Loren Data's SAM Daily™

FBO DAILY ISSUE OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2003 FBO #0653
MODIFICATION

R -- The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) seeks information related to its Corporate Financial System Modernization initiative. This is a Request For Information (RFI) issued solely for info

Notice Date

9/9/2003
 

Notice Type

Modification
 

Contracting Office

Department of Agriculture, Office of Procurement and Property Management, Procurement Operations Division, 300 7th Street, S.W., Room 377, Reporters Building, Washington, DC, 20024
 

ZIP Code

20024
 

Solicitation Number

Reference-Number-USDA-CFSM-0001
 

Response Due

10/15/2003
 

Archive Date

10/29/2003
 

Point of Contact

Richard Storie, Contract Specialist, Phone 202-720-3211, Fax 202-720-4529,
 

E-Mail Address

richard.storie@usda.gov
 

Description

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) seeks information related to its Corporate Financial System Modernization initiative. This is a Request For Information (RFI) issued solely for information and planning purposes. It does not constitute a Request For Proposal (RFP). USDA intends to assess the capabilities and then issue an RFP at a later date to those GSA contractors it determines to be the most capable. Acquisition is currently planned to begin in FY2005. Please ensure that any sensitive or protected information is marked as such. BACKGROUND USDA maintains a diverse and complex portfolio of over twenty-five financial and associated administrative systems. The Corporate Financial Management Sys-tems (CFMS) portfolio represents a corporate-wide solution for financial man-agement reform mandated by various statutes and regulations and establishes a basis for sound financial management at USDA. In addition, the CFMS portfolio helps to ensure and produce complete, reliable, timely, and consistent financial information that lead to clean audited financial statements. The key goal is to provide tools for program and financial managers to effectively manage and evaluate federal programs. At the core of the CFMS is the the Foundation Financial Information System (FFIS), the USDA corporate administrative financial information system imple-mented by the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO), Associate Chief Fi-nancial Officer for Financial Systems (ACFO-FS). The FFIS system includes a USDA-configured version of the commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) Federal Fi-nancial System (FFS). The FFS vendor has already developed and is marketing its new generation of core accounting system software, and will eventually dis-continue support of the old version of FFS. Consequently, USDA must replace FFIS with a system that complies with a contemporary "open system architec-ture". The CFMS also includes the Financial Data Warehouse (FDW) and the Fi-nancial Statements Data Warehouse (FSDW), the USDA financial reporting solutions, and the two data marts, the Automated Cash Reconciliation Worksheet System (ACRWS), the FFIS Customer Service Center (CSC), and more than 15 financial and administrative ?feeder? systems. The FDW and FSDW address the financial management reporting requirements in USDA. ACRWS provides criti-cal cash management and reconciliation capabilities to resolve the USDA's long-standing cash reconciliation issues. The CSC is the customer outreach to the fi-nancial management and technical communities and maintains a database of all trouble reports. The COTS software for FFIS was chosen in 1994 from the mandatory Financial Management System Software (FMSS) Multiple Award Schedule. COTS soft-ware is required as specified in Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circu-lar, A-130, "Management of Federal Information Resources". The implementation of FFIS serves as the corporate financial systems initiative for the Office of the Chief Financial Officer to achieve compliance with the CFO Act of 1990 and provides the functionality to implement the U.S. Standard General Ledger. It also addressed the Joint Financial Management Improvement Program (JFMIP) sys-tem requirements and the consolidated reporting requirements for financial state-ments stated in OMB Circular A-127, "Financial Management Systems." To further improve program performance and ensure that it can meet future needs, the USDA OCF) has determined that USDA needs to obtain a new core financial management system that can meet OMB circulars A-127 and A-130 for sensitive but unclassified standard general ledger. . In particular, the OCFO is seeking to replace FFIS with a JFMIP-certified commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) package, with minimal customizations, that will provide online, real-time transaction and information capability and will be accessible to the central office and all bureaus. The Corporate Financial Management System initiative to be implemented is made up of the following functional areas: General ledger Cash Management Grants Loans Accounts receivable Accounts payable Lockboxes Funds management Budget formulation Salary Projections Budget and performance integration Budget planning Budget execution Cost management Reporting Treasury and Financial Management Service (FACTS 33/2108s) OMB reporting Agency reporting Program reports IRS reporting (e.g., 1099s, W02s) Interfaces Compliance with eGovernment initiatives (e.g., eTravel, Federal Asset Sales, Integrated Acquisition Environment, etc.) The Corporate Financial System Modernization initiative is a complex, large-scale financial management system acquisition and implementation effort. Among other things, it will require