Request for Information (RFI) Web Crawler Tool for an Investigative, Surveillance and Enforcement Program for Enhancing Firm Coverage in the In-Commerce System
AMENDMENT#2: The purpose of Amendment #2 is to provide the Response to Vendor Inquiries.
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AMENDMENT#1: The purpose of Amendment #1 is to extend the RFI response submission deadline line from no later than 3:00 PM EST on Thursday, April 20, 2017 to no later than 3:00 PM EST on Monday, May 1, 2017.
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THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY. This RFI is for informational and planning purposes only and shall not be construed as a solicitation or as an obligation or commitment by the Government. This notice is intended strictly for Market Research.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT A REQUEST FOR QUOTE (RFQ). NO SOLICITATION EXISTS AT THIS TIME. This RFI is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this RFI is to obtain knowledge and information for Market Research and project planning purposes and to identify potential sources that may be interested in and capable of performing the work described, and to solicit industry feedback relative to various aspects of the proposed contract effort. The purpose of this notice is to also obtain information regarding: (1) the availability and technical capability of qualified small business sources; (2) whether they are small businesses; HUBZone small businesses; service- disabled, veteran-owned small businesses; 8(a) small businesses; veteran-owned small businesses; woman-owned small businesses; or small disadvantaged businesses; and (3) their size classification relative to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code for the proposed acquisition.
BACKGROUND
The Office of Investigation, Enforcement and Audit (OIEA) contributes to the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) mission of food safety, public health, and food defense strategic objectives through the surveillance and investigation of regulated and in-commerce meat, poultry and processed egg products facilities; investigation of foodborne illness outbreaks; response to natural disaster and intentional contamination events; execution and application of enforcement of FSIS criminal, civil, and administrative sanctions and authorities; and verification that meat, poultry, and egg products imported into the United States are produced under equivalent standards. The Office of Investigation, Enforcement, and Audit (OIEA) is also responsible for defending the FSIS before third parties concerning complaints of discrimination, appeals of adverse actions, and unfair labor practice charges.
Currently, OIEA is utilizing the Inter-Commerce System (ICS) to track and monitor in-commerce firms that handle amenable products. However, the system reliability is challenged due the overall system design and capabilities. In 2008 and during the inception of ICS, FSIS utilized information from Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. to identify firms that were installed in ICS. However, the information has not been updated; and as a result, many firms that have closed remain in ICS and many new businesses that have opened are missing from ICS.
Since January 2016, OIEA has issued approximately 800 Notice of Warnings (NOWs) to "in-commerce" firms for violating the Food Meat Inspection Act (FMIA) and/or Poultry Products Inspection Act (PPIA) by receiving, offering for sale, and selling Non-Federally Inspected (NFI) meat food products and poultry products in commerce. These are the most serious violations of the FMIA and PPIA and represent real and imminent threats to the public health. Identifying, surveilling, investigating, and taking appropriate enforcement actions against in-commerce firms engaged in selling these illegal products is one of OIEA's and the Agency's most mission-critical functions.
Currently, ICS contains 12,233 Tier 1 firms and 101,184 Tier 2 firms. Based on Census data, we estimate that there are approximately 21,000 retailers (which are in Tier 2) that may not be listed in ICS. However, for Tier 1 firms this information is more challenging to gauge using Census data.
PURPOSE/OBJECTIVE
FSIS/OIEA is seeking the services of a database/internet mining company to provide a web crawler tool to identify in-commerce businesses that handle amenable products. The purpose of this tool is to identify in-commerce firms that handle amenable products but that are missing from the ICS. A more comprehensive and accurate inventory of firms will help ensure appropriate tracking and monitoring of such businesses to protect public health.
SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS
The web crawler tool shall meet the following requirements:
Laptop and Notebook
• The application shall be compatible with the following web browsers: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and Windows Edge, on Windows 10.
• The application shall have zero foot print on laptops and notebooks.
• The government anticipates the laptops and notebooks will have 8GB memory.
Server
• The application may be software only or an appliance (a pre-installed, configured, and tested software and hardware bundle) ready for installation into the FSIS network environment.
• If a software-only solution is proposed, the preferred operating system is Redhat Linux. However, Windows 2012 is an option.
• If an appliance is proposed, then any proprietary or open source operating system, programming language, and database software is permitted.
Application
• The application shall possess a product roadmap detailing planned releases through to its end-of-life.
• The proposed application may be custom code or a Commercial-Off-The-Shelf product.
• The application shall possess an application programming interface to support customization.
• The application shall be a web-based solution, with zero foot print on laptop and notebooks.
• The application shall comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
• The application shall comply with IPv6.
• The application shall possess a database for capturing search results.
• The application shall allow the user to create and save queries into a database.
• The application shall allow the user to run queries ad hoc or scheduled.
• The application shall possess a scheduler for running user search queries.
• The application shall allow the user to save search results.
