Loren Data's SAM Daily™

FBO DAILY ISSUE OF MAY 20, 2007 FBO #2001
SOURCES SOUGHT

58 -- Request for Information / Sources Sought for Multi-lingual Instant Messaging, Document Translation and Document Exploitation (T2T) Capability, Communications Equipment.

Notice Date

5/18/2007
 

Notice Type

Sources Sought
 

Contracting Office

US Army C-E LCMC Acquisition Center - DAAB07, ATTN: AMSEL-AC, Building 1208, Fort Monmouth, NJ 07703-5008
 

ZIP Code

07703-5008
 

Solicitation Number

W15P7T07QM215
 

Response Due

6/4/2007
 

Archive Date

8/3/2007
 

Small Business Set-Aside

N/A
 

Description

The U.S. Army, Sequoyah Transition Management Office (S-TMO), Fort Monmouth, NJ is conducting a Request For Information (RFI) Sources Sought (SS) for Multi-lingual Instant Messaging, Document Translation and Document Exploitation (T2T) Capability. S olicitation number W15P7T-07-Q-M215. NOTE: The use of a solicitation number in this RFI / SS is for tracking purposes only. This request for information is for planning purposes only; this is not a request for Quotations or Proposals. No solicitation do cument exists and formal solicitation may or may not be issued by the Government as a result of the responses to this RFI / SS. The Government will not be liable for payment of any response preparation expenses. Interested parties are responsible for ade quately marking proprietary or competition sensitive information contained in their response. All interested firms that possess the capabilities and facilities addressed herein are encouraged to respond to this RFI / SS by providing the information specifi ed below, on or before 1700 hours on 4 June 2007. Responses to this RFI / SS should be unclassified. Responses may be sent via email to Michael Hier at michael.hier@us.army.mil and Ron Asan at Ronald.Asan@us.army.mil. Technical questions should be addressed to Mr. Ron Asan at above email. Include W15P7T-07-Q-M215 RFI / SS in the subject line. All reques ts for further information must be via email; telephonic requests for additional information will not be honored. You may forward request for additional information to Contract Specialist, Michael Hier at michael.hier@us.army.mil or Contracting Officer Ka thleen Rizzo at kathleen.rizzo@us.army.mil. Vendors who meet the requirements below may be invited to discuss the contents of their White Papers (outlined below) with system demonstration during a one-on-one session where it is envisioned the parties will engage in an active information exchange. P roducts must comply with the Buy American Act and the Berry Amendment. S-TMO, under the Product Director Signal Warfare of Program Executive Officer (PEO) Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Systems (IEW&S) in Fort Monmouth, NJ are continuously seeking the means to satisfy the immediate need for production and deployment of T 2T translation capability in support of the Information Operations in the Operational Iraqi Freedom (OIF), Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), and Global War onTerrorism(GWOT). In support of Information Operations in OIF, OEF, and GWOT in the South West Asia (SWA) theater, a reliable T2T capability is needed: 1. Multi-lingual Instant Messaging and Document Translation The capability must support real-time communication between two or more people who will input typed text in different languages. For example, a user may type text in English, it will then be translated into the one or more foreign languages, and the user/u sers will received the original text and translated text via the Instant Messaging software. The text is conveyed via computers connected over a network. The capability must support near real-time document translation for Microsoft Office products such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel and possibly Outlook and other electronic document formats. The input will be English typed text and one or more of the languages in the following paragraphs. 2. Document Translation (standalone) The capability must support near real-time document translation for Microsoft Office products such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel and possibly Outlook and other electronic document formats. The input will be in one or more of the languages. The output will con sist of English text in the original format. The capability must provide Optical Character Recognition (OCR). The capability must be able to perform on a standalone computer. 3. Document Exploitation The capability must accept input in the form of scanned or multi-format electronic documents. The capability must allow Optical Character Recognitio n (OCR) tools and Machine Language Translation (MLT) engines, commercial and/or government off the shelf to be integrated and configurable based on the language of the original text. The capability must provide: " a document management system to track and store electronic documents " a database for the original and output documents. " a query tool to search and retrieve files in the database. " remote web access " output in English text in the original format. In support of military operations in the GWOT and OIF in the South West Asia (SWA) theater, a reliable T2T capability that enables the warfighter to communicate with the local indigenous population is needed. The capability should support but not be limit ed to the following functional areas: Force Protection (FP), Public Affairs (PA), Civil military Operations (CMO), Military Police (MP) operations, disaster relief, peacekeeping, emergency and field medical care, crowd and mob control and other military/no n military operations. The T2T should: 1) provide translation in English and (and one or more of the following languages; Modern Standard Arabic, Iraqi Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish, Pashto, Dari, Farsi, French, and Portuguese. 2) be flexible, scalable, modula r designed, and easily upgraded in the field; 3) be user-friendly, uncomplicated and easy to use; 4) be ruggedized to function reliably in harsh military operational environments; and 5) be highly robust, reliable, network-ready, and interoperable as web s ervices for distributed systems. Interested parties responding to this RFI / SS should have: 1) a strong background and detailed knowledge in automated machine translation, and information extraction and distillation; 2) a proven and demonstrated capability of developing, integrating, and prototyping diversified emerging natural language processing and Machine Foreign Language Translation System (MFLTS) technologies as well as transitioning product(s) from concept and laboratory phase to commercial market and field; 3) a demonstrated and d etailed working knowledge of the DoDs MFLTSs, particularly understanding the operational, tactical all-source intelligences needs for MFLTS capability; 4) a proven and demonstrated capability in complex systems architecture with emphasis on collaboratio n, interface, database and workflow management issues; 5) a demonstrated capability and experience to provide logistics in COCOM AORs, particularly in CENTCOM and SOCOM, that can readily support detailed coordination with users, and installation, operation and support of the system; and 6) possess security clearances up to and including Secret or Top Secret. The T2T capability will be needed in the theater of operation approximately 60 days after a decision is made by the Government to field it. It is anticipated that 6 Text to text units will be fielded one per month within a nine month period after award. Interested parties possessing the qualifications outlined above are requested to provide an unclassified white paper describing at a minimum: 1. Corporate capabilities, past and current relevant performance information, available facilities and assets capable of T2T production to include: current production rate for a system; current methodology for subcontractor/vendor management; identificatio n of risks for production and associated risk mitigation plans; production and test plans and procedures currently in use; production management initiatives, specifically those related to product quality. 2. Minimum technical documentation of T2T is to include detailed design and architecture documentations to address the following features and specifications: a. Input media- type, format, bandwidth, etc. b. Output- type, format, metadata generation, exported media format c. External Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) 3. Technical description of the T2T and its components to include: a. Functional capability i. Languages, dialects supported i i. Language ID, topic ID iii. Dictionary- size of terminology; subject coverage (e.g. general-purpose or a list of special domains); user dictionary and any limitation iv. Storage capacity- media storage size, cache algorithm v. Number of channels, program scheduling vi. Translation speed, throughput, accuracy vii. Translation aids- translation memory, editing tool, terminology updates and management b. Components description including characteristics and identification of developers and manufacturers- OCR (Optical Character Recognition), machine translation engine, translation memory, electronic dictionary, entity extraction, etc. c. Physical specification- weight, size/dimension, footprint, ruggedization, portability d. Operating environment- power, temperature, humidity, cooling system e. Hardware- processing capability, memory, hard disk space, etc. f. Software- operating system, database, client software, etc. g. Upgradeability/ interoperability of heterogeneous computing components 4. Provide any U.S. government, international, and/or industry-led quantitative and qualitative evaluation or assessment results on the system and its components - e.g. utility assessments from the operational customers, NIST/DARPA/R&D labs, and industry a ssociations, etc. Desired quantitative results might be based upon the following metrics: ILR (Interagency Language Roundtable), WER (Word Error Rate), BLEU (BiLingual Evaluation Understudy), METEOR (Metric for Evaluation of Translation with Explicit ORde ring), GTM (General Text Matcher), or TER (Text Edit Rate). 5. All requisite supporting documentation to include: User training guide, Administrator training guide, Operation and Maintenance manual, Troubleshooting guide, etc. 6. A cost estimate on a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) to accomplish each of the notional capability requirements outlined under paragraph. 3 Provide optimal economic order quantity for a price break. Provide a cost estimate to provide separate additional languages and domains. 7. Supportability and logistic plan and its associated cost- training, maintenance and support, warranty, spare and repair, upgrades, CONUS/OCONUS shipping, etc. 8. Identification of existing customers for the system 9. Identification of any strategic partnering alliances that permit acceleration of component delivery or obtaining priority subcontracted support services 10. Identification of any commercial/industrial certifications or quality systems in use 11. Identification of Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of the system and its components 12. Corporate assessment of technology to include identification of system performance capabilities and limitations and associated technology roadmap 13. Name, telephone number, fax number, street address and e-mail address for Program, Technical, Security and Cost points of contact information Responder Assessment Guidance: Information Evaluation: For consideration, information on products shall meet a criterion set against the minimum quick reaction requirements to support OIF immediate needs. The domain preference is for force protection and general translation in area of medical, contracting, civil affairs and incident investigation. For other languages of interest, responders will provide the criteria used to obtain evaluation parameters necessary for certification prior to fielding. Evaluation shall include: Laboratory testing for translation accuracy subject to domain coverage, user and foreign language variations; output intelligibility and system reliability i.e. software stability. User evaluation in the form of operational assessment that measures usability, translation accuracy, suitability, speed( 10 seconds to audible translation.) and ease of training. With quick reaction deliverables within theatre (60 days from after award.), operating and available (government and commercial) off the shelf translator and machine lan guage solutions, will be the intended purchase. For the purpose of assessment, the Government may require 4 sample production units delivered at TBD Government/contractors facilities. Responders sample units as well as logistics and training support at no cost to Government shall be required. All HW/ SW loaned to Government shall be returned to responders at the end of Government evaluation.
 

Place of Performance

Address: US Army C-E LCMC Acquisition Center ATTN: AMSEL-AC-CC-RT-A, Building 1208 Fort Monmouth NJ

Zip Code: 07703-5008

Country: US
 

Record

SN01298288-W 20070520/070518221450 (fbodaily.com)
 

Source

FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)

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