Request for Information

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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIAWATER AND SEWER AUTHORITY (DC Water)

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

RFI Number / 17-PR-PRO-22 / Response Due Date and Time / March 1, 2017 2:00 EST
Date Issued / February 1, 2017 / This RFI is subject to Prevailing Wages
Description / Establish a strategic materials management vendor base whose goals are aligned with DC Water
DC Water Point of Contact (POC): / Submission Instruction:
Name: Mark Stewart
Title: Sourcing Consultant
Tel: 202.787.2697
Email Address: / Submit your response only by Email to DC Water POC. Do not submit printed hard copies.
Timeline (Estimated)*
RFI Published/Advertised / February 1, 2017
Deadline to Submit Questions / February 22, 2017
Response Due / March 1, 2017
Vendor Selection to receive RFP(s) / March 20, 2017

* Dates may change at DC Water’s convenience

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.DC WATER INTRODUCTION

2.DEFINITIONS

3.PURPOSE OF THIS RFI

3.1.DC Water the Materials Management

3.2.Current Challenges

3.3.New Goals

3.4.Targeted RFP

3.5.Spend Under Contract

4.CONTENTS OF RFI DOCUMENT

5.GENERAL RESPONSE INSTRUCTIONS, TERMS AND CONDITIONS

5.1.DC Water Point of Contact (POC) and Communication:

5.2.Response Submission Method:

5.3.Intent to Respond

5.4.Questions and Answers

5.5.Date and Time for Receipt of Responses:

5.6.Response Contents

5.7.Evaluation and Vendor Selection

6.ADDITIONAL RFI TERMS AND CONDITIONS

7.CERTIFIED LOCAL/SMALL BUSINESS ENTERPRISE PROGRAM

8.ATTACHMENT A

9.ATTACHMENT B

1.DC WATER INTRODUCTION

In 1996, the District Government initiated the creation of the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water), an independent authority of the District of Columbia providing services to the region. On April 18, 1996, following a 30-day Congressional review period, the District Council enacted DC Law 11-111, "The Water and Sewer DC Water Establishment and Department of Public Works Reorganization Act of 1996."

DC Water is governed by a Board of Directors consisting of 11 principal and 11 alternate members. The Board is composed of six District of Columbia representatives, two each from Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in Maryland, and one from Fairfax County in Virginia.

At DC Water, we care about our community. We often travel throughout our city, meeting those who live or work in Washington, D.C., so we can better understand their concerns and share our latest news on neighborhood water and sewer services.

DC Water's service area is approximately 725 square miles providing retail water and wastewater (sewer) service to the District of Columbia. Additionally, DC Water provides wholesale wastewater treatment service to Montgomery and Prince George's counties in Maryland and Fairfax and Loudoun counties in Virginia.

The Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant is the largest advanced wastewater treatment plant in the world, with a capacity of 370 million gallons per day (MGD), a peak capacity of 1.076 billion gallons per day and covering 150 acres.

To distribute water and support the distribution system, the DC Water operates over 1,200 miles of pipes, five pumping stations, five reservoirs, four elevated water storage tanks, 36,000 valves and more than 9,000 public hydrants.

To collect wastewater, the DC Water operates 1,800 miles of sanitary and combined sewers, 22 flow-metering stations, nine off-site wastewater pumping stations, and 16 storm water pumping stations within the District.

