D -- FARM APPLICATIONS SERVICES AND TECHNOLOGY (FAST)

AMENDMENT #0003 WAS RELEASED ON 12/19/2007. PLEASE GO TO THE AMD WEBSITE TO DOWNLOAD IT. Solicitation Notice: AG-645S-S-08-0002 Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business Set-Aside Solicitation notice is for the service disabled veteran owned small business set-aside multiple award task order contract for Information Technology (IT) support services, referred to as Farm Application Services and Technologies (FAST). This solicitation will result in the award of one (1) contract to service disabled veteran owned small business. FAST awards will include this one as well as awards made off of Solicitations AG-645S-S-08-0001 and AG-645S-S-08-0003. A total of six contracts will be awarded - two (2) to small business of any type, one (1) to a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) specifically, and three (3) that are unrestricted. FAST will enable the United States Department of Agriculture?s (USDA) Farm Service Agency?s (FSA) information and program areas to accomplish the Agency?s mission objectives. FAST is designed to offer a broad range of services, solutions and contract types to fulfill the majority of component and departmental IT service needs. The Contractor shall provide a wide range of IT support services for the USDA-FSA. The Contractor shall provide all personnel, materials, supervision and other items and services necessary to perform IT as defined in the Statement of Work (SOW). The three (3) small business awards (two from this solicitation and one from the SDVOSB solicitation) will include a SOW comprised of five comprehensive functional service areas. Functional Area 1-Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Oversight Services: requires that the Contractor shall provide any and all phases of portfolio management, information technology management and cost studies, project management and Enterprise Architecture. Functional Area 2-Computer Facilities Management Services and Information Technology Support: requires that the Contractor shall engage in providing on-site management and operation of clients? computer systems and/or data processing facilities and IT processing support. Such as: computer system facilities service, end user support and help desk work. Functional Area 3-Information Security and Other Computer Related Services: requires that the Contractor shall provide the full range of Information Security and other computer related services such as: independent test, validation, verification, and evaluation solutions to ensure that all IT products and services meet agency standards, and are performing to defined security specifications/capabilities. Such as: A-123 Management Controls and IT audit support, contingency planning or disaster preparedness/recovery. Functional Area 4-All Other Information Services: requires that the Contractor shall provide all phases of design, development and delivery of miscellaneous information services. Such as: distance learning, training, i.e., curriculum development, custom developed classroom training, meeting planning and facilitation services, E-commerce, or telephone-based recorded information services. Functional Area 5-Custom Software Design, Development, Implementation, and Integration Services: requires that the Contractor provide any and all phases of system development lifecycle management activities in accordance with FSA?s System Development Life Cycle (SDLC). System development lifecycle management activities include concept development, planning, requirements definition and analysis, systems analysis and design, development, implementation, configuration management, testing, deployment, and maintenance. The Contractor shall also provide support for related IT system management activities in support of assigned systems to include security certification and accreditation, disaster recovery, and IT capital planning support. Specific requirements will be further identified and defined at the task order level. Of these five (5) functional areas, Functional Areas 1 ? 4 are restricted to competition among the three small business awardees (two awards from this solicitation and one from the SDVOSB solicitation). Functional Area 5 will be open to competition among all six awardees. The nature of work in the functional areas requires contractor support in the IT development, migration and support of systems that meet the business and program needs for FSA. The support in all of the functional areas shall cover the spectrum from local microcomputer applications to large-scale integrated systems (web-based or mainframe) and shall involve a variety of software languages, i.e., COBOL, Java and hardware platforms including PC, AS/400, XP, UNIX, mainframe. The Contractor shall be required to perform IT work according to FSA?s Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC), architectures, standards, guidelines, and procedures as stated in individual Task Orders. The Contractor shall also ensure compliance with federal regulations, security certification and accreditation, disaster recovery, and IT capital planning as stated in individual Task Orders. Major IT support offices for FSA are located in Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri; and Washington, D.C. Additional support efforts may be required at the FSA-Aerial Photography Field Office (APFO) located in Salt Lake City, Utah. Prior historical knowledge of FSA indicates that over 85% of the work will be on-site in Kansas City, approximately 5% on-site in St. Louis, 5% in WDC, and less than 5% in Salt Lake City. The Contractor shall provide IT services on an as needed basis and in the quantities specified in task orders issued by the Contracting Officer (CO). Support requirements include: direct on-site IT services such as software engineering, programming and implementation support for integrated telecommunications networks, IT application development, imaging support, data warehousing, COTS integration services, design and implement linkages and interfaces for enterprise architecture solutions, Enterprise GIS engineering and application development, Remote Sensing, and business application engineering. The IDIQ contract will have a five year period of performance and each individual task order will establish a period of performance for the individual effort. Proposals are due on January 3, 2008, at 2:30 p.m. Central Standard Time. The solicitation is posted on the following website http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/webapp?area=about&subject=landing&topic=sao-dm-am. All interested parties are responsible for downloading the solicitation from this site. Interested parties are to e-mail their intent to download the solicitation. This e-mail will provide the name, address, telephone number and point of contact of the organization. This information will be included in a potential offeror?s list, which will also be available for download on the same site and will be updated no less than weekly. Potential offerors are responsible for checking this web site for any amendments and downloading those amendments as they occur. No separate notice will be provided. Send the intent e-mail to Liz Green, Contract Specialist, at contact@example.gov . All responsible sources may submit a proposal at their own cost which will be considered. Point of Contact: Liz Green, Contract Specialist, +1 (555) 000-0000, Fax, +1 (555) 000-0000, Email contact@example.gov or Pamela S. Wellons, Chief, Acquisition Branch, +1 (555) 000-0000, Email contact@example.gov, fax +1 (555) 000-0000.