Washington, DC – Today, the District of Columbia Office of Contracting and Procurement and the Office of the Chief Technology Officer launched an innovative web-based procurement process to build a state-of-the-art Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) Evidence and Equipment and Supplies Storage facility. This web-based process will enable the District to condense the competitive proposals process to 3 to 4 months as opposed to the normal 6 months, allowing the city to complete the building within a projected 18 months.
“We are seeking innovative ideas on how to make this procurement work best for our residents and employees,” said Chief Procurement Officer David P. Gragan. “The new facility has to be capable of housing and managing evidence for as long as 65 years; therefore, it must be state-of-the-art, which requires our designers and builders to think creatively. Our goal in this procurement is to simply state the problem the City is seeking a solution for, and allowing experts in the commercial sector to invent that solution for us.”
District officials outlined its plans for building the facility during a pre-solicitation conference, which featured Gragan, City Administrator Dan Tangherlini, Chief Technology Officer Vivek Kundra, and Edward Hamilton, MPD, Executive Director of Corporate Support. The facility will replace the District’s existing evidence warehouse.
The Office of the Chief Technology Officer has established a special website for this procurement (www.evidencewarehouse.ocp.dc.gov) to ensure that responses and ideas are shared publicly. The website is using “wiki” technology that gives contractors easy access to procurement updates, documents, ideas, suggestions, images and videos. Through its “Questions and Answers” section, wiki allows real-time collaboration between contractors and government officials. Being an open forum, all interested parties have the same access to the same information, thereby ensuring the level playing field that the Office of Contracting and Procurement requires.
“By using technology as a means of providing dynamic communication to our supplier community, we will deliver one of the fastest and cost-effective procurements the District has ever seen,” said Kundra. “The website will house transcripts from the pre-solicitation conference as well as updates on the status of the procurements.”
The District issued a pre-solicitation notice in December. Interested parties must submit responses to the Office of Contracting and Procurement no later than January 18, 2008. Responses include, but are not limited to capability statements; questions; recommendations for the actual solicitation; and a cost for the proposed solution.
“This is a very fast track procurement,” said Gragan. “Therefore, we ask contractors to put on their creative thinking hats and share with us their expertise and knowledge for building the District’s new Evidence Control and Storage Facility. We want contractors to think outside of the box.”
A formal solicitation has not yet been developed; however a solicitation is planned for release in February. Detailed requirements and instructions will be provided through a formal solicitation.
“MPD is interested in industry best practices,” said Hamilton. “We’re looking for technologies that can address: specialized storage requirements for evidentiary bio-hazards and DNA trace items; provide automated solutions for inventory control and evidentiary chain of custody management; and provide 24/7 monitoring and safeguarding of evidentiary and general property”.
For more information about this topic, please visit our website, www.ocp.dc.gov or call 202-727-0252.