SOURCES SOUGHT
D -- Tobacco Assessment and Payment System Maintenance and Enhancement (TAPSME)
- Notice Date
- 6/8/2011
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541511
— Custom Computer Programming Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Agriculture, Farm Service Agency, Acquisition Management Division, Contracts Operations Branch, 1280 Maryland Avenue, SW, Portals Bldg., Room 508A, Washington, District of Columbia, 20250-0567
- ZIP Code
- 20250-0567
- Solicitation Number
- AG-3151-SS-11-Tobacco_Assessment_and_Payment_System_Maintenance_and_Enhancement_(TAPSME)
- Archive Date
- 6/28/2011
- Point of Contact
- Luis E Gallardo, , Billy Rowland,
- E-Mail Address
-
luis.gallardo@wdc.usda.gov, billy.rowland@wdc.usda.gov
(luis.gallardo@wdc.usda.gov, billy.rowland@wdc.usda.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- This is a Sources Sought for Certified 8a Program Participant, SBA Certified HUB Zone Firm, SBA Certified Small Disadvantaged Business, Veteran Owned Business, or Woman Owned Small Businesses only. Please respond with your corporate capabilities and any other relevant information that would allow USDA to determine your ability to perform the following type of requirement. 1 BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Farm Service Agency (FSA) administers and manages farm commodity, credit, conservation, disaster, and loan programs as authorized by Congress through a network of federal, state, and county offices. FSA's administrative and programmatic functions are supported by a large network of automated systems that are maintained by its Information Technology Services Division (ITSD). ITSD is also responsible for developing new programs, replacing existing programs, and modernizing existing platforms and systems. The primary ITSD operations are located in Washington, DC and Kansas City, MO, with additional offices in St. Louis, MO. The application maintained under this Performance Work Statement (PWS) is the Tobacco Assessment and Payment System (TAPS), which is made up of two major applications--Tobacco transition Payment Program (TTPP) and the Tobacco Transition Assessment Project (TTAP). TTAP provides a mechanism by which the Government can assess the Tobacco Manufacturers and Importers of tobacco per Title VI, the "Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act" (FETRA) of the American Jobs Creation Action of 2004 (Pub. L. 108-357) that repealed the tobacco marketing quota and related price support programs, and provided for payments to persons who, during a certain period or at a certain time, had been the owners of farms with tobacco quotas or had produced regulated tobacco. FETRA is funded using assessments collected from tobacco product manufacturers and importers. Under FETRA, Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) sends out quarterly notices to tobacco manufacturers and importers, informing those entities of the assessments due to CCC. TTPP makes payments to tobacco quota holders and producers. The legislation also ends all aspects of the Federal tobacco marketing quota and price support loan programs effective with the 2005 crop year. Requirements for tobacco marketing quota and price support loan programs for the 2004 marketing year remained in effect through the end of the marketing season. The 2004 marketing year ended on 6/30/05 for flue-cured tobacco and all other tobaccos ended on 9/30/05. The payments are made in 10 equal annual installments that began in 2005 and will end in 2014. The Government's ultimate objective under this program is to provide TAPS Maintenance, Functionality, Reporting, and Enhancement in order to ensure the user's needs are met and that standards and regulatory requirements are achieved. This system is required to: • support FSA's efforts to deliver new software applications in the web environment; • support a move toward customer centric systems; • interface with the required applications, resolving material weaknesses; • improve project planning, reporting and communication among stakeholders by supporting the Integrated Management System initiative; • facilitate data entry accuracy and field operations; • generate standardized reports; • improve adherence to Style Guide standards and Section 508 compliance; and • allow for all necessary audit functionality and increased data sharing with our partner agencies. 2 SCOPE OF WORK The primary purpose of this effort would be to acquire information technology support services for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) FSA Tobacco Assessment and Payment System. The support services would include TAPS Maintenance, Functionality, Reporting, and Enhancement. A contractor would be required to provide all labor and supervision necessary to provide overall Project Management for contractor personnel. 