SOURCES SOUGHT
D -- Potential replacement of the Federal Lands Engineer Estimating System
- Notice Date
- 7/11/2005
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541511
— Custom Computer Programming Services
- Contracting Office
- Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Western Federal Lands Highway Division, 610 East Fifth Street, Vancouver, WA, 98661-3801
- ZIP Code
- 98661-3801
- Solicitation Number
- Reference-Number-SS-05-07
- Response Due
- 7/31/2005
- Archive Date
- 8/15/2005
- Description
- Information Needed: A. Introduction: THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY. Federal Lands (FL) is seeking vendor sources that are capable of developing an enterprise-level Engineer Estimating, Bidding, Award and Construction over-site System (EEBACS) that will replace the current system performing this function. The FL is comprised of three Division offices located in Sterling, Virginia, Denver, Colorado, and Vancouver, Washington. There is also a headquarters office located in Washington, DC. Each of the Division offices also has field offices located at various project sites. Project sites may be located anywhere in United States or its territories. The current system is comprised of two main parts, the Engineer?s Estimate System (EES) and the Progress Payment system (PPS). The following describes these systems. The EES system is a series of FoxPro programs that assists Highway Engineers in the development of cost estimates for highway construction projects. It produces documents that are incorporated into a solicitation package for the construction of highway projects. The program validates bid prices, identifies bidder ranking, and produces pertinent documents required for award of the contract. After a highway contractor is selected pertinent data is sent to the PPS. The EES consists of the programs listed below. LASTEES. This program is used by the designer to generate an estimate for the project. The LASTEES provides the following functions: 1. When the designer starts a project they enter a project description including project name, number, and location. 2. The designer selects the items that will be used on their project from the bid item table. The designer enters item quantities for each of the bid items. 3. At this point the designer can use the program to generate unit prices for each item. To start the process the designer designates which data in the historical database will be used to generate the estimate. The program allows the designer to make the following selections: a. Which States to include in the search or all. b. The number of years of data to search in historical database. The default is three years. c. Limits on the quantities to include or all. The default is plus or minus 50% of the quantity specified for the project. d. The number of bidders to include in the search. The default is to include the three lowest bidders for each project. Once the designer makes their selections, the program displays matching records from the historical database including project name, bidder number (1st, 2nd, 3rd lowest), quantity, and unit price. The program displays a recommended unit price based on all of the data displayed.The designer can accept the recommended unit price or click on a single unit price or multiple unit prices to generate a new unit price. The information used to generate the unit price can be saved and/or printed in order to maintain a record of how it was generated. The unit price for that item is then included in the project estimate. The process of generating the prices is called Unit Price Analysis. The program provides the option for the designer to override the generated price based on their engineering judgment or for rounding purposes. 4. Once a final bid is generated for the project, the program allows the user to distribute the cost and quantities across up to six account numbers. The accounts can be split on an item-by-item basis and as a percent of each item. 5. The program provides for one project schedule, multiple schedules, and base + options. 6. The program provides the option to include construction engineering cost, and incentives for materials and other items as defined by FL. 7. The program has several report options including: a. The Engineers estimate with incentives and other costs entered into the program. b. Unit price analysis. c. A bid schedule for use in contract documents (including supplemental user input text at either beginning or end of the generated document, ex. NOTICE TO BIDDERS) d. A Summary of quantities that can be imported into Bentley MicroStation design files. 8. The program allows the user to copy existing projects to start a new project. 9. The program allows the user to copy one schedule to another for use on multiple schedule projects. 10. Reports can be printed as hard copy or printed to Adobe Acrobat. LASTUPDT. This program is used to add, modify, and delete items in the master pay items database. BROWHIST. This program is similar to the LASTEES program?s unit price analysis sub-program (bid history query). This program is used to generate unit price analysis without having to create a project. CONTRACT. This program is utilized to analyze bids, update the bid history database, and generate the bidder information used in the PPS. The analysis portion of the program provides the following functions: 1. Ability for the user to enter bid information for each bidder into the database. 