For more information about DC Water, please visit

2.DEFINITIONS

  • Authorized Representative: A DC Water POC is designated as DC Water’s authorized representative for the purposes of this RFI.
  • Contract: A definitive agreement that will be executed by DC Water and the vendor for the performance of the work requested in this RFI. The contract shall incorporate the provisions of the RFI.
  • DC Water: District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority.
  • May: Indicates something that is not mandatory but permissible for this RFI.
  • Must/Shall: Indicates a mandatory requirement for this RFI. A response that fails to meet a mandatory requirement will be deemed non-responsive and may not be considered for award.
  • Vendor: Any person, firm, corporation, organization, agency, or a duly authorized representative that may submit a response for the work described in this RFI.
  • Request for Information (“RFI” or “RFI Document”): Shall mean all the contents provided in the RFI document, all attachments provided, future addendums or amendments.
  • Request for Proposal (“RFP” or “RFP Document”): Shall mean all the contents provided in the RFP document, all attachments provided, future addendums or amendments.
  • Responsive vendor: To be responsive, vendor must submit a response which conforms in all material respects to the requirements set forth in this RFI, as determined solely by DC Water.
  • Should: Indicates something that is recommended but not mandatory. Failure to do what "should" be done will not result in rejection of vendorresponse but may receive lower consideration as determined solely by DC Water.
  • Statement of Work (SOW): An executable document that describes all details of service to be performed by vendor. SOW is required for all services and will become a part of the contract.
  • Subcontractor: Any person or corporation other than vendor supplying services or materials for work described in this RFI.
  • Successful vendor: Vendor to whom DC Water awards a Contract.

3.PURPOSE OF THIS RFI

The purpose of this RFI is to identify qualified and capable firms to invite to the RFP.

3.1.DC Water theMaterials Management

DC Water Materials Management team (MM), within the Department of Procurement, was created 5 years ago and manages all water and sewer operation maintenance materials (see the list of materials in Attachment B). MM also operates two main warehouses to store these materials: Blue Plains (BP1) and Bryant St. (BS4).

3.2.Current Challenges

The annual spend on the operation maintenance materials is $7M-$8M with over 200 vendors for about 6,000 - 7,000 active parts. The average inventory value is over $10M. However, this spend was never seriously competitively sourced in the past. In many cases, we have discovered that we are paying MSRP or with very little discounts despite large purchases. We also discovered multiple shipping charges (for example, inter-warehouse shipping cost), and often shipping cost exceeds the cost of a material. Also over 200 vendors are too many vendors to properly manage with 3 buyers in the MM team. Often the price on an item changes frequently, resulting in a need to request a new price quote before each purchase, wasting valuable time to get the materials on time.

3.3.New Goals

Department of Procurement embarked on a total transformation since early 2015 to become a world-class procurement organization, including its materials management operation. Under the new MM management, MM established following strategic goals:

  • Achieve 100% on-time availability of material.
  • Achieve 99% inventory and ordering accuracy.
  • Improve inventory optimization by increasing inventory turnover and reducing inventory values.
  • Reduce shrinkage to less than 1%.
  • Reduce materials cost by 25%.

To achieve these goals, MM is looking to establish a strategic vendor base whose goals are aligned with DC Water and help achieve our goals. Therefore, MM would like to achieve following objectives through this RFI and subsequent RFP:

  • Create a strategic vendor base:

Attachment A contains almost 6,000 active parts that we purchase from over 200 vendors today. MM would like to consolidate the parts and volume and purchase from a few number of vendors who are most aligned with our objectives. This will then enable MM to invest into building stronger relationship with these vendors. These items are grouped into 25 groups. Our goals is to find at least 2 or 3 vendors (one primary and one or two backups) for each group so we can reduce supply risk, standardize supply, manage quality, effectively administer materials spend, and enter into value-added supplier partnerships.

  • Cost Reduction by 25% or more:

MM is seeking a minimum 25% price reduction on materials. As mentioned earlier, current materials have never been competitively sourced. Through consolidation of vendor base, a selected vendor will receive more business volume and in return offer more competitive pricing to DC Water. In addition, MM is seeking to reduce shipping and material handling costs such as free local delivery.

  • Establish simple price formula:

As mentioned above, many of these items are re-quoted at the time of purchase, wasting valuable time. Therefore, we are seeking vendors who can offer a simple pricing formula such as a % discount off MSRP (or web price) for all parts.

  • Improved spending and relationship with LBE/LSBE:

Our Local Business Enterprise (LBE) and Local Small Business Enterprise (LSBE) program information is provided in Attachment G. MM is currently spending less than 1% with LBE/LSBE and would like to improve our spending with LBE/LSBE firms and improve relationship as well.

  • Vendor consignment or vendor managed inventory at DC Water warehouse:

MM is also seeking to reduce the number of purchase order transactions and receiving for some common materials such as hand tools, standard hardware and materials. MM can provide a space (and security) at its warehouses for vendor consignment or vendor managed inventory and is seeking creative proposals.

