Design, Development and Implementation of an IT System

This is not a Request for Proposal (RFP). The United States Department of Education, Federal Student Aid (FSA) on behalf of the Chief Information Officer (CIO), FSA, is conducting market research in accordance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 10.001 to determine the extent of 8(a) small business concerns that are K2 Service Providers with the capabilities to serve as the Prime contractor for the design, development and implementation of an Integrated Partner Management (IPM) solution. K2 Service Providers recommend, define, design, build, deploy and/or manage technology solutions for their customers. A K2 Service Provider has made a formal commitment to implement K2 software and have taken the necessary steps to train architects and produce the customer evidence necessary to participate at this level of the K2 Partner Program. This requirement is identified as follows: This strategic effort will, through process modernization and automation provide, in one solution, enrollment, eligibility, and oversight processes used to manage partner entities (i.e., schools, school servicers, lenders, lender servicers, guarantee agencies, state agencies, federal agencies, accrediting agencies, auditors, and owners) as they administer Title IV Financial Aid for students. IPM will significantly improve the business operations (including critical monitoring and oversight functions) by creating the ability to track partner activities through the full life cycle within Federal Student Aid's systems; and increase partner satisfaction by providing a single integrated solution for all partner activities. The IPM initiative goals are to: - Improve efficiency of staff by providing a more effective tool set for case management and a seamless repository for information access and retention, - Provide a scalable platform to satisfy future requirements, - Reduce Federal Student Aid's risk and reliance upon out of date and unsupported technologies, - Increase assurance that our program compliance support technology could be recovered after a disaster, - Establish a base of information that may be both more accessible and more secure, - Provide better tools to management in the monitoring and balancing of workload, - Provide efficient process to meet internal and external reporting requirements, - Improve the overall quality of program compliance by reducing errors, conducting more complete analysis and receiving timely results, - Assure flexibility in structuring and staffing the Program Compliance function, - Provide the base of tools necessary to effectively evaluate publicly traded (large multi-campus, geographically spread schools), and - Reduce risk of Federal Student Aid failing to detect a non-compliant institution. The Contractor shall provide useable interim deliverables to result in a successful completion of the IPM Solution. The preferred approach will be expeditious and provide the greatest possible value to the end customer. The scope areas for this effort are as follows: - User friendly end product-self institutive which requires minimum training - Requirements Services - Design Services, - Development Services, - Development Testing Services, - Training Services, - Implementation Services, - Transition to Operations & Maintenance Services, and - Project Management Services. The performance objectives are as follows: - The Contractor shall deliver an IPM Solution that meets requirements and functional design. - Elicit system (technical) and supplemental (non-functional) requirements, - Develop preliminary and detailed design documents, - Develop the IPM solution based on the design, - Document full solution traceability, - Collaborate with all program/project stakeholders, - Design controls to ensure all software, system, or infrastructure designs are implemented correctly, - Meet the business and system requirements with o 100% correct outputs and o 99.9% application availability - Provide a system that meets criteria for: o OMB Clearance o System Security Individual responses to this request for information that may contain company proprietary information must be marked accordingly. What to submit in response to Sources Sought: - Vendor's Capabilities Statement - Past Performance Synopsis - 8(a) vendor shall identify a recent (within the past two years) and relevant Government or commercial effort on which it performed as the prime contractor and/or K2 Service Provider on the design, development and implementation of a major system. The response shall focus on the key elements of a design/development/implementation effort, as well as the size, scope and complexity of the effort, the performance measures (cost/schedule/quality) as well as the actual results achieved against those measures. The synopsis shall not exceed two pages in length and must include point of contact information (name, title, telephone number and email address) for the customer of the referenced effort. The Government may revise its acquisition strategy and solicitation requirements based upon industry response. The Government shall not be liable for or suffer any consequential damages for any technical information identified (e.g. limited and/or restricted rights). Please identify yourself as an 8(a) Small Business concern. Should a Request for Proposal (RFP) be issued you will be required to provide an official quote in response to the RFP. Capabilities Statements and Synopsis are to be submitted via email to pennie.summers@ed.gov with a copy to carlton.brown@ed.gov by Friday, May 28, 2010 at 5:00pm (EASTERN). No extensions will be granted and telephone submissions will not be honored.