National Imagery and Mapping Agency, 4600 Sangamore Road, Bethesda, MD 20816-5003

R -- SOURCES SOUGHT FOR GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION INTEGRATED PRODUCT TEAM'S (GI IPT) GEOSPATIAL INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE (GII) 2000 REQUIREMENT SOL NMA100-97-R-5034 POC Contracting Officer, Ms. Mary Ann Klaner (301) 227-2235 SOURCES SOUGHT -- This initial annoucement provides overall background on this sources sought Geospatial Information Infrastructure (GII) 2000 requirement including reference to information contained on the GI IPT webpage. The GII 2000 requirement is being developed by the Geospatial Information Integrated Product Team (GI IPT), which is chaired by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency on behalf of the Defense and national security communities. In this announcement, we also are asking for industry comment on the first draft of evaluation criteria to be used in selecting candidate GII 97 solutions. The need for a Geospatial Information Infrastructure (GII) 2000 can be seen in the Defense Department's Joint Vision 2010 (JV 2010). JV 2010 talks about the need for interoberability, quick insertion of advanced technology through spiral development, greater reliance on commercial solutions and information superiority becoming the cornerstone of successful mission execution. GII 2000 takes JV 2010's conceptual template for achieving what it terms "full spectrum dominance" to the next logical level by developing the GII to include producing, managing and disseminaing geospatial information, and software tools needed by the customers to compose a common view of the mission space. In addition to supporting US Defense operations, we envision the GII as supporting a common view of the mission space that also is part of US foreign policy, and US National Security operations. The GI IPT has two deliverables due by October 1997. (1) A GII Master Plan-GII 2000 and Beyond: A business and investment strategy, which will describe the iterative implementation of the necessary business processes, cultural changes, and technology infusions needed for a GII to be successful. (2) GII 97, a demonstrable capability of the GII that includes many of the new business practices encouraged through a GII, and a suite of technology_predominantly commercial and nondevelopmental items_that enables a GII. It is our desire to incorporate the greatest input and participation from commercial industry and academia in a timely manner to support the development of both deliverables. The IPT selected the Open GIS Consortium, Inc., (OGC) of Wayland, MA to facilitate a process for commercial industry and academia involvement. Industry and academia participation in supporting the definition and implementation of the GII is of critical importance, as the IPT desires to take the greatest advantage of commercial and nondevelopmental items as makes sense. This announcement invites industry to participate in the GI IPT market research activity facilitated by the OGC. The OGC/IPT Task Force process will be the primary mechanism for this market research. The Government is using two methods to obtain information via the Task Force process: informal Government/Industry and academia interaction at Task Force meetings; and a formal consolidation of information submitted by industry and academia. Informatoin sought includes (1) technology component technical information, and (2) commentary and review of GI IPT products (i.e. the GII 2000 requirements document, and Master Plan drafts). The technology component technical information will form the basis of a technology matrix, which is meant to summarize the state of available commercial and nondevelopmental technology components matched to GII 2000 functional requirements. The GI IPT will iterate the GII 2000 requirements via the Master Plan drafts. Formal products from the Task Force_i.e. technology matrix, and commentary and review of GI IPT products_also will be iterated. Each iteration of the technology matrix also provides the GI IPT a baseline for commercial and nondevlopmental items available for use in GII technology capability demonstrations. Thus, the GI IPT strongly encourages all interested industry parties to become involved in the OGC/IPT process. Upcoming OGC/IPT Task Force meetings are tentatively scheduled for 13-15 January and 10-12 February in the Washington, D.C. area. Registration for these meetings_at no costd_is via the web at http://www.opengis.org/ipt/. The OGC/IPT process stresses joint government and industry involvement in the form of regular participation and dialogue. Those interested in participating may contact OGC representatives Messrs. David Schell and Louis Hecht by telephone: (508) 655-5858, fax: (508) 655-2237. The OGC mailing address is 35 Main Street, Suite 5, Wayland, MA 01778. Information on the OGC/IPT process is available on the World Wide Web at the GI IPT page http://164.214.2.57/ and the OGC web page http://www.opengis.org/ipt/. OGC's support to the GI IPT as the facilitator of industry/academia exchanges and consolidator of industry data from meetings and/or electronic transmission of requested information