REQUEST FOR INFORMATION RELATIVE TO THE CDC-WIDE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT SERVICES CONTRACT The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is anticipating and has begun the initial planning for the competition of a large CDC-wide information technology support services contract. Toward this end, CDC is gathering needed information in order to make an informed decision as to the type of contract(s) we will use to fill our needs. Prior to determining what type of contractual vehicle(s) will best meet our needs, we are inviting interested parties through this Request for Information (RFI) to provide us with comments to the questions and/or issues enumerated below. To help facilitate an understanding of our requirements as they are known at the present time, the following information is offered: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and its sister agency, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), are components of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). Both are headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. Unless indicated otherwise, all references to CDC are inclusive of both CDC and ATSDR. CDC employs nearly 8,200 people in over 170 occupations. There are over 5,400 highly skilled professionals in the Atlanta area, and another 2,800 in other U.S. locations, including Cincinnati, Ohio; Morgantown, West Virginia; Hyattsville, Maryland; Ft. Collins, Colorado; Research Triangle Park, North Carolina; Anchorage, Alaska; Spokane, Washington; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Washington, DC; and San Juan, Puerto Rico. CDC also has employees assigned to state and local health departments throughout the U.S., quarantine offices in certain cities, and in foreign countries. CDC is currently organized into major organizational components (which change periodically) called Centers/Institutes/Offices (CIOs) each of which has a mission and budget to support those missions. While not anticipated to be a requirements type contract, this contract(s) will cover all components of CDC and ATSDR including any new organizational entities that may be added should CIOs desire to use the awarded instrument(s). Additionally, CDC may wish to extend contract(s) usage to other Governmental entities at the Federal, State, and local levels using existing CDC processes. While overall leadership in information resources is provided by the Information Resources Management Office (IRMO), each of the above offices decides its own programming and information resources support requirements, and funds those requirements from its own budget. To perform its missions, CDC is highly dependent on information technology and systems, both in the development of new applications and in expanding current applications. The purpose of this contract is to provide CDC and ATSDR with a vehicle for IT information systems design, development, operations and maintenance, IT management of research and development, and other computerized information services to be used on an "as-needed" basis. In addition, CDC is contemplating merging its current microcomputer support services requirements (at present in a separate contract) with this contract so that LAN administration and micrcomputer maintenance, warranty work, engineering support, help desk and videoconferencing support will be under the umbrella of one CDC-wide IT support services contract. At the present time CDC is conducting the Market Research phase of the planning wherein we anticipate reviewing all types of contracting methods to include single award task order contracting, which we have at the present time, a multiple award task order type contract(s), other GWACS (Government wide agency contracts), and all other Federal Agency contract vehicles available for our use. In this Market Research phase of our effort, we are soliciting input from interested parties to provide us with information we do not presently have and share with us those insights and lessons learned relative to the experiences you have had with the various types of contracting methods. We ask that you submit nonproprietary information only. The planning committee will want to review all submissions and we want to share this data with as many CDC interested parties as would like to see it. It would be appreciated if responses were put in a format directly related to the questions which are sequentially numbered. Questions: (1) What type of contract do you believe is best suited for CDC's IT support services requirements described herein? Please explain your answer. (2) Considering the nature of services required by CDC, is it in the Government's best interest to make multiple awards? If so, what specific segments of the requirement might be broken out and how would you propose to divide the effort? (3) What type of contract mechanism do you believe will minimize CDC's administrative and management burden for managing a Task Order type contract? (4) What do you believe are the relative strengths and/or weaknesses of having a longer than 5-year contract? (5) What do you perceive as risk areas within a follow-on CDC acquisition from a contractor's perspective? From the Government's perspective? Can perceived risks mentioned be quantified? (6) Do you advocate any limitations as to the extent of subcontractor involvement in a CDC follow-on acquisition? Please explain your answer. Should the prime contractor be responsible to provide a specific percentage of the effort to subcontractors in the performance of certain functions? If so, what percentage do you recommend? Also, what key functional areas do you think should only be performed by the prime contractor? (7) How do you think healthy competition can be achieved under the different contract mechanisms? Address both a single award and multiple award environments in your response. (8) What role should past performance/relative experience play in the evaluation process? Can the value of past performance be quantified to provide meaningful differentiation between vendors with similar relevant experiences? (9) Given the nature of CDC's efforts, what evaluation factors do you believe would enable the Government to differentiate between vendors? What do you see as key discriminators (i.e., where is the value added and how is it measured for each vendor?) (10) What kind of proposal/proposal format(s) do you think are best? (11) What do you perceive as some of the more important technical/cost trade-off considerations in evaluating support service acquisitions similar to the CDC re-competition? (12) In both the proposal and contract administration environments, what do you think the most effective performance measurements should be? How can contractor management and/or technical initiatives be best encouraged, quantified, and rewarded? (13) How can management initiatives be recognized and separated from marketing information in a proposal? (14) Should a vendor be required to identify and have subcontractor final subcontracts in place prior to contract award? How should the Government balance its desire to have confidence in the existence of a committed contractor team while still providing the prime contractor with the flexibility to obtain the best subcontractors available atthe time of contract award? (15) How can the Government help ensure that contract labor categories include the appropriate experience levels and skills required for the CDC follow-on effort? (16) In any new contract award for the continuation of CDC services, a transition plan may be an integral part of the award process. What issues do you believe should be addressed in a transition plan and what factors should be used to evaluate a vendor's plan? What timeframe do you think is reasonable for successful transition? What recommendations would you make to ensure an effective transition to a new contract to ensure continuity of the work? (17) How will a single contract award mechanism affect your ability to recruit and retain highly qualified staff? How will a multiple contract award mechanism affect your ability to recruit and retain highly qualified staff? (18) What type of contract management structure do you think will facilitate meeting the needs of diverse CDC organizations and locations? (19) What type of automated systems do you think can minimize CDC's administrative burden and how can these systems be made available online to CDC? (20) What business management structure and electronic interfaces with CDC systems can help assure accurate and timely reports and invoices? (21) Are there any other issues and/or comments you have regarding any other aspects of a follow-on CDC procurement? Additional information about CDC is available on the Internet. The following internet cites are provided to assist you in learning more about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: http://www.cdc.gov and http://www.cdc.gov/irmo/default.htm. Point of Contact for this RFI is Deborah Fallick (770) 488-2602, e-mail address: dsf2@cdc.gov Posted 10/22/99 (W-SN394240).

Loren Data Corp. http://www.ld.com (SYN# 0363 19991026\SP-0001.MSC)