TACTICAL SCHEDULING METERING TOOLS (TSMT)

MARKET SURVEY ANNOUNCEMENT Tactical Scheduling Metering Tools (TSMT) REQUEST FOR INFORMATION I. INTRODUCTION / PURPOSE The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has a requirement to develop a new system to provide Time Based Metering (TBM) services to the National Airspace System (NAS). This new system, Tactical Scheduling Metering Tools (TSMT), will replace the FAA’s current Time Based Flow Management System (TBFM). The purpose of this Market survey/Request for Information is to solicit industry input to support FAA efforts in both developing the TSMT acquisition strategy and further defining the technical requirements, including industry-recommended traffic flow management solutions not currently captured in the attached draft functional analysis document (Attachment 1). This market survey announcement is issued in accordance with the FAA Acquisition Management System (AMS) Policy at 3.2.1.2.1. This is not a Screening Information Request (SIR) or Request for Proposal (RFP) of any kind. The responses to this Market survey will be used for informational purposes only. The FAA is not seeking or accepting unsolicited proposals. Responders are advised that the FAA will not pay for any information received or for administrative costs incurred in preparing a response to the Market survey. Any costs associated with responding to this survey are solely at the interested company’s expense. Companies who choose not to respond to this RFI are not precluded from responding to future TSMT requests. The FAA does not intend to publish the results of this Market survey. II. NATURE OF COMPETITION The acquisition strategy for this procurement has not been determined at this time. The FAA intends to consider the information provided in this RFI to develop FAA's future acquisition strategy. The FAA may use portions of the company’s responses in developing those strategies. III. BACKGROUND SYSTEM OVERVIEW The FAA’s Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) is the agency led modernization of America's air transportation system to make flying even safer, more efficient, and more predictable. Goals for this initiative are detailed in the NextGen Segment Implementation Plan (NISP), which can be accessed via https://www.faa.gov/nextgen, and provides the vision and roadmap for modernizing the NAS to meet future air traffic demands. The execution of this plan involves the research, development, and deployment of new Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems, technologies, and decision support tools to meet these growing demands safely and efficiently. The FAA works in cooperation with the airlines and other NAS users to implement TBM programs to reduce delays to ensure smooth and efficient traffic flow through FAA-controlled airspace, thereby saving the flying public and airlines millions of dollars per year in avoided delay. The FAA’s Air Traffic Systems Decision Support Systems Program Office is responsible for developing and deploying technology to support the safe and efficient movement of aircraft through the NAS and ensuring that new TBM systems and technologies provide NAS-Level benefits in addition to providing localized benefits within a particular volume of airspace or phase of flight. Trajectory-Based Operations (TBO) is a goal of the FAA’s NextGen program to make flight operations more efficient and predictable, while maintaining operational flexibility. TBO is an ATM method for strategically planning, managing, and optimizing flights throughout operation by using time as a common planning reference to organize and integrate traffic, resulting in flight efficiencies, improved use of today’s system capacity, and operational predictability. The TBFM system is considered a key contributor toward TBO. The TBFM system generates a flight-specific schedule for en route, arrivals and departures that defines the appropriate flight spacing interval to efficiently sequence and integrate traffic demand competing for constrained resources (e.g., airspace, runways). For any additional information needed please refer to https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/technology/tbo/. TBFM evolved the earlier Traffic Management Advisor (TMA) into the current TBFM system through improved system re-architecture, maximizing the benefits of Area Navigation (RNAV)/Required Navigation Performance (RNP) routes, improved wind data, display of convective weather, TBFM information sharing via System Wide Information Management (SWIM), and scheduling algorithms such as flexible scheduling. TBFM also included the implementation and initial deployment of Integrated Departure-Arrival Capability (IDAC), Extended Metering (XM), Coupled Scheduling (CS), and automated Ground-based Interval Management-Spacing (GIM-S) Speed Advisories in the En route environment. TBFM later introduced capabilities to maximize traffic flow and airport usage by improving flow management into and out of busy metropolitan airspaces and corresponding airports. The Terminal Sequencing and Spacing (TSAS) capability was developed to extend the metering capability into the Terminal area. TSAS provides arrival management guidance to Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) controllers consistent with the schedule that En route controllers are striving to attain at arrival meter fixes. The expanded deployment of IDAC provides Airport Traffic Control Tower (ATCT) controllers the ability to coordinate departure times and request approval for a release time (APREQ) with the coordinating Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC). TBFM also developed integrated scheduling support that could be used in conjunction with Terminal Flight Data Manager (TFDM). Additional modifications that have been made to the TBFM System during the last ten years include: Added Non-Domestic/Oceanic coverage, Improved Flight Association, General User Interface (GUI) Accessibility, Facility Based Operations Command & Control, Dynamic Super Streams (DSS) in support of a Traffic Management Initiative (TMI), Improved