SOURCES SOUGHT
R -- Remote Automated Trained Image Processor RFI - Clean Copy of RFI
- Notice Date
- 2/27/2017
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541511
— Custom Computer Programming Services
- Contracting Office
- United States Postal Service, Mail and Operational Equipment Portfolio, Automation & Material Handling Equipment CMC, 8403 Lee Highway, Dewey Building, Merrifield, Virginia, 22082-8150, United States
- ZIP Code
- 22082-8150
- Solicitation Number
- 3A-17-A-0030
- Archive Date
- 3/30/2017
- Point of Contact
- David R. Seid, Phone: 7032807556
- E-Mail Address
-
David.R.Seid@usps.gov
(David.R.Seid@usps.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- This is a clean copy of the posted RFI for easier reading. Date: 2/27/2017 REQUEST FOR INFORMATION Remote Automated Package Trained Image Processor (RAPTIR) TO ALL PROSPECTIVE OFFERORS: The United States Postal Service (USPS) is performing a market survey to evaluate obtaining the supplies and/or services, in addition to prequalifying Suppliers for a potential related upcoming RFP. Therefore, you are invited to submit a response to this RFI to include marketing materials, price lists, informal proposals, and any other relevant information you deem appropriate to address your ability to provide the services. This RFI is for informational purposes only, will not necessarily result in a solicitation or award of a contract and does not commit the USPS to pay any cost for the preparation and submission of a response. GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS The USPS Engineering Systems organization is interested in identifying sources of supply capable of providing software to automate the address or no-improvement resolution of binary package mail piece images. BACKGROUND : The USPS is pursuing an initiative to increase automation of package mail image processing. Currently the USPS finalizes the vast majority of packages through automation methods however a subset of mail pieces requires further processing by human coding. During the fiscal year of 2016 the USPS manually coded approximately 500 million images for the targeted platform. The goal of this initiative is to further automate the image processing to reduce human coding requirements. To achieve the goal of increased automation of image process for package mail the USPS seeks a software application to be delivered or developed to process these images and determine the final ZIP code or no-improvement category as appropriate. USPS will provide the hardware platform, operating systems, image routing, and result delivery architecture for this program. The USPS will be exploring the use of modern computing technologies including multiple core CPUs, GPUs, or other technologies identified during development that will provide the best value and performance. REQUIREMENTS TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS: •1. Operating System •a. The software must be installable on 64-bit windows operating systems. •2. Image Processing •a. The software must be capable of reading binary images from various sources and resolutions. •b. The software must be capable of determining the finest level ZIP code on mail piece images. •c. The software must be capable of determining the following no-improvement pieces: • i. Reject (No address can be found) • ii. Misfaced mail piece • iii. Doublefed mail piece •d. The software must be capable of reading various labels used by USPS such as: • i. Loop Mail • ii. Return to Sender •e. The software must be capable of processing an image in under 15 seconds. •f. The software must retain all data contained in the TIFF image tags for further processing. •3. Configuration: •a. The software must be capable of running in parallel to itself or other image processing applications needed to meet throughput requirements. •b. The software must not be restricted to specific hardware or software technologies. •4. Performance: •a. An initial target goal of 80% automation has been identified however the USPS is currently collecting images to be used for this program and will be evaluating those images and identifying an updated automation potential goal. SECURITY REQUIREMENTS The USPS historically provides training images to vendors for the purpose of training the computer systems needed for image processing. To provide the most representative set of images of our mail processing operations images are captured directly from our live processing operations along with current address directory information. As the USPS does not archive images of mail the training images will only be a representation of the mailstream during the collection period which is usually one to two weeks however the volume of images should be adequate for training purposes. To protect the privacy of our customers the security of the images is essential, as a result the following security requirements must be met during the development process. •5. Facility •a. The facility used for storing, training, and testing with USPS mail piece images must provide sufficient locations to protect the images from unauthorized: • i. electronic access • ii. physical access • iii. view, printing or any other means of access or duplication. •b. The facility will provide a location to isolate the equipment used for storing, training, and testing from anyone not directly involved in development. •c. The facility will be available for inspection by USPS or US Postal Inspection Service USPIS at any time during the program to ensure compliance with security and protection of training images. •d. The facility used for storing, training, and testing with USPS mail piece images must physically be located within the Unites States. •6. Personnel •a. Personnel working on USPS software or with USPS mail piece images must be capable of passing security screening as deemed necessary by USPS or USPIS. •b. Personnel will not be added to or remove from the program without prior notification to the USPS. PROCUREMENT: The specific quantity of systems has yet to be determined as application throughput will need to be considered and will likely vary between potential vendors. The following should be considered: •· Total annual image volume of ~500 Million images •· Peak system throughput of 250,000 images per hour Interested parties should respond with: •· estimated lead time •· cost estimates for software only, hardware to be provided by USPS •· software licensing terms (i.e. per unit, year, image) (if any) •· minimum hardware requirements to meet peak system throughput with 20% redundancy of units including: •o number of units •o cores per unit •o RAM requirements •o Quantity •o Speed of components •· and type per unit or core •· Hard drive requirement including: •o Speed •o Configuration •o Size •o Type •o and quantity per unit •· GPU requirements (if any) •· Cores •· Memory •· Model or class Interested parties should provide the following information: •A. Company Name and Contact Information •B. Technical Expertise •· Respondents should specify if they are able