is accomplished on a non-filtered basis. The OGC will not be involved in any evaluation nor award decisions of industry proposals for capability demonstrations leading to GII 97. The first capability demonstration of a comprehensive GII will be GII 97. The GI IPT will solicit commercial and nondevelopmental items from the technology matrix for inclusion in GII 97. Because we desire to learn what a comprehensive GII provides and enables, we intend to solicit for these technologies in a holistic approach, that is, as GII solutions vice individual parts. Because of this approach, other requirements related to integration, cost, etc. will be requested. The Government anticipates evaluating and selecting multiple GII 97 proposed solutions. These candidate GII 97 solutions will be further tested and evaluated at the government's Geospatial Prototype Facility. The results of these tests and evaluations will support a Government decision for what the GI IPT declares as GII 97. For GII 97, the GI IPT is looking for commercial and nondevelopmental items that would, in combination, create a holistic GII technical solution. The following draft evaluation criteria will aid in determining which of the proposed solutions hold the greatest potential for satisfying the technical requirements of a GII 97. The GI IPT is seeking feedback from industry and academia on the understandability of the these criteria. Industry comments on the draft evaluation criteria are required by 5:00 p.m. EST 6 January 1997. They should be provided to the GI IPT via website page item: Evaluation Criteria Feedback, or faxed to NIMA Contracting Officer, Mary Ann Klaner (301) 227-2218 or 227-5573. The Government anticipates subsequent CBD notice in mid-January 1997 announcing this requirement under a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) with proposals due approximately mid-March 1997. Pre-proposal type information will be provided during the January and February OGC/IPT Task Force meetings mentioned above. Please refer to the identified website pages for agenda information covering this topic. Draft Evaluation Criteria: GII 2000 Requirements satisfaction, i.e. the degree to which solutions have demonstrated satisfaction of GII 2000 functional requirements. Subcriteria include: (a) Information Production functional requirements for GII 2000. No evaluation of the proposal in this area will occur if the ability to produce any one of the following data types to stated accuracies is not provided: vector feature data, elevation data, controlled digital orthrectified image data, or precisely controlled digital stereo photogrammetric image data. Additional weight will be given to proposals that demonstrate an ability to provide minimum attribution, metadata and quality control, and output in widely accepted commercial standard formats as well as an ability to provide the data in currently accepted government formats: VPF for vector data, DTED for elevation data, CIB for controlled digital orthorectified image data, and DPPDB for precisely controlled digital stereo photogrammetric image data. (b) Information Management & Dissemination requirements for GII 2000. Additional weight will be given to proposals that describe the extent to which the proposed GII 97 technologies address IM&D issues presented in the issues section of the requirements document. Specific emphasis is placed on the following critical issues: (1) efficient metadata capture in the data production process to allow for production management, data maintenance and seam less access to frame work vector data at a tile, thematic and feature level [Note: The offeror should explain how their approach supports the following functions cataloging, storing, managing, searching, browsing, and retrieval of geospatial and imagery data.]; (2) tool selection and operational concept for assisting providers and users of geospatial information in the integration of disparate vector (different scales accuracies and topologies) and other data sets that are to be populated into the GII data bases. (c) Information Applications requirements for GII 2000. No evaluation of the proposal in this area will occur if the proposal doesn't satisfy at least 50 percent of the core application functional requirements. Additional weight will be given for proposals where greater than 50 percent of the core requirements, and some or many of the mission specific requirements are satisfied. (2) Systems engineering. The architecture and design of a group of interacting, interrelated, or interdependent elements that together form a complex whole, a "system." Security, integration, interoperability, ease of use, and work flow will be examined both individually and as they relate to the overall system. Subcriteria include: (a) Security -- Extent to which the proposal demonstrates that the system can satisfy appropriate security directives for the security level of the data being used. [NOTE: If the proposal does not cover a complete system, but only a component or components of a system, then the proposal will be evaluated for the extent that the component(s) will not cause a system that satisfied a class of protection defined in the