SOURCES SOUGHT
A -- Air Force Knowledge Now Consulting, Support, Maintenance, and Development Services
- Notice Date
- 12/21/2006
- Notice Type
- Sources Sought
- NAICS
- 541519
— Other Computer Related Services
- Contracting Office
- 2275 "D" Street Building 16, Room 132 Wright-Patterson AFB, OH
- ZIP Code
- 00000
- Solicitation Number
- FA8604--07-R-7002
- Response Due
- 1/12/2007
- Archive Date
- 2/13/2007
- Small Business Set-Aside
- Total Small Business
- Description
- REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) FAR 52.215-3, Request for Information or Solicitation for Planning Purposes (Oct 1997) (a) The Government does not intend to award a contract on the basis of this solicitation or to otherwise pay for the information solicited except as an allowable cost under other contracts as provided in subsection 31.205-18, Bid and proposal costs, of the Federal Acquisition Regulation. (b) Although ?proposal? and ?offeror? are used in this Request for Information, your response will be treated as information only. It shall not be used as a proposal. (c) This solicitation is issued for the purpose of identifying potential sources capable of implementing commercial knowledge management techniques and processes that allow knowledge gained from the past to be applied to current and future projects, programs, and systems. 1.0 DESCRIPTION This is an announcement of a Request for Information (RFI). This RFI is issued for the purpose of identifying potential sources capable of implementing commercial knowledge management techniques and processes that allow knowledge gained from the past to be applied to current and future projects, programs, and systems. This is not a solicitation. This is a market survey. This notice does not constitute a Request for Proposal, nor does it restrict the Government as to the ultimate acquisition approach, nor should it be construed as a commitment by the Government. The Government will not reimburse any costs for providing any information, documentation, and/or data submitted or preparation costs for submittals in response to this RFI. 2.0 BACKGROUND INFORMATION Air Force Knowledge Now (AFKN) has been identified by the Air Force Chief Information Officer (AF CIO) as the Air Force Center of Excellence for Knowledge Management (AFCOEKM) within the Air Force. The Air Force definition of knowledge management is ?the strategies and processes of identifying, capturing, and leveraging knowledge and expertise within an organization." To be efficient, knowledge management must allow the user to take advantage of information technology solutions while creating a supportive, collaborative, and sharing culture. Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) currently maintains the AFKN system. Multiple components are integrated to contribute to Air Force Knowledge Management (KM). The amount of information generated and needed by the Air Force workforce and the demographic changes facing this workforce cause us to constantly evaluate how this online knowledge is managed. We recognize that in order to meet our Air Force strategic business objectives, we must get this knowledge quickly and easily to each individual in a manner that relates to that individual?s job responsibilities. The AFKN team in HQ AFMC/A8 has been leading the way in implementing a proof-of-concept framework of a future that integrates strategy, mission, culture, technology, and people. The enabling concept associated with this strategy is called Knowledge-Centric Operations (KCO). The Long War of the new century requires all of our resources to jointly work in concert across the value chain?the extended kill-chain. High performance will only result from high levels of collaboration, innovation, learning, and knowledge sharing across temporal, geographical, cultural, and functional boundaries. Continuous innovation is required to enable warfighters, who must draw real time from all five domains as they close and engage the enemy. Warfighters need clean data, accessible information, relevant expertise/knowledge, and keen foresight to not only strike from the Air, Space, Land, Sea, and Cyberspace, but to also sustain superiority. The KCO Enabling Concept is designed to spur the continuous adaptation and reorientation of a truly integrated force that is innovative, more agile, more rapidly deployable, and more capable of engaging a wider range of threats. With KCO, organizations and communities focus on learning by managing their warfighter know-how, adapting to the always-changing needs of the extended kill-chain, and excelling in both routine and non-routine activities so the joint team can dominate the 21st Century battle space. The AFCOEKM researches, identifies and evaluates collaborative and knowledge sharing capabilities and technology to employ in Air Force organizations and processes. They employ a methodology through maturity and services models to engage Air Force organizations to effect cultural change and implement process improvements in line with KM principles founded in industry and academia. 2.1 Air Force Knowledge Now (AFKN) Technology. The AFCOEKM developed a simple web-based environment?known as AFKN?to begin to eliminate organizational barriers, effect process changes, and transition the Air Force to a knowledge sharing culture from the bottom up. AFKN utilizes a Community of Practice (CoP) model to initiate knowledge sharing at the lowest levels of Air Force organization. CoPs are shared spaces that allow members of a group(s) to share information and administrative and communications tools to conduct business, keep abreast of important group issues and solve group problems. CoPs provide an ideal means of coordinating activities within a group of people or a community?connecting people to content and people to people to transfer knowledge. 2.2 Acquiring New Technologies and Capabilities. The Air Force will continue to partner with Government, industry and academia to identify emerging KM technologies and services. Additionally, the AFCOEKM will define Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTP) for legacy and emerging systems to integrate with, and be accessible from, the collaboration environment. 