SOURCES SOUGHT
D -- Qualified Businesses to Implement, Integrate, and Support a Servicewide Fee Collection Point-of-Sale System (POSS)
- Notice Date
- 2/5/2007
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- Contracting Office
- WASO-WCP Denver Contracting & Procurement 215 Honda Ct Stockbridge GA 30281
- ZIP Code
- 30281
- Solicitation Number
- N2608070066
- Response Due
- 3/4/2007
- Archive Date
- 2/5/2008
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- THIS IS A SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE ONLY. THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL, REQUEST FOR QUOTE OR INVITATION FOR BID. The National Park Service is seeking to identify qualified sources that can supply North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) to implement, integrate, and support a service-wide fee collection Point-of-Sale System (POSS) that will allow National Park units to: " Efficiently and securely collect a variety of different fees from park visitors " Deposit collected monies into the Treasury and the Service's financial systems, maintaining complete accountability throughout " Analyze fee-collection data to support program decision-making The NAICS codes for these services are 423420 Point of sale terminals merchant wholesalers and 541512 Computer systems integrator services. Description The POSS sought comprises two components, the Point of Sale Unit with several equipment configurations for the various types of fee-collecting sites, and the Servicewide Fee Database. Point of Sale Unit The purpose of the Point of Sale Unit is to allow fee-collecting sites to: " Efficiently collect fees from visitors in a number of different forms: cash, checks, credit card, passes, pre-authorized debit (PAD), and vouchers for the variety of recreation fee activities throughout the service " Process transactions quickly, to keep lines down. Transaction time must be fast and reliable with an average of 30 seconds or less for processing a standard cash transaction and less than 40 seconds for an authorized credit card transaction through a high speed data line. " Securely authorize credit cards using the Federal Government's Credit and Debit Card Acquiring Services (managed through a recently awarded Treasury managed contract with Fifth-Third Bank and is anticipated to be implemented with the NPS in FY2007). " Process transactions despite varying telecommunication abilities. Some fee-collecting sites may have a high-speed connection to the NPS network, others analog lines only, and still others with no telecommunications ability. Any solution will be required to work in any of these situations. Note: the provision of telecommunications facilities or infrastructure is not part of the scope of this solicitation. " Collect demographic data requested of visitors at the fee-collecting site (e.g. ZIP code at the time of every pass sale and the number of people in the vehicle). o Note: Ideally, the POS Unit would prompt the operator to collect data elements randomly selected from a predefined list of questions (e.g. ask every nth vehicle how many people are in the vehicle or if they are driving a sedan, truck, or RV) " Capture the use of various types of serialized park passes at the point of sale o Note: the serial number may either be encoded in a bar code or the magnetic stripe of the pass " Capture detailed fee transactions electronically " Track the issuance and sales of accountable (serialized) park pass stock, which is captured by swiping the pass at the POS Unit and is read by either a bar code or magnetic stripe reader. " Transmit fee transaction data to the Servicewide Fee Database Required Configurations Several POS equipment configurations are desired to address the various collection operation levels and physical environments. Park unit sites may request any combination of the following POS configurations. 1. Light POS Configuration - a software-only configuration that would be able to run on any NPS Windows-based PC connected to the NPS network. Appropriate for offices with occasional sales (which will primarily be using the PCs for other purposes). Peripheral equipment would be limited to essentials such as a credit card reader and printer. Total annual revenue from about 100 NPS sites with light POS units is not expected to exceed $50,000. 2. Moderate POS Configuration -a dedicated POS unit for environments that are stable and climate-controlled, such as an indoor visitor center or campground office. These sites may or may not have high-speed or analog connectivity. Total annual revenue from about 75 park sites and about 200 Moderate POS units is not expected to exceed $1M. 3. Heavy-duty POS Configuration - a dedicated POS unit for environments that are considered hostile for a PC, such as an entrance station or campground kiosk. These units may be subject to extreme heat, dust, direct sunlight, and power fluctuations. There will be various methods of power availability and stability (e.g. electricity, solar, battery, and generator). Sites may or may not have high-speed or analog connectivity. Total annual revenue from about 75 park sites (consisting of approximately 190 Heavy-duty POS units) is expected to be between $1M and $20M. 4. Hand-held POS Configuration -- for walking lines, parking lots, campgrounds, with full transaction-processing capability. Sites may or may not have high-speed connectivity. Optional Configurations Parks have and will continue to purchase a variety of other equipment for either the collection of fees, processing of fees, or the security of fees. Each variation has unique requirements and has been supplied by different companies. The long-term goal is for the centralized POSS database to be integrated with the optional equipment mentioned below, either through one contract or through multiple contracts. For this Sources Sought notice, contractors are not required to, but may wish to address the following optional equipment configurations: 1. Light Self-Service / Automated Fee Machines for indoor environments that are stable and where the visitor can purchase the recreational permit directly at the unit. Locations where this could be implemented would be in community-based welcome centers, local businesses, or additional POS units at a visitor center, or campground office for use in peak seasons. 2. Heavy-duty Self-Service / Automated Fee Machines for outdoor environments that must be appropriate for extreme weather (i.e. exposure to sun, rain, heat, cold, humidity, salinity, electrical storms), vandalism, and power fluctuations). These would typically be used for campground payments, after-hour entrance sales, or non-staffed entry locations. 3. Automated Gate for additional lanes to process re-entry, annual pass users, or local traffic with a pass, in order to expedite the processing of vehicles at entrance stations or for locations that are non-staffed. 