integration with financial and administrative feeder systems, realignment of affected business processes, and clear communication to stakeholders. A successful Corporate Financial Systems Modernization will result in improved financial management reporting, accountability, and decision making throughout USDA and its agencies. It will also further USDA?s implementation of key provisions in the President?s Management Agenda, eGov requirements, and other regulatory mandates USDA is pursuing an efficient and integrated approach that builds on government, industry, and project management best practices for acquiring a COTS financial management package and the system integration expertise to implement it. At its core, this approach will use a performance-based acquisition strategy that is based on effective planning and requirements gathering consistent with USDA IT policy and system development lifecycle (SDLC) guidance, and Capability Maturity Model (CMM) level 2 or higher processes. USDA plans to manage the Corporate Financial Systems Modernization using critical components of earned-value management methods for program planning, reporting, and management. USDA Goals Among the specific goals established for this initiative are the following: Acquire a new core financial management system that is qualified by the Joint Financial Management Improvement Program (JFMIP) Provide real-time interfaces to eGovernment initiatives such as eTravel. Ensure accuracy of reported financial data (as evidenced by unqualified audit opinions by the Office of the Inspector General for all USDA pub-lished financial statements) through the systems that prepare the state-ments Meet EAL3 security requirements. Satisfy the requirements of the Federal Financial Management Improve-ment Act Satisfy the requirements of the Government Management Reform Act Proactively implement the challenges identified in the President?s Man-agement Agenda for improving overall financial management of all fed-eral agencies Integration of financial, budget, and performance information to support decision making Satisfy other applicable external (outside USDA) reporting requirements such as OMB circulars A127, A123 and A130 Satisfy the Secretary?s 21st Century and Competitive Workforce priorities Provide increased analytical reporting capabilities to system users Centralize and standardize financial management information to ensure that USDA complies with federally mandated requirements for core ac-counting and financial management and meets its business information needs. Instructions to Prospective SI Offerors Responses to this RFI must be no more than 40 total single-sided pages with print no smaller than 10 point; however, text included in graphics, tables, and figures can be smaller than 10 point. The cover page, cover letter, table of contents, and the COTS Assessment Checklist (Enclosure) is not included in the 40 total page count. Any material submitted in excess of the 40-page limit and the page limita-tion exclusions will not be considered. The submissions must be in sufficient de-tail and clarity to provide USDA with the information it needs to assess your company?s capabilities. In regards to Pricing, interested vendors should provide a ROM that addresses: conversion, implementation, software licensing, training, security, hardware, program management and it will be considered as part of the down-select process. Responses must be submitted in Microsoft Word 2000 or later. Offerors? responses to the RFI must be submitted to USDA by 5:00 p.m. EDT MOD 1 extended until 15 October 2003. Your company should only contact the contracting officer issuing this letter if there are questions about any aspect of this acquisition. Inter-ested parties may not contact USDA technical personnel about this acquisition. One hard copy and a CD of all response files must be submitted to: Maureen McKee, Contract Specialist USDA Office of Procurement and Property Management POP 1400 Independence Avenue SW Washington, DC 20250 Phone (202) 720-7864, Fax (202) 720-4529 E-MAIL: Maureen.Mckee@usda.gov RFI responses must conform to the below format and provide the following in-formation: Cover Letter The cover letter must include the following information: Company name Company point of contact and telephone number Date submitted Applicable company GSA FSS Information Technology or Financial Sys-tems schedule number. Section 1?Corporate Capability and Anticipated Project Team Offerors must briefly describe their corporate capability to serve as SI for this ini-tiative. Offerors must describe their anticipated project team members (subcon-tractors), including their primary project roles and responsibilities. Offerors should describe their approach to working with the COTS vendor to ensure a co-hesive team utilizing the capabilities and experience of the COTS vendor. Offer-ors must indicate if any subcontractors are small, and disadvantaged, or other minority business concerns. Offerors must also describe their proposed methodol-ogy and approach for implementation of the new core financial management sys-tem including the conversion of 18 FFS applications, within a stringent timeframe. The methodology proposed must ensure that produced products dem-onstrate performance and auditability of the process. The proposal should also address a conversion strategy for program data that resides in other non-FFS sys-tems. Section 2?Related Experience Offerors must describe their related experience for all proposed team members (prime and subcontractors) in the following categories: Government or commercial COTS financial system implementation ef-forts for organizations