2.3 A Learning Experience. The AFCOEKM facilitates constantly-evolving team-based learning at every level of the Air Force. As boundary-less knowledge sharing becomes synonymous with Air Force culture, the Air Force will transform into a learning organization. The learning organization supports the strategy of a functionally-driven culture of thinkers ? One Team ? always learning and always evolving with One Mind to accomplish One Mission. 2.4 KM Services. The AFCOEKM will continue to develop and refine its methodology and services to place and sustain Air Force organizations on the leading edge of collaboration, knowledge sharing, and continuous process improvement. The Air Force Information Strategy Goal 7:?Implement knowledge management practices and technologies to assure knowledge is identified, captured and shared,? was issued to specifically address this challenge. The Air Force Information Resource (IR) Flight Plan includes this goal and issues the following objectives: ? Identify and adopt knowledge management best practices and technologies ? Facilitate identification, capture, transfer, and sharing of knowledge sources and/or content ? Foster ongoing integration of new knowledge into work practices. Simply stated, the goal is to capture knowledge and manage it. Stating it simply, however, is an understatement. Gartner, one of the world?s leading information technology research and analysis providers, stresses, ?It is interesting to note that most of an enterprise?s knowledge is tacit (as much as 80 percent to 90 percent of what a person knows will never be captured).? Captured knowledge is limited and can at best only provide a baseline reference for performance or decision making. Even if the knowledge in question has been accurately captured, nuances associated with actually performing a task proficiently or with making a more informed decision are not included. These more subtle aspects, the keys to efficiency and effectiveness, remain in the minds of those individuals who have experience performing the task or with those who were involved in the decision-making process at the time the knowledge was captured. This is why most personnel prefer turnover time with incumbents (versus being given a continuity book) when assuming new positions. 2.5 Tapping Tacit Knowledge. Capturing knowledge and managing it is only part of the KCO military challenge. The larger challenge, and the one with the greatest potential benefit to airmen and commanders at all levels, is the challenge of tapping tacit knowledge?the personal practices, experience and expertise found in the minds of individuals. The objective here is not to explicitly capture knowledge for the purpose of managing it, but to provide capabilities which allow airmen to reach knowledge experts or professional expertise to accelerate and enhance situational performance and decision-making to achieve mission objectives?just-in-time. The desired effect is to implement and expand knowledge sharing Air Force wide to break down barriers and help Air Force functional areas work in concert to support national objectives. A process is composed of the business practices that are used to apply capabilities to produce effects. Processes are keys to fusing intellectual capital in functional areas through to produce the desired effects needed by airmen and commanders. They allow KCO to be flexible and responsive by creating a solution-set of the right capabilities for the effect that is needed. Below is an alphabetized list (not all-inclusive) of common collaborative capabilities currently employed with KM solutions or as KM solution-sets in industry or academia. These capabilities are conduits for intellectual capital that enable cross-cutting information sharing. ? Application and Document Sharing. Usually combined with instant messaging capabilities to enable people to share computer software applications and files during a real-time conversation. ? E-Learning. An element of education performed with personal computers, CD-ROMs and/or the Internet. This includes email, discussion groups and other collaborative capabilities. Advantages are that just-in-time learning is possible, and courses can be tailored to specific needs and asynchronous. E-learning may also be used to support distance learning through the use of wide area networks. Often, but not always, e-learning will also attempt to be a student-centered learning solution. ? Email. A method of composing, sending, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems. ? Instant Messaging. Text communication between two or more people through a network such as the Internet. Instant messaging differs from e-mail in that conversations happen in real-time. ? Search/Discovery. Allows one to ask for media content meeting specific criteria (typically those containing a given word or phrase) and retrieves a list of files that match those criteria. More advanced search engines use bots (e.g., spiders, web crawlers, etc.) to index content to focus and narrow searches. ? Shared Network Folders. Repositories of information shared within a local or wide area network. ? Tele (Audio) Conferencing. The live exchange of information among persons and machines remote from one another but linked by a telecommunications system. ? Threaded Discussion Groups. Discussion groups differ from chat rooms and instant messaging because they usually deal with a single topic and personal exchanges are typically discouraged. Discussion groups are often archived and organized by thread, which means all the messages that reply to a starting message can be read in some order. Discussion group archives are sometimes the best way to find an answer to very obscure questions. ? Video Conferencing. Video communication involving audio and often text. At its simplest, it provides transmission of static images and text between two locations. At its most sophisticated, it provides transmission of full-motion video images and