3 CONTRACT TYPE The services required will be both Firm Fixed Price and Labor Hour. 3.1 FIXED-PRICE SUPPORT Project Management - Overall Project Management includes day to day on-site project management and direction of the work assigned to the Contractor. The Project Manager will be the single point of contact for communications regarding facility directives or problems and any other administrative communications. The Project Manager shall be responsible for communicating to their subordinate employees as appropriate. Conduct a Startup Briefing - Within one week of award, the Contractor shall conduct a startup meeting with the Government if the Government so requests. The Contractor shall NOT prepare an elaborate briefing nor is it required that the Contractor expend significant resources for this task. The intent of this briefing is to initiate the communication process between the Government and the Contractor by introducing key participants and explaining their roles, reviewing communication ground rules, and assuring a common understanding of the contract requirements and objectives. The briefing shall be held at the Government's facility. Both parties shall agree to the date and time. The result of this briefing shall include the following: • Government and Contractor personnel working under this contract shall be introduced. • If the Contractor is working onsite, the Government will show the Contractor the applicable facilities. • The Government will provide to the Contractor, the agreed to Government Furnished Property at this time. • Any issues concerning the Minimum Background Investigation for Contractor employees shall be discussed. • The Contractor shall demonstrate confirmation of their understanding of the work to be accomplished under the PWS. All Government and Contractor expectations shall be addressed and discussed. Results shall be documented by the Contractor and delivered to the Government within two (2) days of the completion of the briefing. Reports - Reports are required to be delivered both out of the system and relating to the system. Those reports are as follows: • Incident Tracking by Sprint • Feature Backlog • Sprint Backlog • Sandbox (Issues tracking) • Annual Reports o TTPP Lump Sum Payment Report:  This includes lump sum payment activity by month. This is necessary as fiscal years overlap in calendar year tabulations. o TTPP Contracts Sold Report:  This includes the actual TTPP payments made to Producers and Quota Holders. o SII Annual Account Reconciliation Certification:  This report provides the Beginning Year Balance, Transactions During the Year, End of Year Balance, and the Projected FY Payment Amount Due. This is to be provided after the sales closing date each year, but no later than November 30th. o SII Audit:  This report includes contracts purchased from the previous year, the buyer and seller account names, purchased date, date sold (if applicable), purchased contract identifier. Five percent of the contracts to be reviewed for all quota holder and producer contracts held by financial institutions. A maximum of 100 contracts per account, however now fewer than five contracts per account in the event an account had less than 100 contracts. If an account holds less than five contracts, then 100% of the contracts are reviewed. Additionally, the two largest contracts from each account are selected for review. This report is used to verify the signature authority, discount rate, and proof of payment. This random sample selection pulls data from January 16 through November 1 (may be a day or two later if the sales closing date lands on the first Tuesday of November in an election year). o Payment to 1099 Form Reconciliation Report:  This would encompass all payments made for a given tax year and the corresponding tax form sent.  Any payments not receiving a form would need to have an explanation provided.  Would need to be ran anytime the process is ran to obtain data for the S, INT, or OID file.  It is crucial that the report is generated timely, prior to mailing any forms to the customer, and prior to the IRS January 31 deadline.  This should include all payments receiving a $0 Form for the current tax year.  This should include all payments not receiving a form due to the CGV. o Quota Holder Contracts Paid after December 15:  This report should encompass contracts receiving payments after December 15 until December 31 of current tax year.  Used to ensure all payments receive the appropriate 1099 form.  Generated the first business day of January of current calendar year. o TIN Mismatch Report:  This report would need to be generated to provide information associated with the CP2100 Notice provided by the IRS.  Generated in October of the current year once information is obtained from the IRS. o Backup Withholding Contract Report:  This report would need to be generated to provide information associated with TINs identified by the IRS for mandated backup withholding.  Generated in December of the current tax year. • Ad Hoc Reports from the TAPS Data Repository • Ad Hoc Reports for TTPP-1099 processing • Status Reports (weekly and monthly including hours expended) The definition of final deliverable for reports is on time delivery with current, accurate, and complete data with consistent display. 