NCA RFI- Memorials Resolution Letter
NCA Memorials Resolution Letters Enhancements
This Request for Information (RFI) is issued solely for information and planning purposes only and shall not be considered an Invitation for Bids, Request for Quotations, or a Request for Proposal. In accordance with FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not offers and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract; there is no obligation on the part of the Government to acquire any products or services described in this RFI. Your response to this RFI will be treated only as information for the Government to consider, you are responsible for adequately marking proprietary, restricted or competition sensitive information contained in your response, and all information received in response to this RFI that is marked as proprietary will be handled accordingly. The Government does not intend to pay for the information submitted in response to this RFI, you will not be entitled to payment for direct or indirect costs that you incur in responding to this RFI, and responders are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this RFI. No funds have been authorized, appropriated or received for this effort. The information provided may be used by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in developing its acquisition strategy and Performance Work Statement
RFI Objective
The primary purpose of this RFI is to seek information on existing technologies (or technologies with reasonable modifications) that can be used to meet VA's resolution letters capabilities described in the requirements section below. The objective is to obtain technical guidance in order to automate the resolution letters preparation process, which will reduce manual data entry, resulting in a reduction in the time required to generate letters. The suggested implementation should result in the standardization of the resolution letters throughout the Memorial Programs Service (MPS) processing sites.
Furthermore, this RFI serves to identify qualified contractors who are able to meet the VA's requirements, determine the appropriate contract type i.e., firm fixed-price, cost-reimbursement or time and material, understand commercial pricing practices, and gather other market information readily available.
Background/Scope
VA Technology Acquisition Center (TAC) is seeking sources to automate a process that creates, approves, and disseminates professionally printed letters to Veterans, the families of Veterans, or their representatives.
The National Cemetery Administration (NCA) honors Veterans and their families with final resting places in national shrines and with lasting tributes that commemorate their service and sacrifice to our Nation. NCA continually strives to improve the IT systems that underlie its mission operations through the investment of resources to automate manual business processes, and enable the needs of NCA employees as well as Veterans and their families.
NCA receives approximately 1,000 applications daily for Government-supplied grave markers for deceased military Veterans. Over 90% of these applications are accepted and the markers are issued to the applicant. The remaining applications are either sent back to the applicant for additional information or are rejected for any of a number of reasons. In each of these two latter cases, a case manager sends a resolution letter explaining the reason for the temporary or final rejection along with appropriate other documents. Currently this letter-writing process is a manual mail-merge with Microsoft Word templates and the data fields specific to the applicant. Each case manager prints the merged letter locally and submits the case documents, along with the letter, to his site supervisor for review. The supervisor indicates his approval by signing the letter. The case manager then prepares the letter for mailing. The manual process currently in place results in errors associated with the manual mail merge process performed by multiple case managers.
The Automated Monument Application System (AMAS) supports the business processes associated with monument ordering, delivering, and tracking. AMAS provides tracking capability for all claims entered in the system, expediting case research, and the NCA response to individual case inquiries.
The implementation of the new letter system will allow resolution letters to be sent to the applicant via a central or local printing facility when a monument case is denied or suspended. Unique and predefined paragraphs for each letter will be extracted from the AMAS system and used to automatically populate variable fields in each letter. The user selects the appropriate resolution letter to distribute to the applicant. The user enters the required and optional data items and enclosures for the specific letter and submits the letter for approval. The resolution letter is then reviewed and approved by the site supervisor, team lead, or NCA supervisor prior to being either printed locally or transferred to the central printing facility. See Appendix A of the RFI for an example of this letter process flow.
Requirements
The NCA needs a resolution letters system which addresses the following requirements:
o Provide the ability for users to develop new and edit existing letter templates for resolution letters throughout all of NCA to include MPS processing sites without engaging the Office of Information and Technology (OI&T).
o Automate the generation of standardized resolution letters for monument cases that have a suspended or disapproved status. Case managers will save time that is currently expended re-entering the same data into Word that has already been saved in AMAS.
o Provide a list of multiple letter templates, the appropriateness of which will be based on the status code of the case. The user will have the ability to change the resolution letter number as long as the selection is appropriate for the case status code.
o Allow the attachment of documents to the letter from the existing Feith Systems repository.
o Establish an online workspace or workflow that allows the letters to be electronically forwarded from the case manager to the supervisor review, editing, approval/disapproval.
o If the case is in a disapproved or suspended status, corresponding resolution letter (disapproved or suspended) can be automatically generated.
o After the letter is reviewed and approved by a supervisor, the resolution letters may be printed locally or electronically transferred to a central printing facility to be printed and mailed.
o Track the time from when the letter has been generated to when the letter has been approved for dissemination.
Submittal Information
This is an RFI only. It is requested that all contractors interested in this effort please note their interest by providing a response (electronic submission) of no more than eight (8) pages total, single-spaced, 12 point font. Responses should include a one (1) page company profile (to include, but not limited to, history, company size and socioeconomic category, applicable North American Industry Classification [NAICS], list of any federal supply schedule (FSS) contracts or Government-wide acquisition contracts for which you are a prime contractor, and primary line of business), a Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) of up to two (2) pages, and a Capability Statement of no more than five (5) pages, along with any questions, addressing the effort described in the paragraphs above. Marketing material will not be accepted as an indication of capability.
The ROM shall include the estimated cost ranges separating product from support costs and duration estimate range for implementing a solution for generating resolution letters. This cost estimate should include a solution that satisfies the basic requirements. This duration estimate should associate and combine the delivery of required solution components within 6 month periods of time and arrive at a reasonable total period of performance. This estimate should break out solution and support costs and durations separately.
The Capability Statement must include the following:
o Describe the basic technologies and processes to automate the generation of resolution letters from AMAS. Fields in the letters should be automatically populated with minimum user manual involvement.
o Responses should address the technologies available to allow case managers to create new letter templates or edit existing templates.
o Describe any pre-existing commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) products you recommend to simplify the implementation. The COTS products can be recommended as a partial or whole solution. Include information outlining the interface between the existing system and the COTS products.
o Explain the commercial software licensing approach, if applicable, that minimizes license management costs and leverages COTS products available under VA enterprise license vehicles.
o Provide a general explanation of applicable products and services that are on the GSA FIPS-201 Approved Products List (APL) and are in compliance with the current version of the Standard and its supporting Publications.
o Identify FSS schedules, if any, that these products and services are currently on.
o Company Name, Address, Point of Contact, and Phone Number / Email address for Point of Contact.
In response to the RFI, interested contractors shall submit the above information by 3:00PM ET on December 5, 2014, via email to lindsay.simon2@va.gov.
Points of Contact: David Nostrant, Contracting Officer, (732) 440-9706, david.nostrant@va.gov and Lindsay Simon, Contract Specialist, (732) 440-9698, lindsay.simon2@va.gov.
Appendix A
Letters Project Process Flow
Lindsay Simon
Contract Specialist
732-440-9698
Lindsay.Simon2@va.gov
