Pilot Project on the S-121 standard for Maritime Limits and Boundaries

January 25, 2019

ADVANCED CONTRACT AWARD NOTICE

TITLE:

Pilot Project on the S-121 standard for Maritime Limits and Boundaries

INTRODUCTION:

The Government of Canada as represented by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO)/Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS) in collaboration with Natural Resource Canada/GeoConnections has a requirement for the provision of development work in the form of a pilot project on an implementation model, architecture and prototypes for sharing Maritime Limits and Boundaries (MLBs) interoperable with the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI), while adhering to the requirements of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The purpose of this Advance Contract Award Notice (ACAN) is to signal the government's intention to award a contract for these services to the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Before awarding a contract, however, the government would like to provide other suppliers with the opportunity to demonstrate that they are capable of satisfying the requirements set out in this Notice, by submitting a statement of capabilities during the 15 calendar day posting period.

If other potential suppliers submit a statement of capabilities during the 15 calendar day posting period that meet the requirements set out in the ACAN, the government will proceed to a full tendering process on either the government's electronic tendering service or through traditional means, in order to award the contract.

If no other supplier submits, on or before the closing date, a statement of capabilities meeting the requirements set out in the ACAN, a contract will be awarded to the pre-selected supplier.

Background:

The Government of Canada as represented by DFO/CHS in collaboration with Natural Resources Canada/GeoConnections has a requirement to further develop and implement the International Hydrographic Organisation (IHO) S-121 standard for Maritime Limits and Boundaries (MLBs) to better support MLBs exchange and maintenance in its CGDI and Arctic SDI.

DFO/CHS, as the official custodian of Canada’s MLBs undertook initial development of the S-121 Standard in collaboration with Australia. DFO/CHS also represents Canada as member State of the International Hydrographic Organisation (IHO) which oversees the development of marine standards. S-121 is part of the IHO S-100 suite of standards and is now supported by an international S-121 project team. After more than 5 years of development, S-121 is nearing completion but requires testing and implementation.

S-121 also includes elements of the Land Administration Domain Model (ISO 19152) which covers “basic information-related components of land administration (including those over water and land, and elements above and below the surface of the earth”[1]. The S-121’s capability to maintain legal information along with geospatial data is expandable to other administrative and legal objects defined in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as well as to other State-specific legal geospatial objects. This makes S-121 a suitable standard candidate for integration within the Arctic SDI and CGDI. DFO/CHS and NRCan/GeoConnections are key players in these infrastructures and decided to collaborate and join their efforts.

GeoConnections is a national multi-departmental program, managed by NRCan, with the mandate and responsibility to lead the Canadian Geospatial Data Infrastructure (CGDI) through the use of standards-based technologies and operational policies for data sharing and integration. CGDI supports the Government of Canada data strategy and ensures geospatial data is managed as a strategic asset for informed decision-making.

Support for the further development and implementation of S-121 is consistent with Government of Canada priorities, expressed through NRCan and DFO/CHS work plans in year 2018-19, which will advance the use of geospatial and Earth Observation science to make better-informed decisions on sustainable development in both land and marine domains.

One of the desired outcomes of this standard development endeavor is to better manage Canada’s MLBs and ensure that the legal aspects of the MLB data are preserved and well documented through a standards-based approach. Another desired outcome is to support the deposit of Canada’s official Maritime Limits and Boundaries with the secretary General of the UN by providing a data framework and exchange format that is validated by the UN.

On a practical level, the S-121 standard needs to be supported by software in use by the Government of Canada and be interoperable with its SDIs. Fulfilling these needs requires expert knowledge on the development of international standards and participation from the private sector. The approach being adopted to achieve this goal is an Open Geospatial Consortium pilot project.

The work will involve three phases:

1. An initial phase 0 where the selection process of expert participants to the pilot project will occur and where the communications plan for phase 1 of the pilot project will be established. 

B) A phase 1 where the operationalization and implementation of the S-121 Standard will be realized through commercial and open source geospatial software with the development of specialised toolsets.

