MODIFICATION
69 -- Computer Based Training for Non-Destructive Testing, Magnetic Particle
- Notice Date
- 2/23/2004
- Notice Type
- Modification
- NAICS
- 541511
— Custom Computer Programming Services
- Contracting Office
- Defense Contract Management Agency, Defense Contract Management Agency, DCMA Procurement Center (DCMAC-W), ATTN DCMAC-W 6350 Walker Lane Suite 300, Alexandria, VA, 22310-3241
- ZIP Code
- 22310-3241
- Solicitation Number
- S5105A-04-Q-0025
- Response Due
- 2/27/2004
- Archive Date
- 3/13/2004
- Point of Contact
- Michelle Rainey, Staff Acquisition Officer, Phone 703 428-1488, Fax 703 428-3579,
- E-Mail Address
-
michelle.rainey@dcma.mil
- Small Business Set-Aside
- Total Small Business
- Description
- Amendment 01 for COMBINED SYNOPSIS/SOLICITATION for S5105-04-Q-0025 Computer Based Training (CBT) for Non-Destructive Testing (NDT) Certification NDT Discipline: Magnetic Particle Change 1: The NAICS code should be 451511 not 451611. Below are questions/answers. There are some duplicate questions. Each answer is specific to that question. •Will DCMA provide Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) or identify individuals who are acceptable to DCMA as SMEs? DCMA will not provide SMEs, but will provide GFM. However, the Technical PoC will be available to help guide the contractor...especially since progress reports are due every two months. •What does the Government anticipate as the total amount of time for training/test taking? There is no specific time requirement. Rather the training should cover the requirements specified in the RFQ. •Section V. of the Statement of Work states, “One of the critical types of inspections and tests involve Nondestructive Testing (NDT). Past practice was to certify and re-certify by examination, which was labor intensive and very expensive.” What are the contractors responsibilities with regard to the certification and recertification test? Will the contractor be required to be involved in the certification/recertification process beyond creating the tests? The contractor has no responsibility for certification and/or recertification other than providing the final product to DCMA. •Section V of the Statement of Work states, “Commercially available CBTs have been identified that incorporates many of the competencies that are necessary for DCMA personnel, but additional modules and tests need to be developed to tailor the product for our purposes.” Will the contractor have access to or be provided the commercially available CBT? The contractor is expected to provide the commercial product as part of his quote. •Section V a. of the Statement of Work states, The software must work in the DCMA Microsoft Windows environment and must be compatible with Adobe Acrobat.” What is the DCMA Microsoft Windows environment, 98, 2000, XP? DCMA has 2000 and XP. The program should download to the end user’s computer, but rather run as a separate program. What is the base platform that the CBT will run on? Pentium 3, 4? DCMA uses both Pentium 3 & 4 equipment. The Pentium 3s have 256 and the Pentium 4s have 512 RAM. What is the standard video card that is installed in the PCs used at DCMA? NEVIA QUADRO 4 200 NVS What is the standard monitor resolution that is used with the typical DCMA PC? Whatever the user set it at. 800 x 600 to 1600 x 1200 pixels •Section V b. of the Statement of Work states, “Contractor will provide this CBT service on CDs (Compact Disks) and the final delivery will be two sets of CDs (one Master and one certified copy) from which DCMA will be able to make user copies (if necessary), and 85 re-usable training CDs that cannot be copied by users.” Although it is possible to create a CD that cannot be copied DCMA would not be able to make copies. We further believe that if the user is able to access the certification/recertification test(s) they will be able to ³cut and past² the test from the application it is running from or get the information using some other means (screen print, etc.). We would recommend that the tests be encrypted so that they are only accessible through a LMS or other suitable program or code. It this what was intended or is the intent not to be able to copy the CDs? We want two separate products...one that is a master that can be copied if needed and one that is an end user product that can't be copied. How you provide that is up to you. •Section V g. of the Statement of Work states, “Material supplied by the contractor must cover” There are approximately 44 items that are to be supplied by the contractor will each of the items (e.g., L/D ratios) require the development of instructional content and alternate forms of general and specific test items? The information in Section V.g.3 Needs Deliverables further indicates, “This information is to be provided in videos, pictures, text, and audio format on the CDs.” Does the government has an approximate idea of the length of the video, text and audio that will be used to support the instruction/questions? This has a significant impact when costing a CBT project. The information in Section V.g.6 Needs Deliverables further indicates “A practical examination bank supplied by contractor that will consist of videotaped scenarios of magnetic particle inspections and system evaluations covering material required in above paragraph g. 3. The examination bank will contain at least eight (8) different scenarios for each major type of equipment.” Will the government provide the video for each of the scenarios or will the contractor be required to schedule the video shoots, shoot the video, edit the video, as any audio/test and incorporate the video into the CD? The contractor will take the identified GFM and build the requirement. This includes audio and video as stated in the RFQ. Will the DCMA provide stock video footage? No. This is contractor responsibility. Will the DCMA provide other source materials such as graphics? No. This is contractor responsibility. Will the government coordinate the 8 