DHHS, Office of the Secretary, Division of Contract, Operations, Room 443H, HHH Bldg., 200 Independence Avenue, SW, Washington, DC 20201

D -- NETWORK/PERSONAL COMPUTER SUPPORT (NPCS) SERVICES SOL RFP-19-95-HHS-OS POC Contact Point, Arthur L. Storey, (202)690-5547 The Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Secretary (OS) intends to issue a Request For Comments (RFC) for a Network/Personal Computer Support (NPCS) Services contract. THIS IS A REQUEST FOR COMMENT ONLY AND IS FOR PLANNING PURPOSES ONLY. The RFC package in no way represents the final Request For Proposal. Under this procurement, the OS plans to procure ADP support services which will include a full range of WAN/LAN and Personal Computer support services. The support services planned to be procured under the NPCS are summarized as: (a) Central Network Management, this includes: management support; cabling and documentation; configuration management; software maintenance; testing and development of applications software and hardware; maintain core applications from the NOS vendor and core off-the-shelf commercial office automation packages; and telecommunications planning, implementation and monitoring; (b) Technical Support Services, these services are in support of the ten OS staff divisions and the Administration on Aging, they include duties that normally would be required by a local group administrator, such as adding and deleting users, managing the local group print services, managing the local file servers, on- site LAN administration, training and PC hardware/software support; (c) PC Hardware Maintenance, this consists of per-call (time and materials) hardware and software maintenance and repair services for PC desktop workstation hardware and associated peripherals; and (d) Network Studies, which includes studies and support for pilot projects to expand or enhance network services covering areas such as networking protocols, interconnectivity and wide-area networking. SCHEDULE: The RFC package (Draft Statement of Work, Draft Section L, and Draft Section M) will be available from February 2, 1995 on. Request for the RFC must be in writing through the US Postal mail, FAX requests will be accepted on (202) 690-5698. Comments will be accepted by US Postal mail and FAX through February 22, 1995. REQUEST FOR RFC: Requests for the RFC package must contain the following information: Company name, point of contact, company address (including street address if post office box is given), phone number, and FAX number. When commenting on the RFC, please reference the particular part (i.e. SOW, Section L etc.) section, page, and paragraph. Send request for the RFC to Arthur L. Storey, Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Contract Operations, 200 Independence Ave., SW, Room 443H, HHH Bldg., Washington, DC 20201. STATUS INFORMATION: Status information and verification that RFC requests have been received will be provided by calling (202) 690-5547. The follow-on Request for Proposal will be 100% set-aside for Small Business concerns. NOTICE-PERFORMANCE-BASED SERVICE CONTRACTING PLEDGE - This solicitation is designated in the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) pilot initiative to increase the use of performance-based contracting methods in the acquisition of services. The OFPP pilot relies on voluntary pledges by individual agencies to convert specified contracts for services to performance-based contracting methods. Performance-based contracting aims to improve the value of contracting services by emphasizing objective, measurable mission-related outputs rather than how the work is performed or broad and imprecise statement of work. OFPP Policy Letter 91-2, Service Contracting establishes performance-based contracting methods. It requires objective, measurable performance requirements and quality standards in developing statement of work, selecting contractors,determining contract type and incentives, and performing contract administration. On October 6, 1994, the Contract Services Association; Information Technology Association of America; Electronic Industries Association and the Professional Services Council signed a pledge, on behalf of their respective memberships to, among other things, support the OFPP project; promote participation; utilize agency conflict resolution mechanisms to achieve the goal of avoiding formal bid protests and disputes; and to work with OFPP and participating agencies to eliminate obstacles to performance-based service contracting. On October 13, 1994, 26 executive agencies pledged to convert 87 contracts to performance-based service contracting. In doing so, participating agencies committed, among other things, to implementing performance-based contracting methods; establish and agency-wide task force to develop and manage implementation; measure saving and tangible benefits; and to cooperate in sharing experiences with other participants and OFPP. With regard to the pledge requirement calling for the establishment of a conflict resolution mechanism, offerors are hereby advised that HHS is firmly committed to using dispute prevention processes and ADR techniques to effect prompt, efficient, and just resolution of disputes. (0026)

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