• The application shall be scalable to support 1,000 concurrent users.
• The application shall possess pre-defined reports and analytics to review saved results in the database.
• The database may be queried by open source and proprietary commercial tools.
• The application shall possess a front-end to review stored results.
• The application shall possess a user administration module to add and remove users.
• The application shall possess a security module to manage user permissions.
• The application's user and security modules shall be HTML5 compliant, mobile enabled.
• The application shall have the capability to search structured and unstructured data sources.
• The application shall have the capability to simultaneously search multiple sources.
• The application search language shall be intuitive to users with no programming background.
• The application shall possess configuration settings for scheduling and downloading update and patches.
INFORMATION SOUGHT/CAPABILITY STATEMENT
Interested respondents having the specialized capabilities to meet the above requirement should submit a capability statement indicating the ability to perform aspects of the effort described herein. Respondents shall discuss the proposed options or technologies it believes would benefit FSIS.
After a review of the submitted data, parties may be invited to submit more detailed information to discuss their information further.
HOW TO RESPOND TO THE REQUEST FOR INFORMATION
1) The capability statement should include references, key personnel, and any teaming arrangements needed to fulfill the requirements. It must identify the responder's name and address of firm; contact and phone number, number of employees; size of business (large or small), small disadvantaged business, 8(a) firm, HUBZone small business, woman-owned small business, Historically Black College or University, and/or service-disabled veteran-owned small business; DUNS number; NAICS code; and technical and administrative points of contact, including names, titles, addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail addresses.
2) Respondent's capability statement should include a list of customers (Government/non-Government) over the past three (3) years highlighting relevant work performed in nature, scope, complexity, and difficulty and a brief description of the scope of work. A description of this experience should include the following:
• Contract name
• Contracting Agency or Department
• Point of contact
• Yearly contract dollar value
• Period of performance
• Description of work and how it relates to the above requirement
3) Respondent's capability statement should include a response to the following:
• Indicate any overall questions your organization may have regarding this requirements.
• Based on the requirement as provided, would your organization be able to complete a proposal or would more information or clarifications be required? If so, please indicate specifically?
• What contract type would you recommend be utilized to complete the project (i.e. Firm Fixed price, Time and Materials? Please indicate why.
• Can your organization perform this work through a GSA schedule? If so, which GSA schedule company, number and Category Number?
• Are there any roadblocks you foresee with this project that might prevent it from being successful?
• If there are roadblocks that you can identify, what are some suggested solutions to help reduce the overall risk of this project?
FORMAT, DELIVERY DATE, AND POINT OF CONTACT
All RFI/capability statement responses must be submitted electronically no later than 3:00 PM EST on Thursday, April 20, 2017 to Sheila Edmonds, Contracting Officer at sheila.edmonds@fsis.usda.gov. Questions concerning this RFI shall be submitted via email only to sheila.edmonds@fsis.usda.gov no later than 3:00 PM EST on Thursday, April 13, 2017. No telephone inquiries will be honored. Faxed responses are not permitted.
The capability statement should contain enough sufficient detail for the Government to make an informed decision regarding an entity's capacity and potential. The capability statement should not exceed ten (10) 8 ½ x 11 pages exclusive of the cover page and letter, table of contents, appendices, and resumes..
DISCLAIMER AND IMPORTANT NOTES: This RFI notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the organization's qualifications to perform the work. Information provided will be used by FSIS to assess capable sources, tradeoff, and alternatives available for the potential requirement which may lead to the development of a solicitation. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. After a review of the responses received, a pre-solicitation synopsis and solicitation may be published in Federal Business Opportunities (FBO). However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation.
PROPRIETARY INFORMATION: Responses containing confidential, proprietary, or privileged information must be conspicuously marked as described below. Failure to comply with these marking requirements may result in the disclosure of the unmarked information under the Freedom of Information Act or otherwise. The Government is not liable for the disclosure or use of unmarked information, and may use or disclose such information for any purpose.
If your response contains confidential, proprietary, or privileged information, you must include a cover sheet marked as follows, identifying the specific pages containing confidential, proprietary, or privileged information:
Notice of Restriction on Disclosure and Use of Data:
Pages [list applicable pages] of this response may contain confidential, proprietary, or privileged information that is exempt from public disclosure. Such information shall be used or disclosed only for the purposes described in this RFI AG-3A94-S-17-0023. The Government may use or disclose any information that is not appropriately marked or otherwise restricted, regardless of source.
In addition, (1) the header and footer of every page that contains confidential, proprietary, or privileged information must be marked as follows: "Contains Confidential, Proprietary, or Privileged Information Exempt from Public Disclosure" and (2) every line and paragraph containing proprietary, privileged, or trade secret information must be clearly marked with double brackets or highlighting.
Sheila R. Edmonds, Contracting Officer, Phone 3013444752, Email sheila.edmonds@fsis.usda.gov