Multiple Super Streams Deconfliction (MSSD), Wake Turbulence Recategorization, Improved Departure Routing (IDR) and Descent/Ascent Trajectory Modeling Improvements. TBFM is currently conducting a hardware technology refreshment for all TBFM support and operational systems to address the current TBFM hardware sustainability issues resulting from hardware that has reached End of Life (EOL) and/or End of Service (EOS). These improvements will ensure continued reliability, maintainability, availability (RMA) and supportability of the TBFM systems presently fielded in the NAS and in various support facilities. b. SHORTFALLS OF THE CURRENT SYSTEM The age of the current TBFM system and changing needs of TBM within the NAS have identified shortfalls in the current system. These shortfalls negatively impact system performance and its RMA: Desktop applications depend on legacy architectures, outdated technologies, and custom communication methods that make it difficult to maintain and enhance. Significant portions of the core engine hardware and Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) software are EOL and EOS. The existing communications infrastructure is highly dependent on custom communication mechanisms, flat files in unique formats, and legacy external systems. Current TBFM processes and services rely on outdated development strategies and technologies, as well as labor-intensive procedures for maintenance and recovery. It takes significant time to deploy system updates and place them into production. Evolutionary software enhancements such as TSAS interwoven directly into the existing scheduling algorithm complicate maintenance and enhancement of baseline functionality. This leads to increased development costs, higher risk of introducing defects and performance bottlenecks. Recommend a more modular, building block approach. System state information inconsistencies across Computer/Human Interface (CHI) displays resulting from incomplete and ad-hoc software design. Proprietary Monitor and Control software solution complicates maintenance and increases costs. The FAA could be considered to be in a “vendor lock-in” scenario, making a move towards a centralized architecture difficult. IV. OBJECTIVES The new TSMT system should be designed to meet the following high-level objectives: Improve efficiency of TBO and TBM capabilities by providing NAS-wide operational integration of existing TBFM tools. Provide the foundation for future capability enhancements without sacrificing RMA. Ensure compliance with the latest National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)/FAA Security standards. Optimize the overall cost of the system's operation, maintenance, and enhancements. Reduce the time from concept development to operational deployment for enhancements from years to months. Integrate software and service contributions from multiple companies to enable innovative solutions and increased vendor participation. Enable shared services across systems / domains. Simplify tech refresh process, reduce, or eliminate need for technology refresh cycles. Provide innovative, low-risk, cost beneficial approach for the consolidation and development of performance-based core processing capabilities supporting integration into a NAS Service-Based Enterprise Architecture. Develop technologies that will bridge metering between En route and Terminal domains. Increase collaboration between FAA and vendor by utilizing common development platforms. Develop methodology/processes to improve stakeholder communication. Improve methodology/processes to enable a faster development of products. V. REQUESTED INFORMATION / QUESTIONS TO INDUSTRY Attachment 1 to this Market Survey provides a functional analysis of the TBFM System. The FAA plans to transition to the TSMT System over time, starting with a minimal viable product initially and adding other functions as building blocks. A key strategy of the FAA is to separate the gathering, collation and storage of data from sources across the NAS from the applications/services that will use that data to provide traffic flow management via exposed Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). The FAA believes that such an approach will allow stakeholders to create applications and services that best suit their needs in a timely fashion, using the centralized data from the NAS. Please address the following questions in your market survey responses. Responses should be provided in the order listed below. It is not required to answer every question. However, companies are requested to address questions to the maximum possible extent with the primary focus on questions that fall within their expertise . For items requesting vendor experience, please provide the following for each response: (1) Program/Contract(s) name, (2) Company role (i.e. Prime/Sub), and (3) Customer point of contact information. To what extent does your company believe that the FAA should leverage current industry trends in the following areas and how will they help mitigate current system shortfalls? Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Cloud based systems DevOps set of practices that combines agile software development and information-technology operations that aims to shorten the systems development life cycle and provide Continuous Integration / Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) with high software quality. Containerization of applications Use of Open Geospatial Consortium Standards and a Geographic Information Service (GIS) to support the processing, filtering, and display of geographic data 2. What is your experience in creating mission critical software applications using DevOps and/or SecDevOps in a FedRAMP high environment? 3. What improvements do you believe could be made to the current architecture or system capability? Describe your high availability/failure tolerance strategy for a 24/7 environment. 4. Describe your experience in the development of API’s and the use of API management COTS tools. 