Support Services for the Automated and Self-Administered 24-hour (ASA24) Dietary Assessment System

Description: This is a Small Business Sources Sought (SBSS) Notice. This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this SBSS is to IDENTIFY QUALIFIED SMALL BUSINESS CONCERNS including Small Disadvantaged Businesses (SDB), Women-owned Small Business (WOSB), Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) Small Business, Veteran-Owned Small Business (VOSB), 8(a) Small Business, and Service-Disabled Veteran-owned Small Business (SDVOSB) that are interested in and capable of performing the work described herein. The size classification relative to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 541511 for the proposed acquisition is $27.5Million. Your responses to the information requested will assist the Government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible. An organization that is not considered a small business under the applicable NAICS code should not submit a response to this notice. This Small Business Sources Sought notice is for information and planning purposes only and shall not be construed as a solicitation or as an obligation on the part of the National Cancer Institute. Background: The National Cancer Institute developed the Automated Self-Administered 24-Hour (ASA24) Dietary Assessment Tool, a web-based software that enables self-administered 24-hour dietary recalls and food records. This software is freely available to educators, clinicians and researchers. The software requires updates to the question/probe databases, and to the nutrient and food databases (including supplements) on a bi-annual basis (based on updates to the US Department of Agriculture's Automated Multiple Pass Method, Food and Nutrient Database for dietary Studies *(FNDDS), Food Pyramid Equivalents Database (FPED), and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey's (NHANES) Dietary Supplement Database. The requirement will also include bug fixing, scalability testing and adjustment, user support, monitoring/tracking of software versions and of the studies using the software, and software enhancements. See https://epi.grants.cancer.gov/asa24/ for detailed information about the entire ASA24 System. Purpose and Objectives: The Contractor shall provide services to support, update, maintain, further develop and refine the existing Automated and Self-Administered 24-hour Dietary Assessment System. The tasks involve keeping the software current, supporting users, adding new features, and running a functioning, user-friendly ASA24 System for Respondents and Researchers. The System is comprised of existing Respondent versions for the US, Canada and Australia, a Researcher website, an informational website and a number of informational and help documents. Based on the responses received from this SBSS notice, the proposed project may be solicited as a Total Small Business Set-Aside. THERE IS NO SOLICITATION AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME. This SBSS is for information and planning purposes only and shall not be construed as a solicitation or as an obligation on the part of the Government Project Requirements: A copy of the draft Statement of Work (SOW) pertaining to this requirement, which is subject to revisions, is attached. General Requirements Tasks are not limited to the following: 1. ASA24 Updates, Enhancements, Maintenance, and User Support Tasks a. Technical b. User Management, Instructions, and Support c. ASA24 Administration and Versioning 2. General/Administrative a. Documentation and Management b. HHS Enterprise Performance Life Cycle (EPLC) c. Security Operations 3. Transition-Out Plan 4. Transition-In Plan Anticipated Period of Performance: The estimated period of performance for this Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract is five years starting April 2019. Only one award is anticipated. Capability Statement/ Information Sought: Small businesses that believe they have the ability to satisfy all of the above stated Project Requirements, and who meet the stated size standards, are encouraged to submit a capability statement. CAPABILITY CRITERIA: Capabilities will be judged based on the following criteria: 1) Understanding the Problem: The capability statement should demonstrate knowledge of the complexities of various methods, available data systems and how they might be operationalized in a self-reported dietary software system requiring constant updating and versioning. In addition, demonstration of an understanding of the interactions among large and complex databases, web-services and GUI interfaces is essential. 2) Technical Approach: The capability statement should include a broad description of technical approaches that the Contractor is capable of undertaking to update, improve, maintain, track and further develop the ASA24 System and its versions. 3) Personnel: The capability statement should demonstrate the ability to provide the necessary staff with relevant experience and skills to carry out all aspects of the work described in the draft Statement of Work. 4) Corporate Experience and Resources: The capability statement should demonstrate corporate knowledge and experience in: a) designing and maintaining nutritional intake or web-related software that includes large and complex databases, and web-services; b) using dietary assessment tools; c) using HTML 5, Angular JS, ASP.Net, Microsoft SQL, Elasticsearch Databases, REST web services, Java, Spring Boot, REDIS, IIS webserver, and Nginx webserver for web-based software; and d) designing creative and engaging user-friendly web-based or other software. On the first page of the capability statement, clearly state the small business concern's size status and type(s), name, address, point of contact, and DUNS number. The remainder of the capability statement should be tailored to the project requirements stated above and must demonstrate that similar work has been performed in the past, including the dollar value of that work. Capability statements should not exceed twenty (20), single-sided pages, presented in single-spaced, 11-point font size minimum. Information Submission Instructions: All capability statements sent in response to this Small Business Sources Sought notice must be submitted electronically (via e-mail) to Linda Park, Contracting Officer, at linda.park@nih.gov, in either MS Word, or Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF), by 3:00 pm Eastern Standard Time on March 23, 2018. All responses must be received by the specified due date and time in order to be considered. ANY RESPONSES RECEIVED AFTER THAT DATE AND TIME WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED. Disclaimer and Important Notes: This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization's qualifications to perform the work. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a pre-solicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in Federal Business Opportunities. However, responses to this notice will not be considered as adequate responses to a solicitation. Confidentiality: No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation.