U.S. Geological Survey, Branch Of Acquisition and Federal Assistance, Box 25046, Denver Federal Center, Denver, CO 80225-0046

D -- SOFTWARE INVENTORY MANAGEMENT, ORDER ENTRY, ORDER PROCESSING, RETAIL SALES, CUSTOMER ACCOUNTING AND RELATED MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND CUSTOMER SERVICE FUNCTIONS. SOL 98CRSS1013 DUE 071398 POC Teresa M. Henninger, 303-236-5900 x335 This is not an announcement of a solicitation. This is a request for information. The US Geological Survey (USGS) is requesting information on commercial off-the-shelf software for inventory management, order entry, order processing, retail sales, customer accounting, and related management information and customer service functions to replace a system now in use at the Rocky Mountain Mapping Center (RMMC) in Denver, Colorado. This is a mission essential system. Training and support during implementation and operations will also be needed. The US Geological Survey (USGS) provides geologic, topographic, hydrologic, and biological information that contributes to the management of the Nation's natural resources and promotes the safety and well-being of the public. In support of this mission, the National Mapping Division collects, archives, and disseminates cartographic, geographic, and remotely sensed data, and produces maps and related cartographic information in paper and digital form. As part of these activities, the Branch of Information Services at RMMC manages the warehouse of USGS products and conducts the primary USGS product sales and distribution function. This activity has been a National Performance Review activity for the past four years, earning a prestigious Hammer Award from Vice-President Al Gore. The inventory includes multiple copies of more than 100,000 products (maps, reports, CD-ROM's, etc.); the staff processes more than 40,000 orders per year, picking and shipping more than 3 million products per year to customers worldwide. This amounts to approximately $10 million in sales per year. A significant proportion of these sales is to a network of independent map dealers, who buy in bulk quantities at discounts and resell direct to their customers. The number of products available is expanding and the demand for them is expected to grow. The present computer system has about 60 in-house users (entering and using data) at peak times; additional users (reading and generating reports) are expected as we consider web access. The database currently is about 10 gigabytes in size. This announcement solicits information on commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software to replace the present software system. The new software must meet certain minimum criteria: (1) it must make use of the USGS's base of existing SUN servers either as data or applications servers in a two or three tiered client server architecture; (2) it must be able to work with the Oracle RDBMS so that NMD can easily combine information from its existing Oracle databases with inventory and customer accounting information without having to extract inventory information and load it into Oracle; (3) it must be Year 2000 compliant; (4) it must be able to handle multiple inventories and multiple sales sites at several locations; (5) it must update data in the database (product data, customer data, order data, etc.) in real time; (6) the user interface must run on Pentium PC's running Win95 in a Novell LAN environment; (7) it must be open and scalable to allow for growth, additional functionality, and interfaces to new systems over time; (8) it must operate 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, and routine system operations (ie. backups, archiving and data management, system upgrades, etc.) must not preempt normal business operations (ie. data entry and updating, order processing, querying, reporting, etc.); (9) system security must be adequate for government financial accounting purposes. 52.215-3 is incorporated by reference. The software must provide complete and efficient functionality in the following five functional areas: inventory management, order entry, order processing, retail sales (including credit card sales), and customer accounting. The inventory management functions must meet Federal inventory systems requirements as described in the Joint Financial Management Improvement Program (JFMIP) Federal Financial Management System Requirements Report Number 7, Inventory System Requirements; this document is accessible on the web at http://www.financenet.gov/financenet/fed/jfmip/reports.html. The customer accounting functions must include establishing new accounts, handling receivables and collections, issuing refunds, maintaining general ledger data, and maintaining pricing and discount data. In addition, reports and forecasts on the five main functional areas listed above must be easily accessible for management information purposes. Also, basic data about products, customers, and orders in the system must be easily accessible to customer service staff for real-time handling of questions and problems while on the phone. In addition to the software, training must be provided for system managers, system support staff, and users, and support must be provided during installation, testing, data conversion, cut over, and at least the first year of operation. We are looking for a system that will enable us to continue improving our customer service and recovering our costs, using best business practices and appropriate technological tools in our processes, including bar codes and radio frequency data communications, electronic data interchange, Internet-based ordering, statistical quality sampling, and other applicable technologies and processes. If your company has software that meets these criteria, please respond with information about your company, your products, and technical information about your capability to provide such software and related services; although not required, pricing information related to your software and services and a proposed implementation schedule would be especially useful. An original (1) and two (2) additional copies of your materials specific to this announcement must be submitted within 30 calendar days from the date of this announcement. Submissions should be directed to the Contracting Officer, Teresa Henninger, address referenced above. (0162)

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