2. Calculation of a bidders extended price based on the bidders unit price and item quantity. For each item the user enters the unit price and the bidders extended price. 3. Comparison of the bidders extended price to the calculated extended price. If the calculated extended price does not match the bidders extended unit price the item is flagged for review by the user. a. Comparison of the bidders total bid amount to the calculated total bid amount. Discrepancies are flagged for review. b. Calculates the percent the total bid amount is above or below the engineers estimate. 4. Ranking of the bidders based on the total bid amount. 5. Produce a report that shows each of the bid items and the unit price of each bidder listed in order of the total bid from lowest to highest (bid tabulations). See the example report in Appendix. This report is based on the calculated prices. 6. Capability of A+B (Time + Dollar) or standard bidding procedures. 7. Reports can be printed as hard copy or printed to Adobe Acrobat. The program generates a zero estimate file that is used in the PPS program. The program provides a utility to import the project bidder information into the bid history database after the zero estimate has been generated. The Contract program is used to produce contract documents and reports including: 1. The bidder results as listed in the analysis section above. 2. Obligation Tabulation ? indicates account splits and incentives using a selected bidders prices. 3. Bid schedule/Contract schedule ? using prices from a selected bidder. 4. Zero estimate report 5. Zero estimate file. Samples of the reports are available upon request. Progress Payment System (PPS) The program is a Windows based Microsoft Access database program that is used for tracking progress information on a roadway construction project (Inspector Daily Reports), submitting ?progress estimate? reports back to the division offices to process for payments for the contract, and generating the ?summary book? (a detailed description of how the project was constructed, including materials, equipment, and personnel). This program is sometimes referred to as the Progress Estimate program. The PPS program provides the following functions: 1. The Start Form functions as the ?main menu? for the program. This allows the user to pick the particular function of the program that is to be executed. 2. The Project Form is a four-page form for viewing, entering and editing project information. Each page is accessed by a tab at the top of the form. Tabs access project information, current estimate, accounts, and highway contractor information. 3. The Item/Quantity Form is a form used to view, enter, and edit pay item records along with that item?s quantity records into the Progress Estimate database. 4. The Daily Form is a form used to view, add, delete, or edit daily production records into the Progress Estimate database. 5. Reports dialog. Produces a number of reports. The Progress Estimate report has two versions, one for FHWA use that has ?probable? quantity amounts and one for highway contractors that does not include the ?probable? quantities. There is a Supporting Data report that produces data that supports the current progress estimate. Reports can be made for the current estimate being produced or for previously submitted estimates. Lastly, there are summary type reports like the Summary Book and the Production Summary Sheet that track all of the pay items for date completed, days used, work completed, work remaining, running totals, and percent complete. Samples of the reports are available upon request. The new EEBACS program(s) should be an integrated system to upgrade and enhance FL?s current EES and PPS as follows: (a) From the EES Portion. Develop new programming that provides the functionality of current programming described above. The new programming shall have a multi-tiered web-based user interface and use Oracle as the database management system. The interface must be Section 508 compliant. i. Top tier = WEB Interface ii. Middle Tier = Application Server iii. Bottom Tier = Oracle RDBMS The architecture shall provide for a single database to be replicated at each division Provide for use by A&E consultants working for FL to use the program using a web version used over the Internet. Meet DOT/FHWA and current industry security standards. All steps, procedures and practices used to meet those standards are documented. Implementation of system access control based on user/group/administrator privileges. Implementation of record locking based on user/group/administrative privileges as the estimate progresses through the lifecycle. Provide an enhancement to permit searching multiple unique bid items with certain common characteristics. (i.e. a wildcard search that would find all instances of items such as 40*** and other similar filters) Provide for storing bid histories in either metric units or U.S. customary in accordance with units of measure used in the project design. Provide for automatically converting the units of measure in the bid history to the units of measure used in the project design (i.e. converting metric units in the history to U.S. customary unit for the project or vise versa). Provide for saving and storage of electronic versions of reports generated by the program for reference at project milestones. Provide reports in a web friendly Section 508 compliant format such as HTML or XML Provide capabilities to save the search parameters used to select the bid history search queries. Include a task for importing the existing data into the new system.