Geospatial Support Services (GSS)

Note: This Sources Sought is not associated with RFP AG02NV-S-16-0025. This is a separate requirement. Description The Forest Service (GTAC) is conducting market research regarding the availability of potential sources of on-site/off-site professional services in accordance with the definition under FAR Part 22.1102 (NOT of an architectural or engineering nature as defined under the Brooks Act) in the areas of geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, global positioning systems (GPS), cartography and related geospatial activities, including: - Geospatial data compilation, processing and manipulation - GIS and remote sensing analysis and modeling - Scripting and geospatial programming in support of GIS and remote sensing modeling and analyses, database queries, and geospatial work-flow automation - Geospatial training development and delivery - Geospatial technology transfer activities and related support services including help desk support The anticipated contract is a single award Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract with a total period of performance of five (5) years. Estimated total contract value is $4M. Anticipated pricing arrangements may include Firm Fixed Price (FFP), Labor Hour (LH), and Cost Reimbursable (CR). Contract award is anticipated by June 2017 with a contract transition start date of 01 August 2017. The anticipated NAICS code is 541990. The Government is performing market research at this time and acquisition strategy is not firm. This is not a Request for Proposal (RFP) or Invitation for Bid (IFB); it is only to obtain market capabilities/industry comments and is to be used for informational purposes only. The Government does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this request, nor will the Government pay for the information requested. Your answers are intended to be used to help construct our acquisition strategy and may be used to structure the Government's RFP. In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Respondents are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this notice. Respondents needing confidential treatment for any proprietary information they furnish must comply with the SEC's confidential treatment regulations at 17 C.F.R. 200.83. Responses to this notice will not be returned. Respondents will not be notified of the result of the review. All responses to this notice shall be submitted via email to Mary Shinney at mshinney@fs.fed.us no later than 1700 MST, 04 November 2016. Background The mission of GTAC is to investigate, promote and enable the application of GIS, remote sensing and other sources of geospatial data; new and evolving geospatial technologies; and identify/develop geospatial solutions to address the business requirements and resource questions throughout the Forest Service and its inter-agency partners. The technical services GTAC provides include: - Geospatial Training - Develop and deliver geospatial training across the Forest Service and a growing number of its partners by way of the National Geospatial Training and Awareness Program. Training emphasizes Remote Sensing, GIS, GPS, and mobile technologies, work-flows and analysis methods applied within a natural resource environment. - Geospatial Help Desk - Provide Tier II and Tier III level help desk services supporting remote sensing, GIS, GPS, and mobile geospatial tools, solutions, and work-flows in collaboration with the Forest Service Computer Help Desk (CHD). - Data development, integration, and improvement - Provide a variety of data- related services, such as: suitability and quality assessments, maintenance and updating, integration/fusion, and quality improvement. - Data provisioning - Publish selected data to the Forest Service Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) and Raster Data Warehouse (RDW), and provide map and data products through Enterprise Map and Image Services. - Applications and Tools Development - Design, develop, test, and deploy geospatial-related applications and tools. - Technology Evaluation, Assessment and Integration - Identify, assess, and test technologies having potential for serving geospatial-related needs, and integrating technologies to achieve improved capabilities and ensure enterprise interoperability. - Spatial Analysis and Modeling - Provide geospatial support to Forest Service projects, from data gathering and assessment to image processing, remote sensing analyses, geospatial analyses/modeling and production of related mapping, visualization and information products. - Operational Project Support - Provide operational GIS and remote sensing support services to internal and external agency stakeholders and clients, including active fire mapping, post-fire mapping and assessment, non-fire incident support, resource monitoring/mapping, custom geospatial data development and provisioning. - Technical consultation - Provide subject matter expert consultation in the application of geospatial technologies-particularly GIS, Remote Sensing, GPS, and Cartography-in all facets of the natural resource disciplines and sciences. - Mapping - Provide mapping and cartographic services such as: - Digital Image Processing and Analysis: ? -- Land cover/vegetation classification and characterization ? -- Change detection and magnitude of change ? -- Detection and characterization of fire activity ? -- Burned area and fire severity mapping - Base Mapping: ? -- 7.5 minute topographic maps (e.g. FS-Topo) ? -- Forest visitor maps ? -- Ortho photography, DOQ production. - Thematic Mapping: ? -- Terrestrial Ecological Units; ? -- Custom map products. - Hardware performance testing: Provide configuration recommendations for PCs, workstations, and laptop computer systems to meet the business needs of research and the geospatial community. - Geospatial software management - Procurement, licensing, and distribution of enterprise geospatial software applications. - Website Design, Development and Maintenance - Conduct website development and maintenance activities for geospatial projects sponsored by GTAC and Forest Service partners, including development of websites and web-based mapping and geospatial-related applications. Services Sought Specific services of interest for this request include the following geospatial activity areas. Links to additional information regarding particular Forest Service activities or programs are provided for reference: 1. Geospatial Analysis: The contractor shall provide consultation and expertise in determining and/or delivering innovative approaches to solving questions related to Forest Service business requirements through the use of geospatial tools, models, and analysis procedures. The contractor shall conduct advanced analysis of raster, vector and imagery based data sources including but not limited to: multi-criteria analysis, view shed analysis, travel-time calculations, geographically-weighted regression analysis, geostatistical modeling, image classification, and feature extraction. The contractor shall adhere to agency data standards and requirements as specified. Examples include; metadata, file naming conventions, data dictionary standards, and file storage rules. 2. Geospatial Training and Helpdesk Support The contractor shall develop and deliver basic, intermediate, and advanced geospatial training in the natural resource application and use of: Geographic Information Systems (GIS); Remote sensing; Global Positioning Systems (GPS); and mobile field collection systems. Primary software utilized includes: - GIS - ESRI suite of Software ? -- ArcMap, Arc Catalog, Arc Toolbox, ArcGIS Explorer, ArcGIS Services, and other related technologies - Remote Sensing - Erdas Imagine - eCognition - DATEM Summit Evolution - Fusion (Lidar) - GPS - Trimble Pathfinder Office - Collector - Trimble GPS hardware - Using consumer grade mobile devises The contractor shall create, manipulate, analyze, and update geospatial information. Manipulates layers and features in map displays, attributes tables, and graphs, provides support for the installation, licensing, and operation of ESRI geospatial software in a desktop and enterprise environment as part of a geospatial helpdesk. The contractor works as part of a team of contract and government geospatial analysis experts to develop applied geospatial training for current and future USDA FS desktop and enterprise geospatial systems, serves as a subject matter expert in the areas of GIS, training development and delivery. 3. Geospatial Workflow Automation and Modeling Geospatial scripting and modeling support is required to support GTAC system operations such as FS-Topo, the web-based application that facilitates compilation and delivery of customized map products, and Active Fire Mapping. Services will provide SDE replication and versioning support, communicate technical bugs to ESRI, develop automate and troubleshoot workflows and system processes. Expertise in current and past geospatial applicable scripting languages is required (e.g. Python, AML, SQL, EML, IDL). - Geospatial Data Processing and Manipulation: Acquisition of large volumes of various geospatial data in disparate formats (e.g., imagery, raster/vector GIS data, tabular data), conduct necessary pre-processing (e.g. radiometric correction, re-project to desired projection/coordinate system, generate indices, mosaic/append) and compile into organized geospatial data structure for subsequent analysis and mapping. - Land Cover Change and Monitoring: Apply established and new remote sensing techniques and related geospatial technologies for land cover change mapping, disturbance detection and characterization, burn severity mapping, and storm damage assessment. - BAER Imagery Support Program (www.fs.fed.us/eng/rsac/baer/) - Rapid Assessment of Vegetation Condition after Wildfire (RAVG) (www.fs.fed.us/postfirevegcondition/index.shtml) - Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) (www.mtbs.gov/) - Geospatial Programming/Application Development:Custom geospatial scripting and programming services using enterprise software applications (e.g. ERDAS Imagine, ArcGIS, other COTS and GOTS software); geospatial cloud computing, data provisioning and mapping services; and related geospatial/statistical analysis software packages (e.g., GDAL and QQIS) to facilitate automated data processing, analysis, information extraction and product generation. - Geospatial Web Applications: Development and maintenance of web-based geospatial applications/services for viewing and disseminating geospatial data. - Forest Service Geospatial