SPECIAL NOTICE
R -- SOLE-SOURCE Special Notice for Personnel Security Management System
- Notice Date
- 3/23/2015
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- NAICS
- 921190
— Other General Government Support
- Contracting Office
- Department of Transportation, Office of the Secretary of Tranportation (OST) Procurement Operations, OST Acquisition Services Division, 1200 New Jersey Ave, Washington, District of Columbia, 20590
- ZIP Code
- 20590
- Solicitation Number
- DTOS59-15-R-00317
- Archive Date
- 8/31/2015
- Point of Contact
- James H Mowery III, Phone: 202-366-4959
- E-Mail Address
-
james.mowery@dot.gov
(james.mowery@dot.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- This is a SOLE-SOURCE Special Notice, for an intended SOLE-SOURCE contract award to The Centech Group, Inc., for a new contract for the installation / deployment of Centech's already-developed and already-proven Personnel Security Management System, at the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT). The system to be purchased by DOT from Centech will automate the existing manual process used by DOT's Headquarters and Modal Administrations to perform personnel and administrative security functions. It is crucial to note that the precise enterprise solution Personnel Security Management System that is needed by DOT and that is indispensable to the Department has already been developed, meticulously tested, and successfully deployed by Centech at many other Federal Agencies, including, among others, the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Department of Commerce, the US Department of Veterans Affairs, and the US Department of Health and Human Services. Further, Centech is the only entity, known to DOT, which possesses all of the foundational knowledge, all of the technical expertise, and all of the already-on-board staffing that are necessary to the successful performance of the project contemplated by DOT. DOT cannot take the risk of contracting for the development of any new and not-yet-proven Personnel Security Management System-----because the central importance and high visibility of the project leave an absolutely zero-tolerance for uncertainty or for even partial failure. The Personnel Security Management System needed by DOT must be able to communicate with the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM's) IT systems, and with DOT's Human Resources IT systems. DOT is not aware of any enterprise solution Personnel Security Management system that crosses multiple agencies in the way that Centech's solution does. Under the contract resulting from this procurement, the contractor will be required to provide an enterprise solution to track all Personnel Security processes to include the Pre-appointment determinations, background investigations, adjudication determinations, National Security clearances and all mandatory training associated with holding a clearance or accessing DOT systems. The services will include providing the system software with DOT branding and providing onsite training to the users. The contractor will establish data connections to existing systems requiring the data such as OPM, CVS and current HR systems. All of the work described above will probably require the contractor to have staff onsite (at DOT headquarters) during the launch phase and during the training phase of the contract, with a program manager responsible for ensuring that timelines and goals remain on track. In addition, the work will require a considerable amount of coordination to be provided by the contractor itself, in order to ensure the data migration from the legacy system to the new system occurs with the least amount of disruption to DOT's customers. The success or failure of the contractor's performance will directly impact the ability of DOT to accurately account for all investigative expenditures, adjudicative outcomes, and DOTs compliance with Federal Personnel Security Mandates. The system to be purchased by DOT must be able to track all National Security (NSI) clearances and training for DOT to remain in compliance with Office of the Director for National Security (ODNI) as well as Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for the significant number of non-NSI investigations conducted on behalf of DOT staff. Following the Navy Yard shooting, the President directed an interagency review team chaired by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and led by the Office of the Director for National Intelligence (ODNI) and Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to review the suitability and security clearance procedures for Federal employees and contractors. In February 2014, the Administration released a report (" Suitability and Security Processes Review, Report to the President") that provided thirteen (13) recommendations to improve how the Government performs suitability determinations and security clearances, thereby ensuring the safety of Federal workers and the protection of sensitive information. The key recommendations included closing information gaps; continuous evaluation; investigation oversight and accountability; common standards; and reducing vulnerabilities in current processes. Implementation of these recommendations and mandatory new Federal Investigative Standards (FIS) make it clear that the Department must leverage technology and modernize its processes to meet the new 21 st century suitability and security reform requirements. The system to be purchased by DOT from Centech will allow DOT to meet significant increases in the number, type, and frequency of background investigations that will be required under the new policies and common standard. DOT proposes using Centech's commercially available off-the-self (COTS) product that is currently developed and in successful deployment at several other Federal agencies. Such a purchase from Centech will mean having an enterprise system which supports the eGovernment initiative to reduce or eliminate paper, and which promotes the Federal Identity, Credential, and Access Management Roadmap (FICAM) goal of using technology to increase efficiency and cost savings. Because of the complexity of the needed contractor-work as described above, and because of the need for the type of coordination described above, and because of the high stakes associated with the contractor's success or failure in performing the contract, DOT cannot accept the risk of purchasing any Personnel Security Management System other than one which has already been developed and meticulously tested and successfully deployed in a Federal environment. Nevertheless, any individual or entity, other than Centech, which believes that it is fully capable of providing the enterprise solution Personnel Security Management System needed by DOT, at the high level of quality and zero-level-of-risk indispensable to DOT, may attempt to prove its capability by e-mailing a Statement of Qualifications to james.mowery@dot.gov and to linda.guier@dot.gov and to Ayanna.brown@dot.gov by 11:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time April 5, 2015. Any such Statement of Qualifications must actually be RECEIVED, by at least one of the addressees just named, in DOTs Outlook e-mail system, by the deadline stated above.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DOT/TASC/TASCASD/DTOS59-15-R-00317/listing.html)
- Record
- SN03675792-W 20150325/150323235129-703fbbfd12c5280ab98e4bb6119e25f8 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
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