video shoots for each major type of equipment? No. This is contractor responsibility. How many types of equipment are there that will require a video shoot? The main types of equipment are horizontal stationary and portable. An inspection requires magnetizing the item in two different directions. The supporting equipment, methods, materials (prods, yokes, coils, cable wraps, central conductor, direct, wet, dry, colored or fluorescent particles) are to be used for the inspections (DCMA will assist by story-boarding the inspections with the contractor). Not all the equipment will be used for each video (in other words if a coil is used in the video, then yokes and cable wrap will not be used in that video since all three of those are used for longitudinal inspections). Basically, the contractor will be responsible for 16 video inspections. Some of the systems are fluorescent so part of those videos will have be done under black light. Approximately how many pictures of defects will have to be digitized prior to being incorporated into the test bank described in Section V.g.6? DCMA will need a selection of defects commonly found using Magnetic Particle Inspection, such as cracks, laps, seams, porosity, cold shuts, external forging bursts, both visible and fluorescent, etc. The information in Section V.g.8 Needs Deliverables further indicates “Add a CBT module that incorporates DCMA?s guidance on NDT as key processes, risk rating, supporting risk rational, and the use of appropriate risk handling tools. This module will be suggestions of the likely activities used to proof the MT process, what typical activities would be accomplished when performing product audits, potential process measurement points, and suggestions on how to approach data collection and analysis for the MT process. DCMA will write the content of this module.” DCMA will develop a module on DCMA Guidance on NDT. What is the anticipated length of the module to be developed by DCMA? The anticipated length of the module will have an impact on costing the project. Word document approx 10 pages long • Section V g. 4 of the Statement of Work states, “Data bank test questions will be password protected per user and will have an automatic grading feature. Program will automatically print out a certification stating that student has successfully completed that portion of the testing (or save a non-modifiable file for printing later).” The CBT is not part of a LMS. The specifics of the test databank you quote should be part of the requested quote. Does this indicate that the CBT to be developed by the Contractor will function under a Learning Management System (LMS)? If so, which one? How many alternative forms of each question are needed, i.e., how many questions are in the question bank? There will be approximately 160 general theory questions and approximately 160 specific questions. Where will the test bank reside? On the CD. Will the test bank be stored on the CD and accessed when a test has to be generated? Yes, on the CD. No on the hard drive or on a server. Remember this MUST be a stand-alone system on a CD. Will the test bank be stored on the hard drive of the PC being used by the student or will the test bank be stored on a network server? • Section V g. 4 and 5 of the Statement of Work states discuss a specific test bank and a general test question bank. These CDs will be issued to various locations to be used as training material. There are specific questions to magnetic particle NDT. The training is not on the same computer each time. What does the DCMA see as the differences between the specific and general questions? Questions are on different subjects. Theory (general) questions are obviously on the theory of Magnetic Particle. Specific questions are on the specifications and standards of Non-Destructive Testing. When students take the test will they always use the same computer? No. If students are able to use a different computer for each session there will be a requirement to move student records. How does the government anticipate that the student records be transferred, floppy disk, network, or is there an existing LMS? We are not asking for record keeping. We will be using the required print-out. •The information in Section V.g.8 Needs Deliverables further indicates “A databank containing PDF files of Military/Government Specifications, Standards and Technical Publications on the subject of NDT. DCMA will provide files.” What is the approximate volume (page count) of the materials that are to be included in the data bank? MIL-HDBK-728/1 = 46 pages, MIL-HDBK-728/4 = 53 pages, MIL-STD-1907 = 22 pages, MIL-STD-2035A = 88 pages, T9074-AS-GIB-010/271 = 85 pages. Will the Contractor have access to electronic files for the materials or will they have to be re-keyed or scanned? They will be provided as Adobe files. •The information in Section V.g.9 Needs Deliverables further indicates “Contractor¹s material should also include information on current industry manufacturing processes, production methods and types of discontinuities that may be expected (digitized video clips, audio, pictures, and diagrams of metal production & mills; casting, welding, metal forming, forging, etc). Module should go into detail (show actual defect types) of Inherent Material Discontinuities (Wrought and Cast), Processing Discontinuities, and Service Discontinuities.” Will the government provide the video clips, audio clips, pictures of diagrams required for this section? Will the contractor be required to identify the current industry manufacturing processes and coordinate photo/still shoots with the industry? The contractor is expected to provide this information. Again, most would be found in the commercial product proposed by the contractor. •Section VI d and e of the Statement of Work states, “Sample of streaming video for quality assessment; no more than 5 minutes and a Sample from the program that randomly selects database test questions and generates tests.” We