(b) Progress Payment. Develop new programming that provides the functionality of current programming. The new programming shall have a multi-tiered web-based user interface and use Oracle as the database management system. The interface must be Section 508 compliant. i. Top tier = WEB Interface ii. Middle Tier = Application Server iii. Bottom Tier = Oracle RDBMS Provide enhancements to record and store project information (Daily Diary) in a single report. This would include the attachment of digital photographs as part of the report. This report should match with the information required for the Inspector?s Daily Report (see Appendix for example). This information should be stored and created electronically. Provide enhancements to track highway contractor progress through recording quantity completion and equipment/labor hours. This information should be stored and created electronically. Meet DOT/FHWA and current industry security standards and all steps, procedures and practices used to meet those standards are documented. Other options that may be requested include: Provide an enhancement to allow highway contractors to submit their bids electronically. This includes use of CD or other similar media and for future enhancements to use a WEB based service provider to gather the data. Provide tools and reports to statistically analyze engineer?s estimates and highway contractor bids, capabilities should include analysis on projects, groups of projects by state, park, and region (collusion detection). Provide tools to incorporate quantities directly from FL CADD/GEOPAK interactive graphics programs. Provide tools to track highway contractors and highway sub-contractors (example: Bid rankings on project groups, relationships between subs and primes) Develop interfaces with other FL database systems such as FL financial system, and Construction Status System (CSTATUS). Provide tools to save/convert reports to Excel spreadsheets. The Government shall have standard unlimited rights as stated under FAR 52.227-14 to include the source code for the product developed. B. Number of projects in the current program: The current program contains approximately 200 projects in various stages of progress for each of the three Divisions. C. THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY: This RFI is issued solely for information and planning purposes it does not constitute a Request for Proposal (RFP) or a promise to issue an RFP in the future. This request for information does not commit the Government to contract for any supply or service whatsoever. Further, Federal Lands is not at this time seeking proposals and will not accept unsolicited proposals. Responders are advised that the U.S. Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this RFI; all costs associated with responding to this RFI will be solely at the interested parties expense. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any future RFP, if any is issued. The Government shall not be liable for or suffer any consequential damages for proprietary information not properly identified. Proprietary information will be safeguarded in accordance with the applicable Government regulations. Interested firms should email their capability statement addressing the requirement below to the Contracting Officer by August 19, 2005. All information should be in electronic format and is to be sent to eplans@fhwa.dot.gov. The vendor is encouraged to provide the following information: 1. Company profile to include business size status (Small Business, 8(a), Service Disabled Veteran, HUBZone, etc?.) 2. A list of customers for whom they have developed EEBACS type programs (in whole or in part) in the past. Include the following details: Name of customer: Program capacity: System architecture: Current customer point of contact (Name, Phone, Email): Approximate Cost of Development: Approximate time from start of contract to program implementation: Overview of Project Successes: Overview of Project Problems with information on how the problems were resolved: Overview of the program functionality. 3. Explain preferred software development methodology. Include the following details: Describe project management approach and experience. Overview of artifacts (requirements, design, testing, etc) Ability to manage artifacts for the lifecycle of the product. 4. Functional and non-functional requirements developed/supported 5. Deployment, implementation, and support experience. 6. The vendor is requested to provide details of the metrics used to determine performance/success levels throughout the project lifecycle. Section 508 Compliancy: Interested vendors must provide verifiable proof in sufficient detail to demonstrate their ability to meet the Agency?s requirement, see URL site http://www.ssa.gov/oag/acq/oagacq_508.htm. Respondents should indicate whether their software or service is available on GSA Federal Supply Schedules or any other Government-wide Agency Contract (GWAC)
- Place of Performance
- Address: Implementation at 3 division locations, Sterling VA, Denver CO, and Vancouver WA
- Record
- SN00844493-W 20050713/050711211831 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps.gov Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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