Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), Contracts Management Office (CMO), 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714

A -- LOGISTICS RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (LOG R&D) SOL BAA95-25 DUE 060295 POC Dr. Robert Neches, ARPA/SSTO, DLA POC Dan Gearing DLA-AQP, FAX: (703)522-6367. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) are soliciting proposals for their Logistics Research and Development (LOG R&D) Program. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches and techniques that lead to or enable revolutionary advances in the state-of-the-art. Specifically excluded is research which primarily results in evolutionary improvement to the existing state of practice or focuses on a specific system or hardware solution. The goal of the LOG R&D Program is to develop and apply advanced technology in order to improve military readiness and customer satisfaction by dramatically improving DLA's responsiveness, quality, and timeliness, while simultaneously reducing DLA operating costs. Relevant technology includes, but is not limited to: (1) Wide Area Information Exchange techniques, including mechanisms for on-line interactive and/or automated support of business negotiation and contracting, information technology for enhanced decision making, architectures that integrate multiple retrieval methods with tools for formulating requests and assessing responses, interaction paradigms to enable end-users to manage large information spaces, mechanisms to perform useful matchmaking in heterogeneous environments, rapidly searchable registries of services and information, integration and synergy between multiple registration techniques, (2) Intelligent Information Access techniques, including access to heterogeneous information sources and models, object oriented data and knowledge representation, facilitators, mediators, wrappers/translators, interchange protocols, and other mechanisms that facilitate finding, analyzing, fusing and reformatting information from multiple sources, (3) Enabling Technology for Information Enterprises, including techniques from electronic commerce and digital libraries such as security, authentication and on-line financial transactions, and (4) Integration of Intelligent Information systems with automatic identification technology (bar coding, RF tags, Pen based Computing, etc.) and warehouse and shipping automated equipment. To drive the development of these technologies, the program supports integrated systems technology demonstration projects for selected DLA applications. These applications include: (1) User Source Link (US Link), which will link DLA customers (weapons systems program offices, maintenance depots, bases) with DLA suppliers (Government and non-Government manufacturers and distributors) to help DLA customers select the exact items that meet their needs, and enable them to conduct cost/schedule tradeoffs, (2) Automated Rule Based Decision Making to improve the speed, consistency and quality of logistics decisions, including supply, technical, and procurement, (3) Defense Personnel Support Center Combat Readiness Customer Response (CR)2 to fully explore and implement state of the art information, communications and logistics technologies that fully integrate all enterprise players to include customers and the industrial base, (4) Advanced Technology Integrator (ATI) for DLA depots that will provide a testbed for emerging concepts for receipt processing, packing/shipping and material visibility in transit. The focus of this BAA is on prototyping of revolutionary technologies for logistics, and their pilot demonstration. It is expected that these will form the technical foundation for a generation of applications which exceed the capabilities that would become available within the next five years without this effort. Teaming arrangements between applications developers and systems integrators, universities, research institutes, or other collaborators, are encouraged, and single proposers should anticipate the possibility of being expected to work collaboratively with other organizations if they receive an award. Further details on individual topic areas are available in the BAA 95-25 Proposer Information Pamphlet. PROGRAM SCOPE: Proposals for individual efforts should not exceed three years in length. Technologies which have a significant impact on key logistics metrics, such as customer wait time, backorders, customer complaints, cost of quality, inventory reduction, administrative procurement lead time, combat readiness, receipt processing time, issue processing time, denial rates, locator accuracy, will be given highest priority. Contract awards are expected to be made during the first quarter of fiscal year 1996. Total funding is expected to be approximately $40,000,000 over three years. GENERAL INFORMATION: Internet email is the preferred mode of communication. Numerous commercial services are now available to provide prospective offerors with access to the Internet. An automated-response email address (baa-info@arpa.mil) has been established at ARPA to provide rapid electronic access to information on this solicitation. To obtain the Proposer Information Package (PIP), send an email message whose message field contains the single word ''help'', and the ''HELP'' file will be returned which contains a list of the files available, along with instructions on how to retrieve them. This BAA will remain open for 12 months. Proposals received on or before June 2, 1995, will be considered for initial contract awards. Proposals received subsequent to that date will be considered for funding at later dates, contingent on funding availability. In order to minimize unnecessary effort in proposal preparation and review, proposers are strongly encouraged to submit brief proposal abstracts in advance of full proposals. An original and four (4) copies of the proposal abstract must be submitted to ARPA/SSTO, 3701 North Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714, (ATTN: BAA 95-25) on or before 4:00 PM, April 21, 1995, to receive review prior to the initial submission date for full proposals. Upon review, ARPA will provide written feedback on the likelihood of a full proposal being selected. Proposers must submit an original and four (4) copies of full proposals by 4:00 PM, June 2, 1995, in order to be considered in the initial round. The cut-off date for receipt of administrative correspondence and questions is 4:00 PM, May 26, 1995. Proposers must obtain a document, BAA 95-25 Proposer Information Package (PIP), which provides further information on areas of interest, the submission, evaluation, funding processes, proposal and proposal abstract formats. This document may be obtained by electronic mail as discussed above, or fax. Requests by U.S. mail to the administrative mailing address given below will be honored, but with a slower response. Proposals not meeting the format described in the pamphlet may not be reviewed. This notice, in conjunction with the document BAA 95-25 Proposer Information Package, constitutes the total BAA. No additional information is available, nor will a formal RFP or other solicitation regarding this announcement be issued. Requests for same will be disregarded. The Government reserves the right to select for award all, some, or none of the proposals received. All responsible sources capable of satisfying the Government's needs may submit a proposal which shall be considered by ARPA. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) and Minority Institutions (MI) are encouraged to submit proposals and join others in submitting proposals, however, no portion of this BAA will be set aside for HBCU and MI participation due to the impracticality of reserving discrete or severable areas of research in LOG R&D. Evaluation of proposals will be accomplished through a scientific review of each proposal using the following criteria, which are listed in descending order of relative importance: (1) overall scientific and technical merit, (2) potential contribution and relevance to ARPA's and DLA's mission, including key logistics metrics to be impacted, (3) plans and capability to accomplish technology demonstration, evidencing (a) likelihood of delivering innovative capabilities demonstrable through usage in DLA operational settings, and/or (b) likelihood of providing component technologies and/or crosscutting technical infrastructure demonstrable through usage by developers of innovative capabilities. Technology proposals that do not suggest specific settings for demonstrations will be prioritized according to their value as crosscutting technical infrastructure, and their promise of being successfully wedded to application demonstrations in settings defined by ARPA and DLA, (4) offeror's capabilities and related experience, and (5) cost realism. Note: Cost realism will only be significant in proposals which have significantly under or over estimated the cost to complete their effort. All administrative correspondence and questions on this solicitation, including requests for information on how to submit a proposal abstract or proposal to this BAA, must be directed to one of the administrative addresses below, e-mail or fax is preferred. ARPA intends to use electronic mail and fax for correspondence regarding BAA 95-25. Proposals and proposal abstracts may not submitted by fax, any so sent will be disregarded. The administrative addresses for this BAA are: Fax: 703-522-6367 (Addressed to: ARPA/SSTO, BAA 95-25), Electronic Mail: BAA95-25@arpa.mil Mail: ARPA/SSTO, ATTN: BAA 95-25, 3701 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714 (0080)

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