SOURCES SOUGHT
R -- Transportation Management System for Grave Markers
- Notice Date
- 9/30/2002
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- Contracting Office
- Attn: Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administrati= on, Chief, Centralized Contracting Division, (402D3), 5105 Russell Road, Qu= antico, Virginia 22134-3903
- ZIP Code
- 22134-3903
- Solicitation Number
- 786-45-03
- Point of Contact
- Point of Contact - Diane L. Campbell, Contracting Officer, (703) 4= 41-4011, Contracting Officer - Diane L. Campbell, Contracting Officer, (703= ) 441-4011
- E-Mail Address
-
Email your questions to Diane L. Campbell
(dcampbell@cem.va.gov)
- Description
- RFI 786-45-03 TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT PROJECT NATIONAL CEMETERY ADMINISTRATION This is a Request for Information (RFI) for an anticipated procurement project to automate the transportation procurement process for the National Cemetery Administration at Quantico, Virginia. The acquisition team for this project is presently conducting market research into possible alternative information systems. Contractors interested in participating by providing feedback, recommendations, questions, solutions etc. concerning this project should send their comments, name, address, phone number, fax number and email address to the attention of Diane Campbell, Contracting Officer at the following address: =20 Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration Centralized Contracting Division (402D31) 5105 Russell Road Quantico, VA 22134-3903.=20 The NCA envisions the proposed system as concurrently supporting the following two prospective business processes in the manner describe below:=20 The first prospective business process involves shipment requests that flow from machine generated production orders. The NCA sends production orders for grave markers to marker manufacturers. When the manufacturer (who is also the shipper) has completed the production of the markers on an order, he will log into the proposed system through a web interface. The system will present him with a list of his open/unshipped production orders. When he clicks on a production order, he is then presented with a list of line items on that production order. Each line item may contain several markers that will be shipped together and considered as a single shipment. He will then select with a checkbox each line item that he has finished producing and is ready to ship or he may select the entire order. He will also provide a date that he wants the shipment(s) to be picked up. When he submits his selections, the proposed system will generate a shipment request record for each line item based on the data in the production order. That record is then sent through a pricing process to find shipment prices from several different transportation companies. The proposed system will compare the prices and award the shipment to the best value carrier.=20 The proposed system will then format the priced and awarded shipment record as both a paper bill of lading to be printed at the users web-browser and also as a X12 EDI bill of lading (211 or 858 transaction sets) to be transmitted electronically to the carrier. Concurrently, the system will also transmit a X12 EDI pickup notification (216 transaction set) to inform the carrier of the requested pickup date. This process will be fully automated except for the act of the shipper/manufacturer triggering the process when he is ready to ship the goods.=20 In addition to the automated process above for machine created shipments, the system should have a web-based interface to allow a user to create a shipment request record via manual input and then submit the request for pricing. The system would then try to price the shipment request and return a list of carriers to the user. Shipments that are unable to be priced will be put in a hold queue for intervention by the transportation supervisor who may manually price the shipment. Once the shipment is priced, the shipment is returned to the requestor. The requesting user may then select a carrier and award the shipment to the carrier. The awarded shipment will then be printed as a paper bill of lading at the user=92s web-browser and will also be sent electronically via EDI to the carrier, along with an EDI pickup notification.=20 The following is a brief description of the objectives of this project:=20 a.=09Be able to process two types of shipments: i.=09Machine created shipments triggered by user request =96 Accept a list of manufacturer production orders and several elements of shipping data such as destination address, piece count, and item types via automated input from an Oracle database. The proposed system will take this order data and combine it with data from its own relational database tables containing information on item properties (such as item dimensions and weights) and tables of addresses to create a complete shipment record. The system will this present this list of shipment records in a web interface to allow a user to trigger further processing after an order has finished production and is ready to be shipped.=20 ii.=09User created shipments -=20 Accept data from a user via an interface such as a web browser. User will input most shipping data with some being retrieved from relational database tables.=20 b.=09Accept rate tender/tariff submissions from carriers via X.12 EDI (602 transaction set) and also allow for manual creation and update of rates from a user interface such as a web browser.=20 c.=09Calculate and compare freight rates from several carriers for each shipment according to the rating scheme found in VA Baseline Rate Publication VA-1000. This is also the same rating process used by GSA.=20 d.=09Allow for both automated assigning of shipment to best value carrier for machine created shipments and for manual assignments through a user interface for user created shipments.=20 e.=09Produce and print a paper Bill of Lading and produce and transmit an X.12 EDI Bill of Lading (or a file capable of being translated into X.12 format (both 211 and 858 transaction sets)) . f.=09Assign each Bill of Lading a unique bill of lading number.=20 g.=09Allow a user to request an EDI shipment status report (214 transaction set) for all shipments (both machine created and user created). The proposed system will receive the status report response from the carrier, update the shipment record to reflect the new information, and present it back to the requesting user in a user interface such as a web browser. =20 h.=09Allow the system=92s administrator to assign discrete levels of privileges to users. There must be at least 5 levels of privileges: System Administrator, Transportation Supervisor (may create, view, and edit all shipments in his group), Transportation Specialist (may manually create, edit and process his own shipments), Limited User (may only view and trigger machine created shipments), View-Only user who may view shipments records and reports, request status reports, and print documents but may not create or edit shipment records.=20 i.=09Contain an interface for free-style SQL queries for privileged users.=20 j.=09Allow records to be corrected and for corrected bills of lading to be printed and transmitted.=20 The VA owns a Sterling Gentrans EDI translator at our Austin Automation Center in Texas. That translator will be available to NCA to accept our input that will then be translated into X12 documents. The translator will then transmit the X12 document to the vendor or the vendor's VAN. The translator will also be available to receive documents from the vendors (such as X12 status reports), decode them, and forward that output back to NCA. The proposed system may incorporate its own EDI translator or it may use the VA=92s translator in Austin.=20
- Web Link
-
RFI 786-45-03
(http://www.bos.oamm.va.gov/solicitation?number=3D786-45-03)
- Record
- SN00178723-W 20021002/020930213200 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
| FSG Index | This Issue's Index | Today's FBO Daily Index Page |