Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Contracts Management Office (CMO), 3701 N. Fairfax Dr., Arlington, VA 22203-1714

A -- ADVANCED LOGISTIC PROGRAM (ALP) JOINT LOGISTICS ADVANCED CONCEPT TECHNOLOGY DEMONSTRATION (JL ACTD) SOL BAA 97-32 DUE 063098 POC Mr. J. Brian Sharkey, DARPA/JOLT, Fax: (703) 696-2201 WEB: http://www.darpa.mil/baa/#iso, http://www.darpa.mil/baa/#iso. E-MAIL: baa97-32@darpa.mil, baa97-32@darpa.mil. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Systems Office (ISO) is pursuing the development of technologies to enhance the readiness of our military forces through a quantum improvement in military logistics. The objective of the Advanced Logistics Program (jointly sponsored with the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA)) is to develop and demonstrate advanced technologies, software tools, and protocols necessary to realize efficient and effective real-time control of the logistics pipeline. Specifically, the Program is intended to produce advanced information technology to put the right materiel, in the right place, at the right time, with reduced reliance on large DOD inventories. The objective of the Joint Logistics Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration is to provide an experimental environment where logisticians can evaluate maturing tools and technologies for increased operational capability. This announcement constitutes a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA97-32) as contemplated in FAR 6.102 (d)(2)(i). Information in this CBD announcement is NOT complete. Prospective offerors MUST also refer to the Proposer Information Packet before submitting a proposal. BACKGROUND By the Year 2001, the United States military must be able to conduct deployments and logistically support two nearly simultaneous major regional contingency operations. This will severely tax the U.S. industrial base, transportation infrastructure, strategic mobility assets, materiel inventories, logistics support assets and command and control infrastructure. To meet this requirement, logistics and transportation assets must be used more effectively and efficiently than ever before and the Department of Defense (DOD) will become more and more dependent on commercial assets and capability. Existing logistics planning and decision support systems must be changed from long lead-time deliberative planning processes to extremely rapid automated crisis action planning processes capable of maintaining a common understanding of the operational situation and automating rapid replanning when operational situations dictate. ADVANCED LOGISTICS PROGRAM The Advanced Logistics Program (ALP) is an on-going joint DARPA/DLA research project which investigates, develops and demonstrates technologies that make a fundamental improvement in logistics planning and execution efficiencies. An information briefing package on the Advanced Logistics Program can be found at http://www.darpa.mil/baa/#iso. The program addresses shortcomings of existing logistics support systems and seeks full development of significantly improved capability. The current process of creating and maintaining Time Phased Force Deployment Data (TPFDD) is deficient and the transportation planning and execution processes and supporting systems are fragmented. Meaningful and accurate information relative to either deployment or sustainment planning and execution is not available in a timely manner. The result is an inefficient use of critical lift assets, port congestion, impropersequencing of units and their support, excess costs, a disrupted flow of units and materiel into the theater of operations, and a general lack of intransit visibility. Defense logistics materiel management methods, procedures, and supporting automated systems have not kept pace with advances in information management technology. Existing systems are not integrated either within or among the Services, demand forecasting accuracy is marginal, compartmentalized data prevents accurate and timely asset visibility which greatly complicates the decision making process and results in excess costs. ALP TECHNOLOGIES OF INTEREST: Technologies of interest are those that directly support achieving automation of the logistics planning, execution monitoring and replanning process. Among these technologies are: the interconnection of models, simulations, and applications leading to real-time logistics control; scheduling and optimization; shared operations and logistics command and control schema; adaptive workflow; distributed multi-echelon environments; interactive workgroups and decision support; object based information representation with drill down capability; plan element dependency analysis; plan sentinels based upon known or forecasted logistics capabilities that identify plan deficiencies; execution sentinels which detect when an action is not being executed according to plan; and automatic replanning options. These and other technologies of interest are more fully elaborated in the PIP. RESEARCH and DEVELOPMENT AREAS: The research and development to correct the deficiencies discussed above is divided into two broad areas. Area 1 deals with providing support for system integration and Area 2 addresses technologies for achieving four logistics grand challenge products. Area 1. System Integration: The Government is interested in identifying offerors capable of complementing the systems integration effort already being undertaken by the ALPINE Consortium under Agreement MDA972-97-C-0800. Proposals in this area must stress the offeror's current and planned capability and past track record for being responsive to accomplishing integration type tasks. Offerors are encouraged to review the ALPINE developed "ALP Detailed Design" which is accessible at http://www.darpa.mil/baa/#iso. Responsibilities include: design and development of an integrated ALP end-to-end logistics system; definition and establishment of needed communications infrastructure capability to support operations; development of web software that supports platform-independent user access to data conforming to the architectural standards imposed by the DII COA; development of operational and system architecture; integration of the access and use of military data sources, technologies and computer software with commercial data sources, technologies and computer software; management of technology development efforts of subcontractors and associate contractors; and integration of technology into the ALP system. These and other responsibilities are more fully elaborated in the PIP. Area 2. Grand Challenge Products: Automated Logistics Plan Generation. The Government is interested in the capability to automatically generate logistics plans from notional to refined levels of item description and synchronize operations and logistics actions. This product is further elaborated in the PIP. Real Time Situation Assessment. This product is devoted to the development of methods for providing the users at all echelons with the ability to assess the logistics situation by converting logistics data into information-rich visualizations that can be used to understand the current situation and project future states. This product is further elaborated in the PIP. End-to-End Movement Control. This product is devoted to the development of methods to maintain end-to-end control of the transportation/logistics pipeline through the automated development of responsive transportation plans and continuous monitoring techniques. Capabilities must address the need for real time access of transportation data both from Government and commercial sources. This product is further elaborated in the PIP. Rapid Supply. This product is devoted to the development of methods to establish interoperable connectivity and access between the DOD and commercial vendors, suppliers and manufacturers to increase materiel readiness and decrease cycle times for satisfying materiel requirements while reducing DOD inventory and overhead costs. This product is further elaborated in the PIP. ALP EVALUATION CRITERIA AREA 1 Evaluations will be performed using the following criteria which are listed in descending order of relative importance with criteria (a) and (b) of greatest weight and equal in weight to each other; criteria (c) and (d) are of less weight than criteria (a) or (b) and are equal in weight to each other; and criteria (e) and (f) are of the least weight and are equal in weight to each other. (a) Capabilities and related experience, (b) Personnel in primary and subcontractor organizations, (c) Technical Approach, (d)Relevance of work proposed, (e) Innovation, (f) Defensibility of the overall estimated cost. AREA 2 Evaluations will be performed using the following criteria which are the same for each area and are listed in descending order of relative importance with criteria (a), (b) and (c) of greatest weight and equal in weight to each other; criteria (d) is of less weight than criteria (a), (b) or (c); criteria (e) and (f) are of least weight but are equal in weight to each other. (a) Innovation, (b) Relevance of work proposed, (c) Technical Approach, (d) Personnel in primary and subcontractor organizations, (e) Defensibility of the overall estimated cost, (f) Capabilities, and related experience. JOINT LOGISTICS ADVANCED CONCEPT TECHNOLOGY DEMONSTRATION (JL ACTDoncept Technology Demonstration (JL ACTD) is a three-phase initiative intended to provide an experimental environment where logisticians can evaluate maturing joint decision support tools and technologies to determine their worth for increased operational capability. Phase I of the JL-ACTD developed the Logistics Anchor Desk (LAD). The LAD has been successfully deployed at several CINCS and component sites. The Phase 1 effort is complete and the LAD as-is is currently being integrated with other Army efforts. Phase II of the ACTD will focus on the development and fielding of joint logistics decision support tools (JDST) that satisfy joint operational requirements. Phase III will provide a migration path for evaluating and fielding advanced technologies such as those developed by the DARPA Advanced Logistics Program (ALP). This BAA97-32 announcement focuses primarily on efforts related to Phase II of the JL-ACTD TECHNICAL FOCUS AREAS Work to be accomplished will focus on two broad areas. Area 1 addresses system integration support and Area 2 addresses modification of existing and development of new JDSTs. Area 1: System Integration The Government is interested in identifying offerors to act as system integrator(s) for the implementation and maintenance of capabilities provided under the ACTD. Among the system integrator's responsibilities are: coordinating with DISA for implementation and maintenance of JDST; developing web software that supports platform independent user access to data and JDSTs; supporting development of operational and system architecture and adapting, migrating, integrating and maintaining selected JDSTs. These and other responsibilities are more fully elaborated in the PIP. Area 2: Joint Decision Support Tools (JDSTs) This area addresses the development of logistics decision support tools that support the following categories: identification, modification and integration of existing JDSTs and development of new JDSTs. Some examples are: Visualization tools to assist in management and distribution of material, forces and supplies; Object-based visualization tools to: provide a drill-down capability for determining why situations are as they are; Execution monitoring tools that: provide pro-active assistants for tracking assets; Logistics planningsupport