to meet all of the requested technical requirements listed above or only specific technical requirements. Interested parties shall provide details on their candidate equipment to include technical specifications, datasheets, brochures, performance specifications, etc. •· Respondents shall also describe details regarding the development of the software including resource needs. Approach details such as in-house, modification or integration of COTS software, or outsourced will be included as well as location of resources. •C. Company background •· Provide an overview of your company business to include ownership structure, number of years in business, key management personnel, and if publically traded most recent balance sheet and income statement. •· Include the company's current business structure: •o (a) Company Name •o (b) Company Address •o (c) Company Website •o (d) Company Point of Contact and Phone Number •o (e) Type of Business and business size (Small Business, Large Business, Minority-Owned, Women-Owned) •o (f) Number of Employees •o (g) Cage code •o (h) DUNS number. RESTRICTIONS ON DISCLOSURE AND USE OF DATA If the response will contain any information deemed to be confidential in nature, such information must be clearly marked as such as outlined below. The Postal Service does not intend to share any information outside of the USPS. Interested parties that include in their response to this RFI data they do not want used or disclosed by the Postal Service for any purpose other than market survey may take the following steps: •a. Include on the front page or in the introductory material of their response the following: "This response includes data that may not be duplicated, used, or disclosed outside the Postal Service - in whole or in part - for any purpose other than to perform market survey. If, however, a contract is awarded to this offeror as a result of - or in connection with - the submission of such data under a response to a Request for Proposal, the Postal Service will have the right to duplicate, use, or disclose the data to the extent provided in the resulting contract. This restriction does not limit the Postal Service's right to use information contained in the data if it is obtained from another source without restriction. The data subject to this restriction are contained in sheets (Offeror insert numbers or other identification of sheets)." •b. Mark each sheet of data they wish to restrict with the following legend: "Use or disclosure of data contained on this sheet is subject to the restriction on the title page of this response." PREQUALIFICATION INFORMATION The USPS Supplying Principles and Practices (Supply Management policy) require adequate competition and allow for solicitations to be issued to all, some, or none of the prequalified offerors. Additionally, being listed as a prequalified offeror does not guarantee that an offeror will be awarded a future contract. Lastly, the Postal Service reserves the right to solicit non-prequalified offerors when the circumstances dictate this to be an appropriate business decision. Potential candidates for prequalification will be evaluated on the basis of the following four factors: 1. Offeror Eligibility 2. Financial Capability 3. Past Performance 4. Offeror Capability It is important that the offeror sufficiently documents the information requested, as the Postal Service is not required to contact the offeror to request additional information or clarification regarding the information submitted. Offerors who submit a Prequalification Application and all of the required documents will be evaluated by the Postal Service; however, only those who meet or exceed the criteria for all of the evaluation factors will be placed on the Prequalification List. NOTIFICATION OF PREQUALIFICATION DECISION All offerors responding to this prequalification solicitation, whether or not they are selected to be included on the Prequalification List, will be notified of the Postal Service's decision in writing. Those not included will be provided a rationale for the decision for the offeror's use in preparing for future prequalification opportunities. The prequalification process does not in any way guarantee a contractual relationship between the Postal Service and a prequalified prospective offeror. No appeal rights are provided by law or regulation from a non-selection decision. EVALUATION/PREQUALIFICATION CRITERIA The Postal Service will prequalify those offerors who have demonstrated their ability to perform consistently to high standards of quality and reliability. In responding to each evaluation criterion, offerors should keep in mind that the evaluation of a response will be geared toward determining the potential offeror's ability to perform the service requirements. Prequalification will be based on the following evaluation criterion: A. Offeror Capability B. Financial Capability C. Past Performance Financial Capability will be evaluated on a pass / fail basis. Past Performance and Offeror Capability will be evaluated as: (1) does not meet criteria, (2) meets criteria, or (3) exceeds criteria. Offerors must at least "pass" Financial Capability and at least "meet criteria" in the Past Performance and Offeror Capability categories to be eligible for prequalification. If an offeror is deficient in any one of these areas, that offeror will not be considered for prequalification. The criteria listed above will be used to identify and prequalify a sufficient number of potential offeror's to ensure adequate competition. Offeror Capability will be evaluated to determine an offeror's ability to perform upon award of a contract. Financial Capability will be determined based on an analysis of each offeror in order to assess the capability of each to meet its financial obligations over the contract term. Past Performance will be determined based on the following required requested information: 1. A listing of contracts (Postal and/or non-Postal) of similar size, scope and nature as in this prequalification package, along with its on-time performance information. 2. Timeliness of performance (adherence to contract schedules, including the administrative aspects of performance), including experience in achieving performance levels required in previous contracts. 3. Quality (supplied Postal and/or non-Postal references attesting to the quality of the Supplier's performance on the listed contracts). SUBMISSION DEADLINE All RFI submissions must be received by 2:00 PM (Eastern Time) on March 15 th, 2017 for pre-qualification consideration. PRIMARY CONTACT INFORMATION All RFI related questions and submissions should be sent directly to: David R. Seid Purchasing and Supply Management Specialist David.R.Seid@USPS.gov (703) 280-7556
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/notices/49d7415a790d5a94481d46e04d2cd98a)
- Record
- SN04416236-W 20170301/170227235109-49d7415a790d5a94481d46e04d2cd98a (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
| FSG Index | This Issue's Index | Today's FBO Daily Index Page |