SOURCES SOUGHT
L -- Adaptive Logistics in Support of Sense and Respond Logistics (S&RL)
- Notice Date
- 12/23/2005
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541618
— Other Management Consulting Services
- Contracting Office
- Contracting Center of Excellence, Army Contracting Agency (ACA), ATTN: Policy and Compliance, 5200 Army Pentagon, Room 1D245, Washington, DC 20310-5200
- ZIP Code
- 20310-5200
- Solicitation Number
- W74V8H-06-T-0024
- Response Due
- 1/9/2006
- Archive Date
- 3/10/2006
- Point of Contact
- Peggy Pennie, 703-697-0801
- E-Mail Address
-
Contracting Center of Excellence, Army Contracting Agency (ACA)
(Peggy.Pennie@hqda.army.mil)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- 1. Background Sense and Respond Logistics (S&RL) is a principal tenet of the Focused Logistics Joint Functional Concept and is a critical enabler to transformation. The concept of S&RL relies upon highly adaptive, self-synchronizing, and dynamic physical and functional processes, employing and enhancing operational decision support. The S&RL concept predicts, anticipates and coordinates actions that provide warfighting advantages spanning the full range of military operations across the strategic, operational and tactical levels of war. It requires a network-centric enterprise and di sciplined collaboration within and across Communities of Interest (COI) from the tactical point of effect through the strategic base. Synchronizing the logisticians decision cycle to that of the warfighter enables a logistics system that is focused on the effect a given action in the logistics domain will have on the warfighters planned or executing intent. The end state is for logist icians to operate within the construct of a global, end-to-end distribution based enterprise that synchronizes and integrates all elements of the logistics system to ensure consistent, reliable, and predictable support to the Joint Force Commanders concep t of operations. As a means of moving towards this end state, the Army Center for Logistics Innovation (CLI) is currently building an Adaptive Logistics Command and Control (C2) capability to be achieved through spiral development. The objectives of this capability are to : a. Achieve asset and event visibility throughout the enterprise from the strategic base to the point of the effect b. Ensure communication capability to achieve Adaptive Logistics C2 c. Achieve data standardization through Common Logistics Operating Environment (CLOE) standards d. Employ Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) or high technology developmental products to achieve Joint Collaboration and Command and Control The approach to achieving these objectives is to build a series of tools that can be transitioned to a Leave-Behind Capability that that can be expanded and utilized within the Armys current Command and Control infrastructure. 2. Request This request seeks information from vendors and developers of COTS products and applications that further objective d., above. It supports a market survey of capabilities that support manage by wire (see paragraph 3 below) in an Adaptive Logistics envir onment. Selected vendors will be invited to present information concerning their products at an Industry Day to be held on 17-19 January 2006 in the National Capital Region. CLI will be assisted in this selection by support contractor personnel who hav e signed Non-Disclosure Agreements. Information provided pursuant to this request will not be shared with any of the other respondents or with personnel who are not directly involved in the evaluation of the responses. Please be advised that this request does not constitute any commitment on the part of the Government and does not guarantee that a formal request for proposal or delivery order will be issued. 3. Manage by Wire and Sense and Respond Logistics (S&RL) This paragraph is a brief synopsis of the terms manage by wire in the context of S&RL and Logistics Command and Control. A fuller treatment is available in the Army S&RL Vision Document (Reference 6.a.), which is available from CLI upon request. That d ocument also contains full definitions of the terms that are used. The term Manage by Wire is a central tenet of the S&RL concept. Originally, this term was coined to characterize the piloting of modern high-performance aircraft, where the speed and complexity of the task is beyond the capabilities of a pilot. The integ rated man-machine system must observe (sense environmental signals), orient (interpret the signals), decide (select from a number of possible responses), and act (execute the response) under time-critical co nditions. Manage by Wire was adapted by Stephan H. Haeckel to describe an adaptive, or SIDA (Sense, Interpret, Decide, and Act) process that handles complex events within modern logistics organizations, where large volumes of data must be rapidly processed, inte rpreted, evaluated and acted upon. Unlike its aircraft analogy, manage by wire in the context of Joint logistics requires the capability to design dynamic organization structures as a role and accountability system by clearly articulating purpose, bound aries, relationships, and performance metrics based on the Commanders Intent. It requires dispatching capabilities from the customer request back through demand satisfaction networks that are self-synchronized and dynamically reconfigured in response to each customers request. Finally, it requires coordinating these ad-hoc, adaptive roles (Communities of Interest) and tracking the dynamically changing status of who owes what to whom? It should be noted that the SIDA loop is a closed