5. Describe your experience in providing standalone applications that reside in a single ecosystem (for example within either a commercial Cloud Service Provider (CSP) or an FAA provided cloud system) but can be integrated with other applications to provide a customized solution for individual FAA programs and facilities regardless of the underlying infrastructure. 6. Describe your experience in providing services that require large scale data migration, transformation, integration, and synchronization. 7. Describe your company’s capability and capacity to deliver the functions provided in Attachment 1. 8. Provide recommendations for the FAA to consider that will foster flexibility to increase the role of machine learning, automation, and innovative solutions. 9. What are examples of industry standards the FAA should consider as potential mandatory qualification criteria to reach the highest qualified companies? Describe your company’s approach and process to manage and verify the quality of your services. 10. Describe your company’s experience related to the TBM, TBO or equivalent scope of work within the last 3 years. If no FAA experience available, describe experience with scheduling tools. Provide specific experience examples, and include any results achieved. Describe any best practices and lessons learned. Describe challenges encountered when deploying/utilizing new technology and how the challenges were overcome. What ideas does your company have regarding improvements to maximizing traffic flow? How would you accomplish these improvements? 11. The FAA may issue one or more contracts for the Development, Implementation and Operations and Maintenance (O&M) of TSMT. Do you have any experience working with other companies on a multi- award contract? If yes, describe how you have successfully collaborated with the other Companies. 12. What obstacles does your company anticipate for managing Development, Implementation and O&M under a single contract and how would your company propose to overcome them? What assumptions listed above would make this goal more or less difficult? Explain why. 13. How has your company maintained low defect rates while working on previous projects? Describe how your company prevents the need for patches in field releases, ensuring Government savings on overall program cost. 14. What methods has your company used for rapid development? Have you been successful in utilizing these methods with other government clients? Have you been successful in meeting end users’ needs using these methods, why or why not? What are lessons learned regarding rapid development projects you have completed in the past three (3) years? 15. What change management processes has your company used in the past? How might this be applied to the TBO initiative? 16. What common development platforms has your company used in the past and what methods were used for management between teams and improving accountability? 17. Please provide the following administrative/background information for your company: a. Name, mailing address, overnight delivery address (if different from mailing address), phone number, fax number, company website, and e-mail of designated point(s) of contact. b. Business Type/Size based on North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code 541512 Computer Systems Integration Design Services. VI. LIST OF ATTACHMENTS Attachment 1: Functional Analysis Document (FAD) for the Time Based Flow Management Work Package 3 (TBFM WP3) Program, Version 1.0, November 4, 2013 VII. SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS Interested parties must provide responses in writing. Submissions should be submitted electronically in Microsoft Word format, Times New Roman, font size 12, and in accordance with the following instructions: Questions must be addressed individually, but it is not required to answer every question. Companies are asked to address questions that fall within their expertise . The written submission cannot exceed 18 pages (maximum 10 MB document). Note that certain questions may require less than one page response and others may require more. This can be accommodated as long as all questions are addressed individually in 18 pages or less. Optional: Any technical diagrams to support a technical solution can be accommodated but cannot exceed three pages (maximum 5 MB for jpeg format). This can be in addition to the 18 page written submission limitation. Please address questions to maximum extent possible. Company capability statements are not desired responses. All submissions must be sent via email. Telephone calls or paper submissions will not be accepted. The subject line for all submittals must be "Tactical Scheduling Metering Tools (TSMT) [Company Name] Responses must be submitted no later than 5:00 PM EST on August 30, 2024, to the following email at [email protected] . Responses will not be returned. The FAA is generally not seeking proprietary material. If the respondent feels there is a benefit to providing certain proprietary material, the respondent must appropriately mark any proprietary or confidential information contained in the market survey/RFI submissions. (1) The FAA is not seeking marketing material; (2) Any and all material submitted – whether proprietary or not – may be used to develop FAA’s acquisition strategy. If respondents do not want specific information used in this manner, then such information should not be submitted; (3) Providing a response to this Market Survey/RFI neither qualifies respondents for, nor excludes respondents from, responding to a resulting SIR, if any. (4) The FAA, at its sole discretion, may contact one, some, all, or none of the respondents to the RFI to ask for additional information. This may include, but is not limited to, demonstrations of previously developed tools that companies choose to describe in their responses. Government Point of Contact Information: Jennifer Dinwiddie-Gamble, Contracting Officer Federal Aviation Administration Decision Support Systems Branch, AAQ-250 [email protected] Jaya Rangan, Contracting Office Representative Federal Aviation Administration Time Based Flow Management, AJM-221 [email protected]