  • Strategic Relationship Building, Account Management and Reporting

DC Water MM would like to build strategic vendor base and build strong business relationship with them. Current business is transactional without much active account management/support and reporting on purchases and spend. MM is seeking vendors who will value DC Water as the key strategic customer and provide a full suite of account management and support.

3.4.Targeted RFP

It is DC Water’s intention to use the responses to this RFI to develop a narrow list of vendors to receive follow-on RFP(s). The desired outcomes of the RFP(s) include: spend more money with fewer vendors, develop deeper integration between suppliers and DC Water operations, standardize transportation and shipping, capitalize on volume spend to ensure best market prices, ensure efficient inventory levels, improve spend with LBE and LSBE[1] vendors.

3.5.Spend Under Contract

Going forward DC Water estimates it will spend $7-8,000,000 annually on materials per the item samplelisted in 3.2 above. Our goal is to ensure that 98% of all materials spend is under contract.

4.CONTENTS OF RFI DOCUMENT

In general, the RFI document containsthe following contents:

Main RFI Document / Cover Page: Contains important RFI information such as RFI # and name, due date, DC Water POC for this RFI, submission, and timeline.
General Response Instructions, Terms and Conditions: This section contains general instructions on how to submit a response, and terms and conditions of thisRFI that each vendormust agree to in order to be considered for the opportunity.
Additional RFI Terms And Conditions:This section contains additionalterms and conditions, rights, and remedies associated with this RFI.
Certified Local/Small Business Enterprise Program: This section includes the details of the DC Water Certified Supplier program and necessary forms to apply.
Attachment A / This attachment contains DC Water’sbusiness questions and instructions that must be addressed in vendor’s response to be considered responsive.
Attachment B / This attachment contains the technical requirements of the RFI. Vendor’s response must contain all required items and properly follow all instructions in this section to be considered responsive.

5.GENERAL RESPONSE INSTRUCTIONS, TERMS AND CONDITIONS

5.1.DC Water Point of Contact (POC) and Communication:

  • All inquiries or communications regarding procurement, general questions, clarifications,or any aspect of this RFI must be directed via email to the DC Water POC identified on the Cover page of this RFI.
  • No calls or correspondence or contacts shall be made to anyone other than this DC Water POC about this RFI. Any violation of this communication policy, regardless of severity, may result in the immediate elimination from consideration at the sole discretion of DC Water.

5.2.Response Submission Method:

  • Electronic Submission:
  • Unless specified on the Cover page requesting a paper response to be delivered or mailed, all response submissionsmust be emailed to the DC Water POC (unless other methods are provided).
  • Vendor must save each response document using the following naming convention:

Your company name_RFI #_Document name_mmddyy

(Example: Acme_RFI 16DRT20_Pricing Response_011316.xlsx)

  • If DC Water is unable to locate any part of your response because you used a different or unclear naming convention, then your response may be considered unresponsive and may be eliminated from consideration.
  • Email and any digital media must not contain files unrelated to this RFI and must be free from virus or other malware in order to be accepted.

5.3.Intent to Respond

  • If vendor is interested in submitting a response, vendor is strongly encouraged (but not required) to send a notice via email to DC Water POC by the Intent to Respond Due date to confirm vendor’s intention with the following information so vendor can receive timely notices/updates by DC Water POC:
  • Vendor’s Main Point of Contact throughout the RFI process (name, title, tel, email)

5.4.Questions and Answers

  • Questions or comments regarding the meaning or interpretation of specifications and other response documents in this RFI must be submitted via email to DC Water POC by the “Deadline to Submit Questions” as stated in the RFICover page.
  • Only written questions will be accepted.
  • Vendor questions and DC Water responses will be made available to all bidders.
  • Oral communications between DC Water and vendor regarding the interpretation or meaning of any aspect of this solicitation shall not be binding for any purpose.
  • DC Water will try to respond in a timely manner to all questions and comments that are properly submitted and deemed relevant and substantive in nature.

