that will be used is: blank, continuous, pin-feed tabulating paper that is 12 1/2 inches x 11 inches, with a 1/2 inch perforation on the left and right side of the paper. The paper also has 19 spiral holes on the left side of the paper. The embosser must be easy to load and unload paper for both sighted and visually impaired users. The embosser must have one sided and interpoint (two-sided printing of braille documents) printing capability. The user (visually impaired personnel) should not have to use a keyboard; instead the embosser must have a Duxbury Braille Translator (software) that automatically sets the configuration for the embosser; which also replaces the vocal accessibility. The embosser should have a removable motherboard that can be pulled out and mailed to the vendor/manufacturer for most service repairs. The embosser must be able to fit on top of a desk approximately 5 feet in length x 3 feet wide. The embosser must have at least a minimum two (2) year warranty that covers all parts for manufacturing defects. The embosser must include an on-site maintenance agreement.