SOURCES SOUGHT
D -- Statistical Software
- Notice Date
- 5/10/2017
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 518210
— Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Acquisition Management Division, 100 Bureau Drive, Building 301, Room B130, Gaithersburg, Maryland, 20899-1410, United States
- ZIP Code
- 20899-1410
- Solicitation Number
- SB1350-16-R-02532
- Archive Date
- 6/1/2017
- Point of Contact
- Monica Brown, Phone: 2024820932
- E-Mail Address
-
monica.brown@trade.gov
(monica.brown@trade.gov)
- Small Business Set-Aside
- N/A
- Description
- DESCRIPTION 1.1 The International Trade Administration (ITA) determines the duties for the enforcement of U.S. Fair Trade Laws. It calculates antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CVD) duties to meet its statutory duties as defined by 19 CFR Parts 351 and 353 and Title VII of the Tariff Act of 1930, using statistical software. The statistical software that ITA currently uses is SAS®. ITA wishes to renew its critical licenses or determine if there is an equal standalone software so that it can continue to carry out its mission. 1.2 THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY. This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes - it does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFP in the future. This request for information does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service whatsoever. Further, the Government is not at this time seeking proposals and will not accept unsolicited proposals. Respondees are advised that the U.S. Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this RFI; all costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the interested party's expense. BACKGROUND 2.1 Mission and Vision The current licenses are as follows: SAS® Office Analytics - 8 processors Base SAS® for Windows - 35 total users Base SAS® for Windows - 4 new additional licenses SAS® ETS for Windows - 4 licenses SAS® Stat for Windows - 3 licenses The Government intends to renew its current SAS®/or equal software licenses and add some additional licenses to meet their needs. OBJECTIVES 3.1 ITA's approximately 200 analysts use a variety of SAS® software products to calculate duties in the administration of AD and CVD cases and to produce trade analysis statistics. For the administration of over 200 active AD and CVD orders, ITA analyzes sales and cost data supplied by foreign entities. The data is submitted in the form of SAS® data sets, flat files and Excel spreadsheets. Some of the data is extremely large and contain over a million observations and thousands of variables. Analysts convert the data to SAS® data sets and run this data through SAS® programs that were created to analyze data for the calculation of AD and CVD margins. These standard AD and CVD SAS® programs are then modified, as necessary, to produce calculations for dumping or subsidy calculations. 3.2 Because of the volume of information and the types of calculations produced, ITA uses SAS® Office Analytics which is server-based software run in the Cloud and which can dependably run the necessary programs which can take several hours to run. Analysts use SAS® Enterprise Guide to easily navigate from a SAS® program to the SAS® log generated when the program is run, and to the program output. Analysts must be able to view a dataset in a spreadsheet layout and directly manipulate the data. Enterprise Guide includes a help feature that documents the user environment and the programming language, and includes explanations of concepts and syntax with examples. Analysts require, and SAS® can produce, output produced in various formats such as a text listing, PDF, RTF, and HTML. Analysts must be able to save programs, logs, and output as text files and PDF files. 3.3 Analysts use Base SAS® which is installed on 35 laptops that are used for foreign travel. 4 Base SAS® licenses, 4 SAS® ETS licenses and 3 SAS® STAT licenses are installed on specific computers which, used in combination with Base SAS®, allow for the analysis and generation of complex trade and industry statistics. REQUIREMENTS 4.1 (Table 1) Table of Requirements Description Quantity Base SAS for windows (25) users 1 Base SAS - Additional Users over 25 14 SAS ETS 1 SAS STAT 3 Office Analytics - 8 cores 1 4.2 Compatibility ITA accepts data in the following formats: SAS®, MS Access, dBase, Excel, and ASCII delimited files. The package must be able to read submitted data and perform calculations on that data. There is often a need to access old SAS® programs and datasets and recalculate margins and perform other calculations in the conduct of litigation. The inputs to the archived SAS® programs are SAS® datasets and Excel spreadsheets. Therefore, the selected package must be able to accurately interpret SAS® version 5 through SAS® version 9 programs. The package must also be able to read version 5 through SAS® version 9 datasets and Excel spreadsheets up to and including version 2010 Excel spreadsheets. The package must be able to run SAS® programs and exactly replicate calculations performed previously using SAS®. RESPONSES 5.1 Interested parties are requested to respond to this RFI with a white paper. 5.2 White papers are due no later than 17 May 2017, 10:00 AM EST. Responses shall be limited to 30 pages and submitted via e-mail only to Monica.Brown@trade.gov. Proprietary information, if any, should be minimized and MUST BE CLEARLY MARKED. To aid the Government, please segregate proprietary information. Please be advised that all submissions become Government property and will not be returned. 5.3. The white paper shall provide administrative information, and shall include the following as a minimum: A. Name, mailing address, phone number, fax number, and e-mail of designated point of contact. B. Identify the capability or equal SW as it relates to requirements described above in the Requirements section. C. Cost information as available based on the information available. D. Business type (large business, small business, small disadvantaged business, 8(a)-certified small disadvantaged business, HUBZone small business, woman-owned small business, very small business, veteran-owned small business, service-disabled veteran-owned small business) based upon North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 518210, Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services "Small business concern" means a concern, including its affiliates, that is independently owned and operated, not dominant in the field of operation in which it is bidding on Government contracts, and qualified as a small business under the criteria and size standards in 13 CFR part 121. A small business concern for the purposes of this procurement is generally defined as a business, including its affiliates, averaging no more than $32.5 million dollars in annual receipts. Respondees are cautioned, however, that this is a general description only. Additional standards and conditions may apply. Please refer to Federal Acquisition Regulation FAR 19 for additional detailed information on Small Business Size Standards. The FAR is available at http://www.arnet.gov. SUMMARY THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY to identify sources that can provide technology based assessment screening tools for the purpose of selection. The information provided in the RFI is subject to change and is not binding on the Government. The Department of Commerce has not made a commitment to procure any of the items discussed, and release of this RFI should not be construed as such a commitment or as authorization to incur cost for which reimbursement would be required or sought. All submissions become Government property and will not be returned.
- Web Link
-
FBO.gov Permalink
(https://www.fbo.gov/spg/DOC/NIST/AcAsD/SB1350-16-R-02532/listing.html)
- Record
- SN04503766-W 20170512/170510235702-9f69df8fffd94c9bba0241264168172b (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 |