5.5.Date and Time for Receipt of Responses:

  • Submit COMPLETE responses to the DC Water POC identified on the Cover page of this RFI. COMPELTE Responses must be received by no later than the date and timespecified on the Cover page of this RFI.
  • Partial submissions will be rejected and will not be considered.
  • Vendor may withdraw their response and/or submit a revised response prior to the RFIResponse Due date and time. After this response deadline, vendor initiated changes will not be accepted.
  • Unless prior approval is received by DC Water of the notice (via email or call) by vendor explaining the circumstances that will prevent the timely submission, any late submission will be rejected.
  • The following reasons will not be acceptable:
  • Technical difficulties (i.e. internet access)
  • Lack of resource or out of town or vacation to prepare and submit the response on time
  • Traffic
  • Any modification of a responseis subject to the same late responses and modifications of response conditions listed above.
  • Notwithstanding the preceding paragraphs of this provision, a late modification of an otherwise successful response, which makes its terms more favorable to the DC Water, may be considered at any time it is received and may be accepted.
  • A late response, late modification, or late withdrawal of offer that is not considered shall be held until after award and then retained with unsuccessful offers.

5.6.Response Contents

  • Please see Attachments A and B for detailed list of required contents for your response.

5.7.Evaluation and Vendor Selection

  • Evaluation criteria that may be used for evaluation are, but not limited to:
  • Ability to meet DC Water’s requirements
  • Warranty, guarantee
  • Vendor’s financial viability
  • Experience and qualification
  • Past performances, references
  • Qualification of key personnel when applicable
  • Certifications when applicable
  • Preferences points for Local Business and Local Small Business Enterprise (LBE/LSBE)
  • DC Water reserves the right to reject any and all responses determined to be inadequate or unacceptable.
  • Based on RFI responses DC Water willselect the finalists to receive subsequent RFP(s).
  • LBE and LSBE Preferences Points: DC Water encourages the use of certified local business enterprises who will receive preference points in any final RFP evaluations. For further information see Section 7 – Certified Local/Small Business Enterprise Program.

6.ADDITIONAL RFI TERMS AND CONDITIONS

  • The RFI solicitation process is conducted in accordance with and subject to DC Water’s procurement policies and procedures.
  • Any work and all costs incurred by vendors in the preparation and submission of a response shall be at the vendor’s own discretion and expense. DC Water will not be obligated for any vendor costs related to this RFI.
  • Vendors should carefully read all the requirements, instructions, and documents included in this RFI as no allowance will be made for failure to comprehend any of the requirements or conditions set forth anywhere throughout this RFI document.
  • Submission of a response constitutes the acknowledgement that the vendor has read and agrees to be bound by all terms in the RFI Document.
  • While this RFI is the product of an intensive information gathering process and has been subjected to an extensive review, DC Water makes no representations or warranties as to the accuracy of the information contained in it.
  • DC Water reserves the right to suspend, withdraw, or amend this RFI at any time without any obligation to any vendors.
  • This RFI does not represent a commitment to purchase, lease or license any product or service and does not obligate any funds by DC Water.
  • Amendments issued by DC Water prior to the due date shall be considered as if written into the RFI. Vendors are required to acknowledge the receipt of the same in their response. Failure to provide such an acknowledgement will result in the rejection of a response.
  • If vendor is in doubt as to the true meaning of any part of the specifications or other RFI documents, or finds discrepancies or omissions in the specifications, vendor may submit to DC Water a written request via email for an interpretation or correction. Vendor is responsible for prompt delivery of any requests. When DC Water considers interpretations necessary, DC Water answers will be in the form of a written amendment to the RFI document, and will be emailed to all vendors. Oral and other interpretations or clarifications shall be without legal or contractual effect.
  • It is the responsibility of each vendor to ensure DC Water has their correct business name, address, phone number, and email on file.
  • DC Water is not responsible for any information relating to any DC Water solicitation document which is not obtained directly from DC Water.
  • Any prospective vendor who obtained a set of RFI documents from anyone other than DC Water is responsible for advising DC Water that they have a set of RFI documents and wish to receive subsequent amendments.
  • The response shall represent the best efforts of the vendor and will be evaluated as such.