The purpose of this amendment is as follows: 1) Provide the government responses to vendors' questions. Please review the attachment,Amendment 0001 Government Responses to Vendors Questions (BRIDGE CSOP), for the government responses to the vendor questions; and 2) Update the solicitation as a result of the changes above. Please see attachment, Amendment 001_ CSOP BRIDGE Solicitation for the changes. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) is a Non- Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) based solicitation authority for acquiring innovative and commercial solutions. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017, Title VIII, § 880 (Pub. L. 114-328), Pilot Programs for Authority to Acquire Innovative Commercial Items Using General Solicitation Competitive Procedures, authorizes the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to carry out a “commercial solutions opening pilot program” (CSOP) to competitively procure innovative commercial items. The CSOP is a merit-based solution selection strategy for DHS to acquire innovative commercial items through the use of general solicitation competitive procedures and the award of a contract. “Innovative”, within the meaning of this statute, is any new technology, process, or method, including research and development; or any new application of an existing technology, process, or method. “Commercial item” has the same meaning as commercial item under Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 2.101, which includes certain commercial services. The DHS Management Directorate is the Department’s operational support entity that supports asset management and logistics, budget and finance, human resources, information technology, procurement, and security functions. The Department of Homeland Security lines of business house data and information across hundreds of disparate systems and tools that are siloed. One of the Management Directorate’s top priorities is standing up and maintaining a centralized information sharing environment with fully integrated and automated technical, oversight, governance, and business processes. A holistic view of the Management Directorate’s data will enable the Department to better understand the health and effectiveness of the organization, improve data driven decisions, and reduce siloes that exist. Therefore, developing and implementing an innovative roadmap that will enable Management’s operational use of emerging technologies is also a requirement. The Management Directorate’s Business Resource Integration Dashboard for Government Efficiency (BRIDGE) would provide this capability. The existing data sets for budget and finance, procurement, human capital, security, information technology, and operations are not connected, presenting a challenge when multi-dimensional data viewpoints are necessary to inform efficient decisions. Risk exists in the present approach of manually managing legacy processes and maintaining compliance with federal standards. Management would benefit from automation. Therefore, Management seeks to implement a digital analytics and data integration platform to bring together data from disparate systems and data sets to assist leaders in making more informed and data driven decisions while ensuring compliance. Data analytics and system integration services will be leveraged to build the BRIDGE capability to close gaps between legacy and traditional government data systems and a modern artificial intelligence powered decision intelligent platform. The capability will enhance operational efficiency, ensure compliance with federal standards, and improve overall organizational performance. A vendor with a successful approach will be instrumental in providing the overarching architecture, concept implementation, and skill sets needed to successfully deliver on this Management Directorate vision. The Management Directorate requires skilled technologists to support the BRIDGE efforts which includes information technology services for planning, developing, deploying, and monitoring data sets and capabilities across the Management Directorate, leveraging existing, emerging, and innovative technologies to deliver data-driven solutions to users, increasing the automation of manual and partially manual processes, facilitating new analytical insights, and applying repeatable business processes to ensure that these activities and initiatives advance the Management Directorate’s mission, while maintaining compliance with applicable laws and privacy standards. The scope of these technology services spans the areas of asset management and logistics, budget and finance, human capital, information technology, procurement, and security functions. Pursuant to the authority of NDAA 880, DHS has been vested with procedural discretion to make multiple contract awards resulting from the evaluation and determination of viable technology solutions. Proposals will be evaluated on their individual merits rather than on a comparative basis. Besides the criterion described in section 9.3 below, the concept paper responses must clearly demonstrate how the commercial item is offered in an innovative manner. Within the meaning of the statute, Innovative is defined as: any new technology, process, or method, including research and development, or any new application of an existing technology, process, or method. The concept papers will be evaluated against the evaluation criteria. Each concept paper submitted may be evaluated against the evaluation criteria separately and need not be evaluated against other concept paper responses submitted by other Offerors. More than one concept paper may be accepted. The Government reserves the right to request interview-style oral presentations or additional written information, if applicable, from one or more Offerors. SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS The Government is interested in receiving proposals that can provide a solution and skilled technologist to support the Bridge effort. The Offerors responses to this solicitation must be submitted electronically by 10:00 AM Eastern Time, Monday, June 30, 205 , 2025 to the following e-mail boxes: Contract Specialist, Bridget Boyle at
[email protected] and the Contracting Officer, Tracy Miller at
[email protected]. All questions regarding this solicitation shall be submitted in writing (via email) to the Contract Specialist, Ms. Bridget Boyle at
[email protected] and the Contracting Officer, Ms. Tracy Miller at
[email protected]. Questions are due no later than no later than 3:00 PM Eastern Time Zone on Friday, June 27, 2025 . Please review the attached solicitation instructions for submission instructions and evaluation procedures. See attachments: Solicitation Document: 70RDA125R00000007_CSOP BRIDGE Attachment I_Statement of Work Attachment II_Price Template