Data Clearinghouse (http://data.fs.usda.gov/geodata/) - Active Fire Mapping Program (http://forest-atlas.fs.fed.us/) - BAER Imagery Support Program (www.fs.fed.us/eng/rsac/baer/) - Rapid Assessment of Vegetation Condition after Wildfire (www.fs.fed.us/postfirevegcondition/index.shtml) - Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) Data Access (www.mtbs.gov/dataaccess.html) - Predictive Services Geospatial Portal and 7 Day Online Preparation System (http://psgeodata.fs.fed.us/staticmap.html) - Santa Ana Wildfire Threat Index (http://sawti.fs.fed.us/) - Forest Service Interactive Visitor Map (IVM) (www.fs.fed.us/ivm/) - Forest Service Enterprise Data Warehouse Map Services (http://data.fs.usda.gov/geodata/edw/datasets.php) - Base Mapping: Production of standardized agency primary base topographic mapping products at 1:24,000 and 1:63,360 scale for nearly 11,000 quadrangles intersecting National Forest System lands throughout the United States, including management FS-Topo. Production and update for approximately 350 intermediate scale secondary base maps compiled for each National Forest and Grassland in the National Forest System. Both map series require update and maintenance of relevant nationwide geospatial data sets. - Geospatial Technology Evaluation: Identify, investigate and document the feasibility of emerging remote sensing, GIS, GPS, database management and other related geospatial technology and/or methods to improve the quality, accessibility, collecting, managing and analysis of natural resource data for land management applications and agency mission objectives. Specific technology evaluation examples include geospatial software; airborne and satellite sensors; Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) platforms, sensors and related technologies. - Geospatial Technical Support:Provide advanced remote sensing and GIS end- user support for the installation, licensing and use of enterprise geospatial software and technologies and other software and technology support to Forest Service field units and regional offices. - Geospatial Training and Technology Transfer: Conduct requirements analyses to identify geospatial skill and knowledge gaps in the agency and identify/recommend appropriate training solutions. Develop and deliver remote sensing, GIS, and related geospatial training and awareness activities for all experience levels using different mediums (in person and virtual). Instructions to Prospective Offerors Contractors responding to this Sources Sought Notice must provide the following: 1) An introduction of your capability to support the requirements in the Services Sought section of this announcement, including your experience with the relevant software, platforms, and systems. Supporting explanation and/or documentation should relay your company's knowledge and actual experience in the requirements identified along with the recency of that experience. 2) A completed GTAC Activity Area Checklist Rev 2 (attached) assessing your capability in various GTAC activity areas. For each area in which you have experience, provide explanation and/or documentation describing actual experience in these areas. Indicate whether actual experience was as a Prime contractor (provide federal government contract numbers) or as a Subcontractor. Include only experience gained by your company and not an affiliate (e.g. sister company, subsidiary, parent, different operating unit, joint or teaming partner, etc.). 3) Indicate whether you are interested in acting as Prime contractor or performing as a Subcontractor for this effort. If interested in being Prime, indicate what functional areas you plan to perform and those which you plan to subcontract or have performed by an affiliate company. (Reference the final rule effective 30 June 2016 amending the SBA regulation pertaining to subcontracting (see 13 CFR 121.103(h)(4)) wherein a contractor and its ostensible subcontract are treated as joint venturers, and therefore affiliates for size determination purposes.) Do you have the capability to perform the functional area identified in this sources sought and GTAC Activity Area Checklist without over-reliance on affiliates or subcontractors that are not a similarly situated entity? 4) Provide your business size, socioeconomic designation, and Cage Code. If part of the 8(a) program, provide your anticipated graduation date. 5) Indicate if you are currently a GSA schedule holder for these services and provide the respective GSA contract number. 6) Identify the NAICS that you believe best identifies the Government's requirement as stated under the Services Sought section. 7) Has any organization conducted a pre-award survey prior to making an award to your company? Does your company have an approved accounting, estimating, purchasing, and property management system? 8) Does your company or anticipated teaming arrangement have any potential conflicts of interests in proposing under this effort? Responses must be submitted as an Adobe PDF or Microsoft Word format. Information provided in response to this Sources Sought Notice should not exceed 15 pages, including the GTAC Activity Area Checklist. Submit your electronic response to mshinney@fs.fed.us on or before 1700 MST, 04 November 2016. Reference the Notice Number AG-84JC-S-17-0001.