feedback system that constantly monitors execution of the actions taken in terms of speed and quality of effects. The Armys Sense and Respond Logistics Vision requires that we: " Move from stove-piped processes and information systems to a collaborative enterprise " Deliver improved context that is shared by warfighters, forward deployed logisticians, materiel and logistics force providers, program managers, and commercial partners " Deliver live correlated information and real-time situational awareness to those whose actions can affect the battle (present and future) " Deliver a dynamic common operating picture to logistics commanders and operational staffs " Deliver multiple data feeds in a tailored view that can be pushed out to logisticians across the continuum " Move from tool-centric to service-centric architecture. In the context of Logistics Command and Control, manage by wire implies the leveraging of people, process, and technology to provide: Capability Key Element(s) SIDA Component " Fine-grained visibility Actionable Information/Autonomics Sense " Knowledge of the state of the world Business Intelligence Sense " Effective execution monitoring Business Intelligence/Intelligent Agents Sense " Situational understanding Actionable Information Interpret " Event impact analysis Event Management Interpret " Real-time collaboration Communities of Interest Decide " Dynamic, adaptive plans Advance Planning and Optimization Decide " Informed decisions Actionable Information Decide " Logistics integration with Operations and Intelligence Customer Relationship Management Act " Effect timely change Adaptive Logistics SIDA 4. Scope of Request The U.S. Army CLI has identified the following key technologies for bringing about an Adaptive Logistics capability. This request focuses on, but is not limited to these products/capabilities. " Cognitive decision support agents for intelligent planning and reasoning, rapidly predicting logistics requirements and establishing priorities based on the Commanders intent and Commanders Critical Information Requirements. " Data fusion agents for gathering, translating, fusing and presenting data from disparate sources, as well as discerning patterns from multiple, disparate data sets, including sensory networks. " Collaboration tools and agents that define Communities of Interest for managing events, sharing information, evaluating courses of action, and monitoring mission execution. " Situation manager agents that enhance the commanders confidence in the system through automated sentinels, analysis and alerts that provide continuous, relevant feedback without burdensome and complex queries. " Products and technologies that facilitate data exchange in austere communications environments. " COTS tools for Business Intelligence, Advance Planning and Optimization, Event Management, Customer Relationship Management, and data management th at can be readily bolted-on to Global Combat Support System-Army (SAP-based) and Theater-level Battle Command Sustainment Support System (BCS3) within the Standard Army Logistics Environment (SALE) architecture. (These systems, the SALE architecture, an d the Common Logistics Operating Environment (CLOE) are described in references 6b through 6d, which are also available from CLI.) 5. Requested Information Respondents are requested to provide the following information about their COTS or developmental products. a. Product Name and acronym (if appropriate). b. Executive Summary describing the product, its history, objectives, technology, and market space . c. Product literature or Web site links that describe the product, technology, capabilities, and specifications. d. An assessment of the products major capabilities as they relate to manage by wire as discussed in paragraph 3. e. A discussion of the products maturity and status (e.g. in development, deployed) and market penetration. For products in development, please indicate when they will be ready for fielding. f. Customer references (if desired). g. Typical costs for integration, licensing, etc. h. Typical implementation times. i. Primary and alternate Points of Contact (POC). 6. References The following reference documents are available from the U.S. Army CLI. They may be requested by electronic mail to angela.l.hill@hqda.army.mil. a. Report, Army Sense and Respond Logistics Vision, U.S. Army Center for Logistics Innovation, 5 May 2005. b. Briefing, U.S. Army Materiel Command, Single Army Logistics Enterprise (SALE), 18 August 2005. c. Briefing, U.S. Army Project Manager for Ground Combat Command and Control, Battle Command Sustainment Support System (BCS3), undated. d. White Paper, U.S. Army Center for Logistics Innovation, White Paper, The Armys Common Logistics Operating Environment , 5 April 2005. 7. Questions and Submissions Questions pertaining to this notice should be sent to angela.l.hill@hqda.army.mil. All submissions should be sent electronically to denise.mccarthy@hqda.army.mil by 09 January 06. NOTE: THIS NOTICE WAS NOT POSTED TO FEDBIZOPPS ON THE DATE INDICATED IN THE NOTICE ITSELF (23-DEC-2005); HOWEVER, IT DID APPEAR IN THE FEDBIZOPPS FTP FEED ON THIS DATE. PLEASE CONTACT fbo.support@gsa.gov REGARDING THIS ISSUE.
- Web Link
-
Link to FedBizOpps document.
(http://www.fbo.gov/spg/USA/DSS-W/DASW01/W74V8H-06-T-0024/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: US Army Center for Logistics Innovation 54 M Avenue New Cumberland PA
- Zip Code: 17070
- Country: US
- Zip Code: 17070
- Record
- SN00957962-F 20051225/051223213135 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
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