REQUEST FOR INFORMATION: DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN E-COMMERCE WEB-BASED CUSTOMER ORDERING AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Notice Date

November 15, 2000

Contracting Office

Department of Commerce, NOAA, 200 World Trade Center, Room 209, Norfolk, VA 23510-1624

ZIP Code

23510-1624

E-Mail Address

Click here to contact the Contract Specialist (Michelle.R.Morales@noaa.gov)

Description

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN E-COMMERCE WEB-BASED CUSTOMER ORDERING AND MANAGEMENT SYSTEM POC Michelle Morales, Contract Specialist (757) 441-6526, Lynne B. Phipps, Contracting Officer, (757) 441-6881; WEB: Request for Information, http://www.easc.noaa.gov. E-MAIL: Michelle Morales Michelle.R.Morales@noaa.gov. Request for Information (RFI) responses will be used by members of the Customer Order Management Processing System (COMPS) Replacement Committee. This collaborative committee is supported by the National Virtual Data System (NVDS)Program Office and has representatives from the three NOAA National Data Centers (NNDC): National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), Asheville, NC, National Oceanographic Data Center (NODC), Silver Spring, MD, and the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC), Boulder, CO. COMPS is the existing order management system that is used to enter and process off-line orders into the NNDC system and also ingests web orders from the NNDC On-line Store. In addition, COMPS provides financial accounting and report generation capability for both offline and on-line orders. COMPS uses an Oracle data base. THE PURPOSE of this Request for Information (RFI) is to determine the current availability of a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) enterprise level E-Commerce web-based system that can replace COMPS. The system shall have the capability to 1) accept and process off-line orders from an 80-person call receiver center located at multiple locations, 2) ingest orders from an existing on-line ordering system called the NNDC Online Store, 3) provide payment accounting and tracking, 4) provide report generation and marketing analysis, 5) integrate or capture the financial data required to interface with and reconcile to the accounting system used by NOAA and the Department of Commerce, and 6) interface with an Oracle back end data base. In general, the COTS system shall be modular so that additional modules can be added at later dates. The modules or functions that are required include 1) Order Processing (e.g., enter orders), 2) Payment Tracking (e.g., process credit cards, etc.), 3) Customer Processing (e.g., enter customer data, marketing), 4) Catalog Function (e.g., Product Catalog), 5) Output Function (e.g., remote printing), and 6) Management Information Processing Function (e.g., generate business statistics, activities, and reports). The COTS system shall be designed to allow an authorized user to easily modify system parameters and Oracle table structures in order to interface into and out of external processing systems and to easily add additional functionality required by the NNDC. A future area of interest to NCDC is a compatible (able to integrate with the replacement system) Computer-Telephony Integrated (CTI) Customer Routing Management (CRM) System for Call Center Representatives who handle the off-line orders that come from phone calls, e-mails, and faxes. Background Information: Each NNDC Data Center has extensive experience with the Internet and web-based systems. Each center has a robust Internet communications arrangement for use by a worldwide clientele and a sophisticated Local Area Network (LAN). The three data centers are connected by a Frame Relay communications system. In Fiscal Year 2000: Total Contacts off-line (not placed by the Web but through the Call Center staff) were about 100,000 while on-line were 2.6 million; Total Orders off-line were 34,000, on-line 20,000 (each month for the past few months more than 50% of all orders were placed through the Internet using the On-Line Store); Only about 25% of total revenues were generated from orders placed via the web. Call Center personnel respond to about: 1) 47,000 phone calls, about 15% are orders; 2) 10,000 letters, about 80% are orders; 3) 2,500 faxes, about 55% are orders; and 4) 12,000 e-mails, about 3% are orders. A very small percentage are walk-in customers. Off-line orders are accepted and processed using credit cards (VISA, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express with the information sent to the appropriate bank), check, cash from walk-in customers, prepaid accounts, credit line, data exchange, and free. On-line orders are processed using credit cards. Almost all information and orders are entered into the COMPS data base. A wide variety of statistics from the COMPS data base are run each month to analyze the NNDC business activities. These statistics and trends are also used to identify opportunities to improve efficiencies, determine the data and products that are most often ordered and those which generate the largest revenues, and what future activities to target which will reduce the level of effort of the Call Center Personnel. One of the shortcomings of the current COMPS system is an inefficient manual order entry process and tracking capability. Also, the data base structure does not permit easy modification of fields or statistical use by COTS software. The COMPS system also does not have a marketing capability. Eventually, the enterprise capability may be delivered to several Regional Climate Centers (RCC) across the U.S., as well as small offices located nationwide that are associated with each NNDC Data Center. The three NOAA National Data Centers (NNDC) archive and provide access to the largest collection of environmental data of the U.S. dating back more than 200 years. Data for the past 40 years are mostly stored in digital form. However, many of the older records are stored on paper and microfilm. The three data centers share an enterprise On-Line Store System which can be accessed at: www.nndc.noaa.gov/onlinestore.html This RFI is NOT a Request for Proposals (RFP), but rather is an exploratory request to determine the availability of approaches to accomplish the goal of replacing the current COMPS. The current NNDC On-Line Store will not be replaced at this time. The new web-based E-Commerce ordering and management system must be able to integrate into the existing web-based systems. The immediate priority is to reduce the amount of time it takes a customer service representative to enter and modify an order. However, the entire on-line and off-line ordering capabilities may be replaced in the future as funding becomes available. Therefore, an integrated system approach is sought, to include the eventual addition of the CTI-CRM capability at the NCDC, Asheville, NC. A detailed system requirements' question page can be accessed at: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/ol/documentlibrary/crs/compsrep.html Reviewing this page and answering the questions would allow a more complete evaluation by the government of a vendor's COTS solution for a COMPS replacement. Please identify any participation in streamlined pre-priced contract vehicles, such as GSA and ID/IQ programs (GWACs). This RFI is NOT to be construed as a commitment by the Government to issue a solicitation or ultimately award a contract. Responses will not be considered as proposals nor will any awards be made as a result of this RFI. Any costs incurred as a result of responding to this RFI shall be borne by the respondent and cannot be charged to the Government for reimbursement. All information in this RFI represents an overview of the anticipated project, and is subject to change, and is in no way binding on the Government. The Government will acknowledge receipt of submissions but will not provide any feedback. Respondents are requested to provide information using WordPerfect 6/7/8 or MS WORD files forwarded via the Internet to khawkins@ncdc.noaa.gov , or via a 3.5 inch diskette by mail. Please limit responses to no more than twenty pages. To be considered, submissions must be received at the National Climatic Data Center, 151 Patton Ave., Room 120, Asheville, NC 28801-5001 not later than 4:00 P.M., December 15, 2000. Administrative questions concerning this announcement may be directed to one of the following: Michelle Morales, e-mail, Michelle.R.Morales@noaa.gov or Lynne B. Phipps, e-mail, Lynne.B.Phipps@noaa.gov. Technical questions should be directed to Kathy Hawkins, NCDC, (828) 271-4295, fax (828) 271-4876, e-mail: khawkins@ncdc.noaa.gov SPONSOR: Department of Commerce, NOAA, 200 World Trade Center, Room 209, Norfolk, VA 23510-1624

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Loren Data Corp. 20001117/SPMSC005.HTM (W-320 SN5067C9)