3.2 LABOR-HOUR SUPPORT Maintenance and Functionality Support The system functionality and maintenance requirements are as authorized by the Business Owner or Project Owner as necessary utilizing the FSA incident tracking system, currently Remedy. All Incident Reports are tracked electronically by the Application Support Group (ASG). The ticket is entered into a current call tracking database by the Help Desk at Beacon Facility. The Vendor will receive the ticket electronically via email. Maintenance includes problems that require code fixes. Functionality includes problems for either user guidance or data fixes. The number varies according to the viability of the application and the attentiveness of the user. On average there have been less than 300 per annum with the majority, 90%, being data fixes. • Incident report support for mishandled contract updates. The definition of final deliverable for the maintenance is completion of successful installation of the software into the Production environment. The definition of final deliverable for functionality is the successful completion of the incident report with resolution of data or user satisfaction. Enhancements The contractor shall provide design and development support to all software enhancements that are resultant from: • Implementation of modifications required to comply with directives received in Information Bulletins (IBs). • Implementation of new/revised functionality based on user needs. • Implementation of new/revised functionality required to comply with new legislation. This support shall include analysis, design, programming, testing, implementation, and documentation support for the complete development effort: • Analysis and design including documenting business and technical requirements and improvements to the systems • Technical assistance • Data conversion design and development • Risk Analysis • Technical Documentation • Software Configuration Management • Research and development of application changes and enhancements • Research and resolution of application problems during integration testing • Construction • Unit, automated, integration, and system testing • Database management and design tasks supporting approved software changes • Problem resolution in support of Acceptance testing • Support for phased Production implementation (i.e. Pilots) Enhanced software must maintain previously provided functionality including all interfaces and links to other applications. The initial enhancement tasks are as follows: • Completion of code corrections for IRS 1099 forms reporting for: o Calculation corrections for OID Imputed Interest o Implementation of the Business Rules in the business layer instead of an SSIS package o Original and corrected file generation for IRS and Financial Inquires o Handling all scenarios currently handled manually as exceptions • Completion of code enhancements for Transfer of Contract for all reasons. o Necessary for information discovery for the ability to handle the numerous transfers of contracts due to the aging population of the contract holders. • Contract family ancestry lookup and display. o Necessary for information discovery for all users in the TTPP user community. • IRS Backup Withholding processing: o Mismatched Tax Identification Numbers. o Mandated IRS Backup Withholding. The definition of final deliverable for enhancement is completion of required documentation and installation of the software into the production environment. As such the following are anticipated in the delivery: System Enhancement Design and Documentation • The Contractor shall provide detailed design documents and other required documents according to the SDLC and as directed by the COTR and Project Owner. System Enhancement Code Applications According To Requirements and Standards • The Contractor shall make necessary enhancement code and data changes, conduct unit testing, automated testing, integration and system testing in accordance with FSA development standards as outlined in the SDLC. Where appropriate, additional standards may be identified. • Modifications made to the Java application shall be accomplished in accordance with FSA and SFG coding standards. The Contractor shall be responsible for all work products identified in the SDLC and as approved by the COTR and Project Owner. The Contractor shall write or modify all programs using JAVA object oriented programming techniques as defined by J2EE standards. • Code must be developed with an understanding of the interface requirements of this system. Conduct Unit, Automated, Integration, and System Testing • The Contractor shall be responsible for unit, automated, integration, and system testing all changes or enhancements made to the applications. This is to include regression testing and creating automated tests to ensure other areas of the application are not affected by the changes. Test results shall be reviewed to determine that requirements have been satisfied and that no changes have been inadvertently made to existing functionality. Provide Acceptance Test and Production Support • Contractor support is needed to resolve production problems identified during the routine operation of the applications. These may include the need to address performance related incidents. The Contractor shall be responsible for the research and resolution of problems identified as a result of production processing or acceptance testing of the