understand that we will have to provide as part of our proposal streaming video and a sample of random test generation. Does the test sample provided by the bidder have to go automatic printing and encryption? No •The contractor has designed and developed cutting edge CBT for the FAA and for FEMA. We have not specifically developed NDT CBT. Will this disqualify us from bidding? You are not disqualified. However the RFQ does evaluate past performance to include CBT for NDT. •Please supply the relative weighting of the award factors. In particular, how important is previous development of NDT CBT? (factor (f)). each factor is not separately weighted; but rather the non-price factors are more important than price •Does DCMA already have a commercial product that it is using and will continue to use? If so: No Is there any expectation to match the look and feel, and interactivity types of current product? Does the product have a testing module that meets DCMA requirements? Does the RFQ clearly identify which modules belong to the CBT in current use, and the modules which will need to be additionally developed? Please identify the product and vendor. If not: Do you expect the project to incorporate ALL new material developed for this CD set? Yes Will DCMA write a complete Test Module specification, or base it on the sample submitted by the offerrer? DCMA will provide GFM as necessary. Does DCMA expect the length and depth of treatment for each topic to be similar to the commercially available products? Yes. What automatic remediation capabilities does DCMA require? None. What is the DCMA expectation regarding reporting training results? N/A for the contractor. •Does DCMA require a menu of available training tracks--Initial, Refresher, etc? No •Is there a requirement to deliver CDs that no user will be able to copy with normal equipment? That requirement is stated in the RFQ...one master that can be copied and 85 copies that cannot be copied •What part of the CBT must be compatible with Acrobat? The certifications? The interactive materials (e.g. export a screen to Acrobat)? In allowing concurrent use of a resource data bank? Adobe files containing the specifications and standards will be inserted on the CD. (MIL-HDBK-728/1 = 46 pages, MIL-HDBK-728/4 = 53 pages, MIL-STD-1907 = 22 pages, MIL-STD-2035A = 88 pages, T9074-AS-GIB-010/271 = 85 pages.) The student must be able to print those files to use during the tests (we have found that paper copies are easier for students to use during tests and they will have back-up material for the ensuing certification period). •Is the Tech Pub data bank to be available from the normal training user interface? Will this be an Acrobat window? Your quote will address the training content set up •How familiar is the DCMA trainee with CBT and interactive video? Will extensive HELP be required? Experienced and help will be provided in house if required •Does DCMA have a specific list of training objectives that the contractor's CBT must meet (in addition to the list of topics found in the RFQ)? No •Can DCMA provide an example of desired certification tests for NDT inspectors prior to final quote? No •Please be more specific about the nature of the assistance NDT technical authority will provide: DCMA will provide a technical expert to ensure DCMA requirements are met. The contractor should be familiar with NDT requirements. Scenarios/shooting scripts for practical exam items? Venues and equipment for videotaping scenarios? Personnel for the scenarios? Existing video? On-site expert approval during video shoots? •Is a course syllabus (incl approx lesson lengths, units and number of specific tests) to be agreed on before final quotes? No •What is the detailed design specification for test data bank security, and which user (trainee or contracting agency) will need password protection? The design is up to the contractor. The test bank should be password protected •Will the DCMA issue a more detailed specification for the Risk Management module prior to final quote? The Risk Management module will be provided as a Word document, not more than 10 pages in length. •Is the one-time payment at contract conclusion and acceptance of all CLINs non-negotiable? Based on determination after a review of the contractor's financial status •Will DCMA provide NDT Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) or is the contractor responsible for NDT SMEs? DCMA will provide Government Furnished Material to help build the required DCMA modules. DCMA will have a technical point of contact to work with the contractor to answer specific questions as they arise while the contractor creates the CBT. DCMA will not provide SMEs to the contractor in regards to NDT requirements and specifics. One of the evaluation criteria is past performance of NDT CBT. •Will DCMA provide a “Story Board” for the proposed CBT? No, DCMA will assist, but contractor is responsible for product. •Will DCMA provide a script for the proposed CBT? No, DCMA will assist, but contractor is responsible for product. •Will DCMA provide subject matter content? If yes what content will be provided? Again, DCMA will provide Government Furnished Material as covered in the RFQ Section V. h. •What version of MS Windows is utilized by DCMA? According to our IT department as of 15 Mar 04, every end user computer will have XP. Training rooms will continue to use 2000. I believe the CBT will be used in both operating environments. •Please verify that there will only be one payment upon submission of the completed CLINs versus progress payments. The expected award is for a firm-fixed price paid upon delivery. After award, if necessary, payment options may be discussed. •Approximately how many hours of user training is expected for the completed CBT modules required by this solicitation? There are no "expected" hours. The material will need to cover the requirements as stated in the RFQ. •Are the CBTs required in this solicitation stand alone, or are they to be