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HomeMy WebLinkAboutRFP - P847 COMPUTER AIDED DISPATCH (2)CITY OF FORT COLLINS ADDENDUM No. 1 SPECIFICATIONS AND CONTRACT DOCUMENTS Description of Proposal: #P-847, Computer Aided Dispatch OPENING DATE: 3:00 p.m. (our clock) August 2, 2002 To all prospective proposers under the specifications and contract documents described above, the following answers are made in response to questions submitted: 1. Page 9 indicates some Critical Issues. The first two bullet points will severely restrict what vendors have an opportunity to provide -or even propose - a system. Are we to understand that if our system does not meet these first two items, we should not propose a solution? We have listed the six functions that we consider ‘critical’ on page 9 as well as their respective sections throughout the document. The first two items are critical to us in that the main operating system must be IBM or UNIX . Sun Microsystem’s UNIX is our preference but we are open to another ‘flavor’ of UNIX and we should have worded it as such. 2. In relationship to the above, Page 9 defines a critical issue to be one that without which the system will not be purchased. Just verifying that this is fact and ONLY IBM AS/400 or Sun Microsystem's running IBM DB2 or Oracle will be purchased, as stated within the RFP. If this is true - that is fine, just need to know so the proper decision to submit can be made. This question follows #1 requiring the database to be DB2 or Oracle for IBM or UNIX respectively but not necessarily on Sun Microsystem. 3. Currently the due date for the proposal is only 2 weeks after the pre-bid conference. This is normally not enough time to prepare a document, based on changes and information gathered at the pre-bid and site visits, and the time required to get answers to the follow-up questions out to the vendors. With the level of descriptions and diagrams being required, will the County/City consider an extension of the due date? First of all we would consider an extension if we felt it was warranted but we would be reluctant to delay further into the summer. The July 4th holiday loses some productive time but in trying to respect vendors weekends time at home I set the pre-proposal for Wednesday July 17th. It was hoped that the time saved with the RFP being all electronic that 15 days after the conference would be enough. We want the best possible responses so I would like to stay open to how the vendors are doing by the conference date. 4. It does not indicate that the pre-proposal conference is mandatory, yet it is stated in Section 1-11 that responses to submitted questions will be provided at the conference. Will these responses, and any follow-up be provided to those vendors unable to attend the conference? Or is the conference mandatory? We have asked that you must have written questions in by July 12th @ 4 PM so that we can have them answered at the conference. We will make the responses available at the conference and immediately after the conference the file will be emailed to ALL vendors. We were reluctant to make the conference mandatory in the event an otherwise qualified vendor could not make it even though I would think it would be a very high priority for any serious bidder. 5. We may be missing something....Page 12, right after the submittal address indicates ". . . the RFP tile and number as it appears on the title page of this RFP." Within the electronic formats received, there is no title page. One document starts with the table of contents, one with Section 2 response format in Excel and the last with the first pricing page for software and Services. I gather the number is P-847 - but what is the correct title?? This is our first ‘Electronic RFP’ and we did forget to attach the title page. I did however put a footer on the bottom of every page of all three documents listing “City of Fort Collins, page number, Proposal P-847”. The correct title is: City of Fort Collins Computer Aided Dispatch System (CAD) Proposal P-847 6. Section 1-12 says ALL contact must be made thru Larry Vail - or risk disqualification. Section 1-20 give contact information for various parts of the RFP. Please clarify which is correct. This is a county wide system (again new ground for us) and we want the bidding vendors to know all key people, from participating agencies and the vendors who will continue with us into the new system, so we listed them in the document. The City of Fort Collins, as the largest agency, is serving as the purchasing agent and as such we have limited the point of contact to my self for questions regarding the RFP or the system. I have a very close working relationship with Lt. Steve Bebell, IMS manager for the Larimer County Sheriff and will copy everything to Steve and representatives of the other agencies but it is essential that one person is designated for the RFP. As you may have noted from the cover letter on our web site, purchasing agent Keith Ashby may also be contacted for matters relating to purchasing procedures and Keith will copy myself and Steve. 7. Item 2-3.12 -states "Payments to the Vendor will be tied to milestones/deliverables. The first milestone will be a 30 day trial evaluation of the system." Are you saying that no payment will be made to the vendor until this time? Are the items further expressed within this section negotiable? It sounds as if you want the system fully defined and all mutually agreed to modifications complete before this initial 30 day 'trial" yet you will not pay for anything other than training, oversight and installation costs should the system not be acceptable, and then only $20,000 for the stated item (is this per agency or total?). Perhaps I am not reading this correctly, and am under the wrong impression. Please clarify. It is difficult to define something like this in a specifications document so let me outline a bit of our process in broad terms and hopefully that will clarify. When the RFP comes back we will score the responses and put them in a rank order and from that invite top vendors for onsite demos (hopefully late August into September). During demos, raters will use the same spreadsheet response used by vendors, and a new ranking will be done. After due diligence and site visits a vendor of choice will be identified. Contracts will be negotiated and we will require that our vendor of choice install the system on site and train our staff for 30 days. We intend for this 30 real system training to simply be a final due diligence or validation of the system we have chosen and if the system performs as stated the project would proceed and initial payment as contracted would be paid. We understand that there is some cost involved and it is intended that the $20,000 (negotiable where actual costs can be shown), having been negotiated in the contract, cover the cost of the training but does not obligate the city if the system does not meet specifications. 8. If hardware is purchased form other than the proposing vendor - will all areas that have to deal with hardware warranty, maintenance, installation requirements etc., then become the requirement of the vendor providing the hardware? A - Hardware purchased from other sources would obligate the participating agencies to procure the needed hardware maintenance on their own. It is not expected that the vendor would provide this. It is expected that the vendor would perform the installation and that the participating agencies would incur reasonable costs for that service. In all cases it is expected that the vendor would support their software on the chosen platform (we would expect the vendor to have input into the choice of server). Ideally we would purchase the needed server hardware from the proposing vendor, but the hardware (cost and quality) must be acceptable to the participating agencies. 9. Item 2-3.13 (2.1.3) should this be forty-eight or (24) hours? A - Sorry it was a typing mistake, it should read “On-site response time of twenty-four (24) hours from time of request,” 10. In order to provide an initial Implementation Schedule - can you provide a target project implementation and completion date? 2-3.14 (2) indicates training must be accomplished within the "constraints of the project schedule." It is difficult to agree when the "constraints" are unknown. This is somewhat fluid at this time but if a vendor can be selected and a contract finalized before Christmas it is hoped that the system could be implemented by the June/July, 2003 timeframe. RECEIPT OF THIS ADDENDUM MUST BE ACKNOWLEDGED BY A WRITTEN STATEMENT ENCLOSED WITH THE BID/QUOTE STATING THAT THIS ADDENDUM HAS BEEN RECEIVED.