applications. Construct real world testing scenarios and conduct stress testing of applications and performance analysis of testing results. These problems may include improperly functioning code and/or incorrectly implemented requirements. Additional Requirements and Standards: All software code delivered under the PWS shall operate in the USDA computing environment, comply with the Government's release management environment, and meet technical architecture requirements http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/sdlcapp?area=home&subject=landing&topic=landing. The Contractor shall follow the project management methodology of Rapid Development Methodology (RDM), an Agile-like methodology, and principles as outlined by the Project Management Institute (PMI). The Contractor shall provide project management deliverables as specified by the PMI and USDA Capital Planning and Investment Control (CPIC) for each year of the contract. Abbreviations ASG - Application Support Group CCC - Commodity Credit Corporation CGV - Contract Gross Value COTR - Contracting Officers Technical Representative CPIC - Capital Planning and Investment Control FETRA - Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act FSA - Farm Service Agency IBs - Information Bulletins IRS - Internal Revenue Service ITSD - Information Technology Services Division OID - Original Issue Discount PMI - Project Management Institute PWS - Performance Work Statement RDM - Rapid Development Methodology S, INT, or OID file - A file created to specific requirements for layout and data to provide the information necessary to create the applicable IRS 1099 forms. SDLC - FSA System Development Life Cycle SII - Successor-In-Interest SSIS - SQL Server Integration Services TAPS - Tobacco Assessment and Payment System TTAP - Tobacco Transition Assessment Project TTPP - Tobacco Transition Payment Program USDA - United States Department of Agriculture 4 DELIVERABLES Government Review. Government personnel will have 10 workdays to review deliverables (to include resubmissions) and provide written acceptance/rejection. The client representatives/COTR will notify the contractor of deliverable acceptance or provide comments in writing. The contractor shall incorporate Government comments, or provide rationale for not doing so within 5 days of receipt of comments. Government acceptance of the final deliverable will be based on resolution of Government comments or acceptance of rationale for non-inclusion. Additional changes volunteered by the contractor will be considered a resubmission of the deliverable. Deliverable and Data Rights. All test materials, documents, notes, records, software tools acquired, and/or software modified or produced by the contractor under the PWS shall become the property of the U.S. Government, which shall have unlimited rights to all materials and determine the scope of publication and distribution. The contractor shall be required to deliver electronic copies of all documents, notes, records and software to the Government quarterly and upon termination of the contract services or expiration of the contract period. A deliverable schedule shall be identified for each task. Each task may require some or all of the following deliverables as part of the task. Description and Due Date System Maintenance 1)Code Deployed to Production Environment Due Date: 1) Agreed upon time frame not to exceed 45 days to Production deployment. System Functionality Support 1) Incident Report Due Date: 1) 24 hours from approval of resolution approved by Business or Project Owner. System Enhancement 1) System interfaces with other USDA systems Due Date: 1) 24 hours to TCO certification 2) Code Deployed to Production Reporting 1) Status Reports Delivered (weekly and monthly including hours used). Due Date: 1) Timely Delivery: Weekly- due 1 day after the end of the preceding week; Monthly- due 5 days after the end of the preceding month. 2) Program Management Reports to include Feature and Sprint Backlog. Due Date: 2) Updated Daily and delivered during the Sprint meeting. 3) Incident Tracking Reports by Sprint. Due Date: 3) Updated Daily and delivered during the Sprint meeting. 4) Annual Reports. Due Date: 4) Delivered 1 week after receipt of the request. 5) Ad Hoc Reports. Due Date: 5) Delivered within 24 hours of request. This is not a Request for Proposal (RFP). This is a Sources Sought only to ascertain the market availability of firms that are Certified 8a Program Participant, SBA Certified HUB Zone Firm, SBA Certified Small Disadvantaged Business, Veteran Owned Business, or Woman Owned Small Businesses only, and can provide the support outlined which falls under NAICS 541511.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/USDA/FSA/MSD/AG-3151-SS-11-Tobacco_Assessment_and_Payment_System_Maintenance_and_Enhancement_(TAPSME)/listing.html)
- Place of Performance
- Address: USDA/FSA/ITSD/ADC/PSCAO, 6501 Beacon Drive, Kansas City, Missouri, 64133, United States
- Zip Code: 64133
- Zip Code: 64133
- Record
- SN02467397-W 20110610/110608234927-82278afeac3d83594285ec771bbc7176 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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