a part of other existing CBTs that exist? The CBTs will be stand alone. However, DCMA does have other CBT throughout the Agency. •Will DCMA provide all PDF files referenced in SOW section 8 (Data bank containing pdf files)? As stated in the RFQ, DCMA will provide. •The Solicitation indicated that the evaluation criteria include CBT for NDT Past Performance. If our company submits three (3) CBT past performances developed for the Government covering various subject matter but not specifically NDT subject matter, will our proposal be disqualified? The proposal will not be disqualified. However, RFQ Section VII. f. states Past Performance to include CBT for NDT. This means a company with CBT NDT experience may be given a higher evaluation in past performance. •As a HUBZone certified small businesses will our company be allowed a ten percent price evaluation preference? As requested by the RFQ Section VIII., please provide all certifications for evaluation. •Regarding Evaluation Criterion f. "Past Performance to include CBT for NDT. Provide not more than 3 references and/or samples.": Our firm is highly experienced with NDT, including magnetic particle testing. We plan to team with another firm that is highly experienced with computer-based training. Can you advise if past experience with CBT for NDT is a necessary qualification? Specifically, since neither firm has produced CBT for NDT, per se, would our offer be considered seriously or dismissed out of hand based on criterion "f."? although not necessary, past performance of NDT CBT is evaluated. I encourage you to sharte no more than 3 examples of past performance for both your company and the subcontractor •Will you consider using more than one vendor for this solicitation? This project will require the services of a full-service CBT Development Team. Instructional Designer, Subject Matter Expert, Graphic Artist, Narrator, and Multimedia Programmer. My company can meet the requirements of module development, graphics, narration, and testing. However, we are not Subject Matter Experts or Content Writers in NDT. Vendor has the option of using subcontractors. There are some NDT vendors available. •Approximately, how many one-hour modules will this course contain? I can submit an accurate quote if we knew the number of modules. Each quote will be unique. However, all areas listed in the training material should be covered. Other NDT training materials have had 10 to 20 hours of material. •Will DCMA have staff available to collaborate with the vendor on this project? Will DCMA provide content writing and advisement during the project? DCMA NDT Technical Experts will be approving the material, but we will not have the time or resources to fully collaborate with the vendor. The synopsis-solicitation states what modules we will write (Risk Management and the Theory/Specific test questions.) •What materials will DCMA submit to the awarded vendor(s) on this project? (content, video, etc.) In the solicitation, several things were mentioned sporadically. See above response. •Do you expect the vendor to provide video on the selected topics? Yes •Are you looking for a company who specifically has a background in NDT to develop the modules and examination for this course? Most CBT developers can develop program on any selected topic. However, in most situations, the customer submits all required material to develop the course. According to the solicitation it seems you are requesting the vendor to write content on NDT. Is this true? The answer to the first question of is: we can't direct who can bid on this work or what background they need. All we can do is list our requirements. It is up to the vendor to meet those requirements. The answer to the second part of is yes, we need the vendor to write the content. •What type of interaction would you like in the course? Fill-in-the blank, HotSpot, Drag and Drop, etc. The questions that we (DCMA) will be providing for the Theory & Spec modules are in a multiple choice and true/false format. We need a system that randomly selects certain number of questions from the databank, presents them to the student who takes the test on the computer, automatically grades the test and informs the student of their grade (prints off a completion form or something). We also need the vendor to develop a practical test consisting of the videotaped scenarios. •Do you want feedback provided for practice and test questions? We can have feed back for the practice questions, but the final questions for certification maintenance need to be secured and the answers are not to be given to the student. •Will you require narration in all modules and examinations? Audio in the modules is required (not on every page, but in areas of a lot of text, audio helps students learn). Audio is not required in the examinations (when I am concentrating on a test, I don't want someone talking at me). •In the solicitation, the statement, "one payment will be made when all CLINS have been delivered" puzzles me. It will be extremely difficult to do this over 12 months. Costs will be incurred during the projects. contractors will have to be paid and other costs will be incurred during the development phase. Can you explain the reasoning behind one payment versus periodic payments after submitting prototypes and progress reports? Past market research and solicitations show it it reasonable for the government to award a Firm Fixed Price contract without any special payment arrangements. However, once a vendor has been selected and during the Post-Award conference the discussion of payment may be readdressed.
- Web Link
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Link to FedBizOpps document.
(http://www.eps.gov/spg/DCMA/DSPPMRO/DCMAC-W/S5105A-04-Q-0025/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: Contractor's Facility
- Record
- SN00528738-F 20040225/040223224949 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
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