high-quality audio between multiple locations. ? Web Meetings and Broadcasts. A focused, and typically moderated, forum which combines instant messaging, application and document sharing capabilities for groups to collaborate on a specific topic or agenda. Web meetings and broadcasts typically can be archived. ? Weblogs (Blogs). An online diary or journal application which contains periodic, reverse chronologically-ordered posts on a common webpage, typically accessible to any Internet user. Formats vary from simple bullet lists of hyperlinks, to article summaries with user-provided comments and ratings. Most blogs are run through a content management system and have a way of archiving and generating a static address for individual entries. ? Wiki. Software that integrates work on a single project by several concurrent users at separated workstations. A group of Web pages that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also permits others (often completely unrestricted) to edit the content. The term wiki also refers to the collaborative software (wiki engine) used to create such a website. 2.6 The AFCOEKM Philosophy. Plant knowledge engines/capabilities, nurture collaboration, and tend when ripe. Make collaboration available at minimal cost to recruit champions (i.e., anyone with .mil access can create or participate in an AFKN Community of Practice (CoP)); provide support to sprouting communities (i.e., provide help desk services and technical assistance); and engage organizations ready to transition to a more strategic approach (e.g., via consultations and workshops) to facilitate organizational change and continuous improvement. AFCOEKM uses a CoP methodology to implement KM principles. A CoP is a shared space where a group (possibly widely dispersed) of people who have committed to working together build a collective knowledge base around a common vital interest. The defining characteristic of a CoP is it is a working level capability. The key to transforming the Air Force to a knowledge sharing culture is ensuring people at the lowest levels contribute their personal practices, experiences and expertise and share this intellectual capital to accomplish the mission. CoPs are designed specifically for this purpose. A new AFKN CoP can be established by anyone in minutes and is technologically simple?not intimidating. As sharing expands, new and additional collaboration capabilities or knowledge engines can be introduced to members in the already-accepted CoP environment. 3.0 INSTRUCTIONS: CAPABILITY STATEMENT REQUIREMENTS An interested party must be able to demonstrate, in any capability statements submitted, extensive experience with and ability to perform the kind of work described in this notice. Such documentation may include, but not be limited to: ? Contracts, both Governmental and commercial, the vendor has performed; ? References, i.e., names, titles, telephone numbers; and ? Any other information that documents the vendor?s capabilities, e.g. awards, commendations, etc. Responses to this RFI must contain the following information: 1) a 3-5 page summary of the party?s ?relevant? prior work; 2) description of any potential conflicts of interest the party may have in performing the work; 3) resumes of key individuals (documenting expertise and field experience in the technical areas of interest); 4) a brief description of the party?s quality control processes for deliverables; 5) references (name and contact information) for whom the party has performed similar work; 6) a one-page corporate summary including the interested party?s web site; 7) a listing of any current negotiated GSA schedule, Government contract, or commercial pricing rates. Air Force Knowledge Management Program Office will conduct market analysis by reviewing each vendor?s submitted capability statement. Any entity responding to this RFI should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed to allow the Government to determine the entity?s qualifications to perform. A Government panel will evaluate all submissions for responsiveness to this announcement. Only entities having relevant experience performing this type of requirement will be considered qualified for consideration. This is a RFI announcement only. This is not a Request for Proposal and in no way commits the Government to award a contract. The Government does not intend to award a contract(s) based solely on this submission to this RFI announcement nor does it intend to pay for any costs incurred in response to this announcement. Any information submitted by respondents to this RFI is strictly voluntary and will be used only for the purpose of this analysis. Proprietary and Confidential Information will not be accepted. Air Force Knowledge Management Program Office believes that standard specifications and capabilities should be sufficient to respond. If a vendor believes that their response must include proprietary or confidential information in order to be properly considered, they should notify the point of contact listed below. Those parties interested in submitting a response to this RFI are requested to submit a non-binding Letter of Intent via email. A proposal may be requested from those organizations determined to have submitted acceptable responses to this RFI. Interested parties should address all questions via email to Pamela.Ladson@wpafb.af.mil. All questions submitted will be distributed, along with answers, to all Vendors who have submitted a Letter of Intent as well as posted to the FedBizOps web site. For more information on "Air Force Knowledge Now Consulting, Support, Maintenance, and Development Services", please refer to: https://www.pixs.wpafb.af.mil/pixs_solicitation.asp?id=5104
- Web Link
-
Air Force Knowledge Now Consulting, Support, Maintenance, and Development Services
(https://www.pixs.wpafb.af.mil/pixs_solicitation.asp?id=5104)
- Record
- SN01201134-W 20061223/061221220523 (fbodaily.com)
- Source
-
FedBizOpps Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
| FSG Index | This Issue's Index | Today's FBO Daily Index Page |