4. Security Systems where cameras can capture incoming and outgoing traffic at entrance stations, employee actions during fee collection activities, and areas where deposits are processed. System would overlay the POS electronic journal onto the video capture of the POS transaction, capture the license plate of the visitor vehicle at the point of entry, and be able to conduct a search of the data captured. Contractors are encouraged to present any capabilities they have for supporting these optional equipment configurations. Servicewide Fee Database The purpose of the Servicewide Fee Database is to: " Allow for storage and retrieval of captured transaction and statistical metric data from park point of sale units " Allow for the import of structured data of fee-collecting activities from external systems (e.g. automated fee machines, hand held devices) " Allow for manual entry of fee-collecting activities from external systems (e.g. iron Rangers/canisters) " Ability for park unit staff to reconcile submitted shift reports from collections in terms of products sold, serialized pass numbers sold, and type of payment. " Prepare the Deposit Ticket SF215 for electronic upload from the Fee Database into the Treasury TGAnet program for cash/check deposits. The SF215 is a report that itemizes collected cash and checks to be deposited by revenue account code. " Ability for Park Unit Staff to reconcile credit card transactions through the Treasury Credit and Debit Card Acquiring Services (this process is preferably completed through an automatic upload of total daily sales by park POS unit merchant account, which provides the product detail by revenue account code for the total daily sales to the NPS financial systems " Allow for the management of inventory of accountable (serialized) property sold to visitors (e.g. park passes) " Allow for flexible programming of the park unit rates and product lists sold " Allow for electronic reconciliation of deposited fees by the Fee Database with exported deposit reports from NPS financial systems " Allow fee-collecting activities and receipts to be audited " Allow for park, regional, and national Fee Program Managers to efficiently generate recurring and ad hoc financial reports for Recreation Fee Program Operations " NPS IT standards require that the database run on either an Oracle or SQL Server platform It is yet to be determined whether the database will be hosted on NPS systems in Lakewood, Colorado or in a commercial hosting facility. Contractors may address either or both options. Integration with Existing Systems The NPS has a number of legacy cash registers in use and would like to preserve as much value as possible from this investment. Of the approximate 309 legacy registers in use, 37 are Merlin 6670 terminals, 182 are Datasym 6000, and 90 are Sharp ERA570. The contractor is encouraged to, but not required to, address how this legacy equipment could be integrated into the system (e.g. data uploaded from the registers could be imported into the Servicewide Fee Database). Support and Training Contractors should address their ability to provide help-desk, technical support, and training capabilities to the National Park Service. Fee-collecting sites will span all time zones of the United States and its territories, and are sometimes in relatively inaccessible locations, and contractors are encouraged to consider and present approaches to installation, training, and support that reduce needed travel. Industry Day Structure The National Park Service, Recreation Fee Management Program has scheduled Industry Days from 3/5/2007-3/7/2007 in Lakewood, CO. Interested contractors should contact Georgi Wellington (georgi_wellington@nps.gov) by email no later than March 2, 2007 for an appointment to attend the Industry Day. No vendor will be seen without a prior scheduled appointment. Contractors will have an opportunity to present their capabilities for a maximum of 30 minutes to a panel of key subject-matter experts, in Lakewood, CO from 3/5/2007 - 3/7/2007. Appointment slots during that time interval will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. The presentation room will have a projector and a connection to the Internet. No access to government networks or systems will be available. Vendors are requested to address at the minimum the following areas in their presentations: 1) Capability to provide Point of Sale hardware and software to address the needs identified in this notice. 2) Experience in implementing Point of Sale systems in geographically distributed environments. 3) Capacity to accomplish the effort in the required time and ability to direct, manage, and control the entire project. 4) Ability to address financial industry and Federal Government security requirements following the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication 800-53 Revision 1, Recommended Security Controls for Federal Information systems , including the need for the final system to be Certified and Accredited and for background checks for contractor personnel. 5) Ability to implement, integrate, and support a system of the scale and scope described in this notice. 6) Past performance on projects of a similar scale and scope. In addition, vendors are encouraged to address the following areas: A) Innovative fee-collecting technologies which would allow the NPS to increase the efficiency of fee-collection and provide better services to visitors. B) Technologies for making installation, support, training, and support of POS units in the field cost-effective and efficient. C) Offer solutions that allow for maximum flexibility to adopt future hardware as technology changes. Vendors are asked to provide the following documentation: a) Literature describing the demonstrated above capabilities. b) Previous experience related to the past projects similar in size and scope to this project. c) Current company financial or annual report. This Sources Sought Notice is issued for the purpose of market research only and the Government is in no way obligated to purchase any material as a result of this inquiry. The Government will not pay for any information submitted by respondents in response to this Sources Sought Notice. If any solicitation or solicitations would result, it/they would by synopsized on the FedBizOpps website and it would be the offeror's responsibility to monitor the FedBizOpps website for any such notices. If pursued, the solicitation will be issued electronically, on the Department of Interior's National Business Center (NBC) web site, at http://ideasec.nbc.gov. Paper copies of the solicitation will not be made available. Prospective offerors desiring to conduct business with DOI are requested to register at the National Business Center. The government is in no way obligated to purchase any material as a result of this inquiry. The government will not pay for any information submitted by respondents in response to this sources sought notice. Any questions may be addressed to the Contracting Officer via email ONLY at georgi_wellington@nps.gov.
- Web Link
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Please click here to view more details.
(http://ideasec.nbc.gov/j2ee/announcementdetail.jsp?serverId=NP144302&objId=2421485)
- Place of Performance
- Address: Washington DC, 20240
- Zip Code: 20240
- Country: US
- Zip Code: 20240
- Record
- SN01226092-W 20070207/070205222916 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
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