with more than 100,000 employees Government COTS system implementation efforts other than financial Large-scale complex projects involving COTS system implementation ef-forts with concurrent business process reengineering activities Large-scale complex projects involving hardware, application software, and production support services Performing data conversion from multiple financial systems and data warehouses Performance-based contracting efforts and current references. For each related experience the Offeror must complete the attached Related Ex-perience Template (Enclosure 1). Offerors must provide the client name, name of project, contract value, period of performance, name of prime contractor, scope of work, and business value to client. The intent of this section is for the Offeror to demonstrate concisely the depth and breadth of experience in the above described related experience categories. The format envisioned is to list each related project in a table with each of the requested elements as fields. Each project would be de-scribed in a row of the table with limited descriptions focused on the most rele-vant and important information. From this table, specific projects will be selected and elaborated further in the past performance descriptions required and explained in Section 4, SI Past Performance, of the Offeror?s response. Section 3?SI Past Performance Offerors must provide no more than five past performance descriptions that have been completed within the last 3 years or are ongoing. Each past performance de-scription must be no more than one page long. Preference will be given to past performance for JFMIP certified COTS package implementation efforts. For past performance descriptions involving implementation of a JFMIP certified COTS package, offerors must complete the COTS assessment checklist (enclosure 2). Each reference must contain the following information: Client name Client address Project name Period of performance Contract value Subcontractor company names and roles Contracting office (name, title, and phone number) Technical contact (name, title, and phone number) Project description Functional environment COTS core product implemented including version number Business functions supported by core product (general ledger, ac-counts receivable, accounts payable, etc.) Level and kinds of customizations performed for the core product Types and/or names of other packages integrated or interfaced to the core package Technical environment Application server and operating system Database server and operating system Client workstation and operating system Database management system Security level attained and certification and accreditation levels) Section 4?CMM Assessment Level Certification of CMM level 2 or above is necessary for consideration. Offerors must indicate that the organizational entity that would perform the work under this proposed contract has been assessed at a Capability Maturity Model level 2 or higher. Offerors must indicate the results of the assessment (CMM Level 2, 3, etc.). Capability Assessment Method The government will use the information in your response to the RFI, as well as other information available to the government, to assess your company?s capabil-ity. The companies identified as having the best capabilities to execute the Corpo-rate Financial Systems Modernization will be invited to continue participating in the acquisition process. ENCLOSURE?RELATED EXPERIENCE TEMPLATE This template should be used for all related experience categories as described in the RFI. Only two related experience categories are de-picted. Add rows and format rows and columns as required.Government or Commercial COTS Financial System Implementation EffortsRelated Experience Category 1 Client name Project name Contract value Period of performance Prime contractor name Scope of work Business value Repeated in other related experience categories (answer yes or no) CMM level _________________ Date received _________________ Government COTS System Implementation Efforts other than Financial Related Experience Category 2 Client name Project name Contract value Period of performance Prime contractor name Scope of work Business value Repeated in other related experience categories (answer yes or no) ENCLOSURE 2?COTS ASSESSMENT CHECKLIST COTS Assessment ChecklistCOTS Product Vendor Name:COTS Product Name: COTS product question Answer Clarifying comments Actual or anticipated JFMIP certifi-cation date for the 2003 JFMIP qualification test Federal version available First release date Current version number and release date Next version number and release date Installation base?federal government (number) Installation base?all sectors (num-ber) Representative federal government clients Representative other sector clients COTS product market share COTS product independent rank-ing/evaluation COTS vendor revenues for past 5 years COTS product licensing terms COTS product direction Types of support services provided by the COTS vendor, e.g., help desk and online support Other COTS modules that fully integrate with the proposed COTS financial management system EAL 3 Security certifications SI?s with COTS product experience Technical platforms supported Client workstation operating systems Server operating systems Database management systems Development languages
 

Place of Performance

Address: Property Management Division, 300 7th Street, S.W., Room 328B Reporters Building, Washingotn, DC

Zip Code: 20024

Country: US
 

Record

SN00429685-W 20030911/030909213102 (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)

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