D -- FARM APPLICATIONS SERVICES AND TECHNOLOGY (FAST)

AMENDMENT #0003 WAS RELEASED 12/19/2007. PLEASE GO TO THE AMD WEBSITE TO DOWNLOAD IT. Solicitation Notice: AG-645S-S-08-0003 Full and Open Competition Solicitation notice is for the full and open competitive 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 up to three (3) contracts. FAST awards will include these three as well as awards made off of Solicitations AG-645S-S-08-0001 and AG-645S-S-08-0002. 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. The three (3) awards under the full and open competitive solicitation will have a Statement of Work (SOW) that is limited to functional service area 5 only. 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. Functional Area 5 task orders 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). 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.