Work performance will be successful contractor's place of performance. The areas serviced under the proposed solicitation will be locations within the Naval Facilities Engineering Command's world-wide area of responsibility. The estimated volume of invoices is between 11,000 - 50,000 monthly from all Navy Installations within the United States and Overseas as follows: 1) An estimated 500 foreign invoices originate in Japan and incorporate both English and Japanese on the invoice 2) An estimated 500 foreign invoices originate in overseas including Naval bases in the UK, Iceland, Greece, Egypt, Bahrain, Korea, Singapore, and Spain with an additional 450 invoices from Italy, 5) Foreign invoices shall be retained in the originating country's currency/language, 6) Foreign utility invoice data shall be loaded in English, and retained in the originating country's currency. The successful contractor must have a minimum of three (3) years experience with ITRON software in order to build a minimum of 11,000 templates within 90 days of contract award. The successful contractor must have a minimum of five (5) years experience performing Utilities Accounts Payable services for commercial or governmental clients. Up to 113 separate data fields are to be tracked for all utility commodities. Additional information is provided as follows:A. 1. Financial Auditability: Each year the vendor must conduct an independent SAS 70 Type II audit to ensure government controls, processes, and quality assurance programs are in order. This review is managed external to client operations and includes a comprehensive assessment of control objectives and procedures within the areas of client operations, IT and connectivity/security. Additionally, this review should include additional enhanced control objectives that address the government's evolving equivalent financial standards. The vendor pays for this service, and, per contractual obligations, the results are made available to the government. 2. The vendor must also be able to demonstrate ISO compliance or equivalent financial certification. B. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI): The vendor must be able to accept the following EDI transactions for processing within the local system for validation and utility management. The vendors system must be able to demonstrate a workflow management capability with the integration to ITRON software and be able to be uploaded into CIRCUITS. The vendor must be able to collect both cost and consumption data from the major utility suppliers via EDI standards listed below. # 810 v4010 Invoice (Consolidated Billing) # 867 v4010 Inventory Information (Meter Data) Note: These transaction standards are based on the NAESB implementation conventions. C. Work Flow Management: Once an Invoice has been received, an automated workflow process must be utilized to manage the movement of the invoice between users of the system and the associated states. The vendor system must be able to demonstrate the capability to handle multi-level workflow. Examples could be from 10-20 levels of workflow. D. Disaster Recovery/Business Continuity: The vendor must have Business Continuity Plan that is designed to maintain business continuity in the event of disaster of any type, including a - total loss of all facilities and technology within our general service facilities and Network Operations Centers. 1.Short-term power and networking stabilization 2.Spare critical hardware components and equipment 3.Stable hot site recovery locations deployable within 48 hours 4.Mobile hot site units at the Government's disposal within 8 hours notice. 5.Available capacity for seats in fully configured, networked space within 4 hours The following are different categories of disasters the Plan addresses: a) Environmental Disasters - environmental disasters caused by a loss of certain equipment or services needed by the organization in order to maintain operations; examples include utility outages (phone lines/electrical services) and loss of computer support equipment b) Natural Disasters - caused by such natural events as tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, fires, etc. c) Man Made Disasters - include anything maliciously done by an individual such as bombings, fires, vandalism, computer viruses, etc. d) Restricted Access - event that occurs resulting in restricted access to the facilities for a prolonged period of time (i.e., more than 48 hours) e) Standard Procedures - in addition to the even driven categories discussed above, the vendor needs standardized processes and procedures that are reviewed and assessed on an annual basis as a component of their annual SAS 70, Type II review This Plan is reviewed and assessed as a component of an annual SAS 70,Type II review. E. Technology and Investment: In order to present year over year financial benefit the vendor will need to demonstrate investments in technology in the form of: 1.Scanning and Imaging 2. Intelligent Data Capture 3. Electronic data Interchange with the large Suppliers 4. Workflow Management 5. Sophisticated web reports 6. Provider self service 7. Customer service systems 8. On and off-site document storage and archiving 9. Large scale electronic data storage and archiving (data retention required for 5 years minimum) 10. Data security in compliance with Cardholder Information Security Program (CISP) and Payment Card Industry Security Standard (PCI). F. 1. Criminal and Background Checking: Since we are dealing in the arena of financial disbursements and we want to ensure we eliminate employees prone to fraud and theft, the vendor will use an outside firm with a minimum of 10 years of experience in providing criminal, drug, credit, and other relevant personal background testing. 2. Key elements of this process include all qualified applicants (full, part time or temporary) submitting to these tests including an 80-question audit designed to provide a predictive indicator of an applicants tendencies toward theft, substance abuse and honesty. 3. All employees must achieve base line levels of acceptability within all areas discussed above. Any potential employee, regardless of level, who falls outside of the tolerance, will be removed from consideration. 4. Additional Security Clearances may be required for all employees if determined by the government. All technical inquiries will be addressed after issuance of the solicitation and should be forwarded in writing.
