Office of Naval Research, 800 North Quincy Street, Arlington, VA 22217-5660

A -- APPLICATION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR THE DECOMPOSITION OF INFORMATION CONTAINED IN LARGE SCALE DRAWINGS AND SCHEMATICS TO "INFORMATION OBJECTS" SOL N00014- POC Dr. Phillip B. Abraham, ONR 331, (703)696-4307. BAA 97-013. The office of Naval Research (ONR) is interested in receiving proposals for advanced research and development (R&D) projects related to the application of image recognition technology for the decomposition of information contained in large scale drawings and schematics to "information objects", the use of natural language processing to determine the "content" of the information and the association of those "information objects" to an Interactive Electronic Technical Manual (IETM) database . Offerors are encouraged to propose innovative R&D projects that clearly advance the current state-of-the-art in this area and address one or more of the following Navy goals: (1) Develop processes and technologies that increase efficiency and decrease cost of performing maintenance, (2) Develop and implement a seamless, interoperable logistics capability, (3) Develop systems, processes and technologies that result in reduced manpower, (4) Develop/improve Navy training systems. Proposals shall notexceed 50 single-spaced pages in length including all figures, tables, fold-outs, and charts. All paragraphs containing proprietary information must be clearly marked. The technical portion of the proposal shall include an Executive Summary that describes the objectives of the proposed project, a Technical Approach, a program plan that outlines the scope of the project and the schedule for the project, including major milestones, and a description of the offeror's qualifications, capabilities and experience. The cost portion of the proposal shall identify all costs proposed for the project, to include labor, travel, equipment, and other direct costs (ODCs), the labor category, who will work on the project. Proposals will be evaluated with respect to the following criteria: (1) application to the Navy goals cited above, (2) potential for transition to fleet capability, (3) overall scientific, technical and socio-economic merit of the proposal, (4) capability of the proposed project to extend the current technology state-of-the-art, (5) soundness of approach, (6) realistic costs and schedule to complete the project, (7) overall capabilities of the offeror, the proposal's Principal Investigator, and other key personnel who are critical to the success of the proposed project. Four (4) copies of the proposals shall be sent to the Office of Naval Research, Attn: Dr. P.B. Abraham, ONR-331, BAA # 97-013, 800 North Quincy Street, Arlington, VA 22217-5660. Proposals shall be submitted no later than 30 days after the date of publication of this announcement. Proposers should state in their proposal that it is submitted in response to this BAA. Submission of proposals is not restricted in any way to any particular entity. Team proposals which include participants from industry, academia, and/or Navy or other Government laboratories are encouraged, but not required. Cost proposals where a government lab is included in the proposal as part of a team should be predicated on separate awards to the government lab and the team partners. Government agencies will not be in direct competition with industry. Readers should note that this is an announcement to declare ONR's intent to competitively fund research and that no request for proposals (RFP), solicitation or other announcement of this opportunity will be made. It is the Government's intent to make award (s) resulting from these proposals within 45 days of receipt of proposals, although this notice does not commit the Government to procure any services at this time. The Government reserves the right to grant none, one, or more awards at its discretion for this requirement. The standard industrial classification code is 8731 with the small business standard of 500 employees. In addition, contract proposals that exceed $500,000 submitted by all but small businesses, must be accompanied by a Small, Small Disadvantaged and Women-Owned Small Business Subcontracting Plan in accordance with FAR 52.219-9. For awards made as contracts, evaluation of the socio-economic merits will include the extent of commitment in providing meaningful subcontracting opportunities for small business, small disadvantaged businesses, woman-owned small business concerns, and historically black colleges and universities and minority institutions. This announcement constitutes a Broad Agency Announcement as contemplated by FAR 6.102(d)(2). (0080)

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