DoD standard to fail to be able to provide that class of protection.] Additional weight will be given to proposals that meet or exceed accepted DoD standard levels for data security. (b)Integration -- The arrangement of components or systems in an architecture so that they function together in an efficient and logical way. At a minimum proposals should demonstrate the use of common services and standard interfaces, especially public API's. Greater weight will be given to proposals that comply or nearly comply with the integration requirements of DII COE level 5. (c) Interoperability -- The ability of the system to provide services to and services from other systems, enabling them to operate effectively. At a minimum, the proposal should internally use consistent data formats. Additional weight will be given to systems that interoperate with one or more other systems, with the greatest weight given to systems that interoperate at the system and product levels with all other systems. (d) Ease of use -- Human computer interface provides for ease of operation. At a minimum the proposal should have a graphical user interface (GUI). Additional weight will be given for proposals that comply with standard GUI interfaces such as Windows or MOTIF; for having on-line help files, useful error messages, and robust operation; and for complying with the HCI style guide requirements for DII COE level 5. (e) Work Flow -- Addresses the number of steps required for process completion, the efficiency of those steps, and the flexibility of task completion. At a minimum it should not disrupt other automated or manual work flow. Greater weight will be given to proposals that provides multiple paths to accomplish end-to-end work flow by allowing user selection of appropriate sequences; allowing intelligent use of information for multiple processes; allowing for multiple collaborative users. (3) Component potential in an end-to-end solution -- the potential for a partial GII solution (i. e., one that doesn't address all of the functional requirements areas_production, management & dissemination, and application) to replace, enhance or add value to a proposed whole GII solution, or combine with other partial solutions to form a whole solution. Subcriteria include: (a) Potential for component to add-value to a GII solution -- Determination if the component technology would be a unique (not yet offered) functionality capability in a GII solution, or a unique approach to a functionality or capability already offered in a GII solution. This will be a go/no go decision. (b) Ability for component to be adaptive to a proposed GII solution -- Greater weight will be given for proposals that have the ability to directly replace proposed fnctionality within one or more proposed GII solutions, possibly with minor integration work required. (c) Ability to create wholly new GII or partial GII solutions -- Greater weight will be given to proposals that could be paired with other partial GII solutions in order to build a new whole or new partial GII solution, possibly with minor itegration work required. (4)Cost realism, life-cycle cost, clarity and completeness. The Government is interested in obtaining cost information at proposal state to include the cost of one year's lease or purchase of the technology demonstrated and the option cost for one to five quantity more to acquire if Government elects to purchase after successful demonstration. The Government also will entertain bailment agreements with the proposers for these solutions which meet the threshold for becoming candidate GII 97 solutions. "End of Evaluation Criteria". In an effort to optimize streamlined technical and business approaches, DoD Agencies have recently been delegated authority to conduct prototype development outside the normal constraints of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR). NIMA is permitted to consider usage of "Other Transactions" authority of 10 U.S.C. 2371, "Section 845", Authority to Carry Out Certain Prototype Projects for this requirement. This authority will permit offerors to propose more flexible non-procurement arrangements including: Other transactions under 10 U.S.C. 2371: bailment, parallel or coordinated research, consortia agreements, joint funding, or non-Federal Acquisition Regulation contracts for Section 845 prototype agreements. NIMA currently has authority to consider offers under non-procurement assistance under the DoD Grant and Agreement Regulations (DGRS) for grants and traditional cooperative agreements in addition to the standard acquisition procurement FAR contracts, specifically Part 12, "Acquisition of Commercial Items", as deemed appropriate to the parties for this requirement. Interested parties are invited to visit our web site "Geospatial IPT Home Page" at http.//164.214.2.57/. All questions should be forwarded to National Imagery and Mapping Agency, Contracts in Support of Systems and Technology, ATTN: PCU/D-88, 4600 Sangamore Road, Bethesda, MD 20816-5003, Attn: PCU, Ms. Mary Ann Klaner or faxed to (301)227-2218 or 227-5573. This announcement is not a request for proposals. (0359)

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