tools that provide a quick and graphic depiction of sustainment and materiel support requirements compared to stock availability projections; and Force tracking and force closure analysis tools. These and other responsibilities are more fully elaborated in the PIP. JL ACTD EVALUATION CRITERIA Evaluations will be performed using the following criteria which are listed in descending order of relative importance with criteria (a) and (b) of greatest weight and equal in weight to each other; criteria (c) and (d) are of less weight than criteria (a) or (b) and are equal in weight to each other; and criteria (e) and (f) are of the least weight and are equal in weight to each other. (a) Capabilities and related experience, (b) Personnel in primary and subcontractor organizations, (c) Technical Approach, maturity of technology and use of Off The Shelf Technology, (d) Relevance of work proposed, (e) Innovation, (f) Defensibility of the overall estimated cost. PROPOSALS The Government anticipates that initial contractor selections will be made during the fourth quarter of fiscal year 1997. Proposals shall consist of two separately bound volumes. Volume I shall provide the technical proposal and management approach and Volume II shall address cost. Detailed instructions for completing the proposals are contained in the PIP. Organizational Conflict of Interest. Each cost proposal shall contain a section satisfying the requirements of the following: Awards made under this BAA are subject to the provisions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 9.5, Organizational Conflict of Interest. All offerors and proposed subcontractors must affirmatively state whether they are supporting any DARPA technical office(s) through an active contract or subcontract. All affirmations must state which office(s) the offeror supports and identify the prime contract number. Affirmations shall be furnished at the time of proposal submission and the existence or potential existence of organizational conflicts of interest, as that term is defined in FAR 9.501, must be disclosed. This disclosure shall include a description of the action the offeror has taken, or proposes to take, to avoid, neutralize or mitigate such conflict. If the offeror believes that no such conflict exists, then it shall so state in this section. It is the policy of DARPA to treat all proposals as competitive information and to disclose the contents only for the purposes of evaluation. The Government intends to use Litton/PRC and Digital Systems Research Corporation personnel as special resources to assist with the logistics of administering proposal evaluation and to provide advice on specific technical areas. Personnel of these contractors are restricted by their contracts from disclosing proposal information for any purpose other than these administrative or advisory tasks. Contractor personnel are required to sign Organizational Conflict of Interest Non-Disclosure Agreements (OCI/NDA). By submission of its proposal, each offeror agrees that proposal information may be disclosed to those selected contractors for the limited purpose stated above. Any information not intended for limited release to these contractors must be clearly marked and segregated from other submitted proposal material. DARPA is seeking participation from the widest number of offerors. Toward this end, DARPA is willing to consider all types of proposals including, traditional FAR/DFARS type contracts, grants and "Other Transactions". Information concerning "Other Transactions" can be found at http://www.darpa.mil/cmo/pages/other_trans.html. OTHER GENERAL AND ADMINISTRATIVE REQUIREMENTS. DARPA may select for award a subset of the acceptable proposals to construct a balanced program meeting its needs. Pending approval of funding, a total of approximately $15M may be available in FY 98 to support the above described efforts. Size of each award and duration of efforts will vary according to the type of effort undertaken. All responsible sources may submit a proposal which shall be considered by the Agency. Historical 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 BAA97-32 will be set aside for HBCU and MI participation due to the impracticality of reserving discrete or severable areas of technology for exclusive competition among these entities. The Government reserves the right to select for award all, some or none of the proposals received in response to this announcement. This BAA97-32 will be open for a period of one year after its publication in the CBD. An initial round of evaluations will be conducted. In order to be considered in this initial round of evaluations, proposals must be received prior to 1600 EDT, 45 calendar days after BAA97-32 is published in the CBD. Communicating with DARPA. All administrative correspondence and questions concerning this BAA must be directed, in writing, to one of the administrative addresses below. Email or fax is preferred. DARPA intends to use electronic mail for most technical and administrative correspondence regarding this BAA. Technical and contractual questions should be directed to BAA97-32@darpa.mil. (Note that this address is case sensitive.) Include the originator's full name and return Email address in the text. These questions will be answered directly by Email. Administrative Addresses: The PIP and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) are available at http://www.darpa.mil/baa/#iso. Written requests for these documents may be sent by facsimile to 703-516-6065 addressed to ATTENTION ALP/JL ACTD or by surface mail addressed to DARPA/ISO, ATTN: BAA97-32 INFORMATION, 3701 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203-1714. These requests must include the name and phone number of a point of contact. (0184)

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