D -- Systems Development and Integration (SDI)

Request for InformationSystems Development & Integration (SDI) SUBJECT: R'SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT AND INTEGRATION SUPPORT FOR THE U.S. PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE INTRODUCTION: The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is conducting market research to identify organizations that have the technical capabilities to perform systems development and integration (SDI) activities in support of the USPTO, Office of the Chief Information Officer. This market research shall be conducted at NO COST TO THE GOVERNMENT. This announcement is a Request For Information (RFI), not a solicitation for proposals, and accordingly, no contract will be awarded from this announcement. No reimbursement will be made for any costs associated with providing information in response to this announcement or any follow-up information requests. No telephone calls requesting a solicitation will be accepted or acknowledged. There is no solicitation available at this time. Industry responses, as a result of this announcement, shall focus on providing recommendations regarding the requirement and contract scope, contract type, performance incentives, best practices, etc. Each recommendation shall include a complete description of the recommendation, why the recommendation is being put forth, how the recommendation may benefit the USPTO, and a discussion as to the pros and cons of the recommendation as it relates to the USPTO. The current SDM contract (which the SDI contract will replace) is a cost plus award fee/ performance based, task order contract and is a dual award with two large business prime contractors (Lockheed Martin Corporation and Computer Sciences Corporation). The current contract term is one base year and seven option years. In addition to Contract Line Items (CLINs) for labor services, included in the current contract are CLINs for the acquisition of incidental hardware and COTS software. On contract type and incentives, the USPTO is looking for industry feedback on length of base term, total contract length and the use of award terms as incentives as well as recommendations related to various contract types, i.e. cost plus, fixed price or fixed price labor rate, solutions oriented/performance based, integration services, staff augmentation, etc. The USPTO is also looking for feedback regarding the scope of the contract (see Reference Sources for a link to the current contract). The USPTO is particularly interested in strategies for accommodating the anticipated process changes and utilization of new technology. The USPTO wishes to express its appreciation in advance to all organizations that choose to provide information in accordance with this announcement. A briefing with Industry to discuss this effort will be held on February 11, 2004 from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM, in the Patent Theater, 2nd Floor, Crystal Park 2, 2121 Crystal Drive, Arlington VA, 22202. Companies wishing to attend must contact Janet Carlson or Anice Ogden via, e-mail (Janet.Carlson@uspto.go or Anice.Ogden@uspto.gov ) with company name, contact name, phone number and number of attendees by February 6, 2004. For informational purposes, the USPTO will post the names of companies attending the RFI briefing to our acquisition web site. BACKGROUND: The USPTO Office of the Chief Information Officer is responsible for the development, enhancement, and maintenance of the more than 120 application information systems (AISs) that are critical to meeting the mission and strategic goals of the USPTO and its customers. In 1997 the USPTO awarded the Systems Development & Maintenance (SDM) contracts with the purpose of providing skilled staff, tools, and other resources necessary to undertake all phases of the USPTO's system life cycle development. The scope of work included systems design and analysis, programming, testing, customer training, implementation, transition to operations, system/software maintenance, project specific system/software engineering, business process re-engineering, information engineering, product assurance, project management, and other related services. Commercial off the shelf software products and incidental hardware were also part of the contract. SDI: The upcoming Systems Development and Integration (SDI) contract(s) will be the follow-on to the SDM contracts - to provide the highly skilled staff, tools, and processes necessary to develop, enhance, and maintain efficient and effective system and software solutions to meet the mission and goals of the USPTO, within the USPTO enterprise architecture (EA). It is expected that the contractors will provide the technical and managerial resources to architect, design, develop, integrate, modify, maintain, enhance, reengineer, and/or provide specialized technical assistance for AISs that support USPTO business functions. Services to be provide include, but are not limited to, requirements engineering, solutions architecture, systems analysis and design, programming, testing, implementation and integration, system/software engineering, process reengineering, information engineering, customer training, project management, and other related services and products. This contract will also be used to identify and acquire Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software applications or products that support the system development life cycle as well as incidental hardware needed for AIS development, maintenance, and enhancement activities. The USPTO intends to use the information and recommendations provided from this RFI in the development of the SDI contract approach and to refine the statement of work. Critical to the USPTO are contracting approaches and strategies that allow for flexibility in terms of the work to be performed and the ability to meet changes in technology. The USPTO is evolving its applications architecture and software engineering to include, in part: Linux, J2EE/JAVA, IBM WebSphere Suite (including the portal server, JAVA Studio Developer, and HTTP App Server), and Rational Unified Process. This acquisition will utilize the newly issued Patent and Trademark Acquisition Guidelines (PTAG) that provides significant flexibility from the FAR (see PTAG link below). REFERENCE SOURCES: The following information is provided to facilitate industry understanding of the requirement: USPTO 21st Century Strategic Plan http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/strat21/index.htm Office of the Chief Information Officer Strategic Information Technology Plan http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/cio/sitp/ PTO Life Cycle Management Manual http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/cio/lcm/lcm.htm Current SDM contract with Lockheed Martin & CSC http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/sol/foia/current.html Patent & Trademark Acquisition Guideline (PTAG) http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/comp/proc/ptagfdrg.pdf INSTRUCTIONS: Businesses with the capability of providing the required services are invited to submit, on a voluntary basis, in writing, sufficient information that demonstrates their ability to fulfill this requirement, information concerning performance-based contract measurement recommendations, best practices, contract type, and any other relevant recommendations. The USPTO desires that the contractor be ISO 9002 and/or CMM Level 3 certified at the time of award. - The USPTO is also seeking information on best practices in relevant areas of interest, including: Transition strategies to the new technologies listed above, within an EA methodology - Compliance of application development to an EA. How to handle exceptions. - XML integration within a service oriented architecture - Component software development life cycle process methodology, with re-use - With constrained budget and other resources, how to assure high-end skills will be available while trying to attain efficiency of application design/development/maintenance processes. - Within an applications development organization that utilizes an IV&V function, the relative scope of product assurance, configuration management, requirements management, and testing. Responses to this RFI shall not exceed 40 pages, and standard company brochures are not desired. Questions regarding this RFI should be submitted via email to: _Janet.Carlson@USPTO.gov or Anice.Ogden@USPTO.gov Responses to this RFI are due back to USPTO by 5:00 p.m. EST on Monday, March 1, 2004. Responses to this RFI, including the vendor's business status (e.g., small, small disadvantaged, minority-owned, 8(a), etc.) should be sent via email to the address above, or may be delivered as follows: Please mail all information to: Or hand carry/courier to: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Attn: Janet Carlson Attn: Janet Carlson Mail Stop 6Director of the US Patent and Trademark Office of ProcurementPO Box 1450Alexandria, VA 22313-1450 Office of Procurement2011 Crystal Drive, CPK1, Suite- 810Arlington, VA 22202 SUMMARY: USPTO appreciates your assistance with this market research and emphasizes that this effort is for planning purposes only. Responses will not be treated as proposals, but may be used to create the subsequent Request for Proposals (RFP). Respondents should clearly mark any proprietary information submitted in response to this RFI.