C) An optional phase 2 where the interoperability and extendibility of the S-121 standard will be demonstrated and where support for textual output meant for legal use or compliance with UNCLOS requirements for deposit of MLBs will be built.

PURPOSE:

To provide public notification that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is considering awarding a contract to:

Open Geospatial Consortium

35 Main Street, Suite 5

Wayland, MA 01778-5037 USA

MINIMUM ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTS:

Any interested supplier must demonstrate by way of a statement of capabilities that it meets the following requirements.

• Demonstrate more than 20 years of experience as an organisation in the domains of innovation in ISO-compliant OGC Standards for geographic information and of conducting pilot projects on Standards that promote interoperability and geospatial enabling.
• Advanced knowledge and understanding of OGC Standards and international ISO-compliant Standards development (with at least 125 years of cumulative experience).
• Capability to coordinate and leverage the development, integration and implementation of the S-121 MLB Standard into and through several commercial software platforms in use by the Government of Canada.
• Ability to regroup and mobilize the combined expertise of the private, government and academic sectors at an international level in order to coordinate the implementation and operationalization of the S-121 standard.

JUSTIFICATION:

The OGC® is a non-profit international standards development organization with over 525 industry, government agencies, and university members participating in a consensus process to develop publicly available interface standards.

OGC is the only organisation that regroups all the expertise and the capacity to implement this S-121 standard pilot project in its entirety. All of the main software providers to the Government of Canada (as represented by Fisheries and Oceans Canada) are members of OGC.

OGC® Standards support interoperable technical solutions that “geo-enable” the Web, wireless and location-based services and mainstream information technology.

OGC is a well established and well recognized organisation with considerable experience leading successful pilot projects and testbeds in this domain. Its Marine Domain Working Group includes several worldwide experts on ISO standards, geospatial data and their marine application. All this expert capacity is of utmost importance for the success of the pilot project and the development and implementation of the S-121 standard.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY:

Ownership of any Foreground Intellectual Property arising out of the proposed contract will vest in the

Contractor. The delivered data encoded in the S-121 standard will remain the property of the Crown.

WORK REQUIREMENTS:

The work will involve the following tasks:

1. Design of an end-to-end operation scenario on how MLBs can be encoded as per S-121, how the encoding can be validated, how an exchange format can be produced and ingested by CGDI how the exchange format can be used to produce a human and machine readable output, and how the toolset can be extended. (Phase 1 and Phase 2)

2. Development of a communication plan that describes potential beneficiaries, identify communication activities and communication materials output. The intent of this communications plan is to increase the awareness and favor the implementation of S-121 as the base standard for MLBs and extendable applications fields within CGDI and FGP (Phase 1 and Phase 2).

3. Development of a set of public domain tools (hereafter referred to as “the toolset”) that enable the end-to-end operation scenario. The toolset will include various tools that address S-121 schema creation and relationship linking, MLBs encoding as per S-121 specifications (Phase 1), S-121 compliance verification and validation (Phase 1 and Phase 2), production of metadata (Phase 2), exchange of MLBs via standard geospatial object exchange format (Phase 1), and the transfer of the exchange format into human and machine consumable format (Phase 2).

4. Encoding in the S-121 format of various datasets specified by the Government of Canada. The encoding must support multi-lingual text and at a minimum both official languages of Canada: English and French (Phase 1).

5. Delivery of a generic GML format version of the zone and limits specified by the Government of Canada in accordance with the S-121 standard that is demonstrated to be importable in a number of software used by the Government of Canada and Canadian platforms including Canada’s CGDI and FGP. This GML file must also support multi-lingual text and at a minimum both official languages of Canada: English and French (Phase 1 and Phase 2).

6. Delivery of GML-type conversion files (XSLT) that allow production of a human readable output of a document that would prototype a legal document. These conversion files will also support multi-lingual text and at a minimum both official languages of Canada: English and French (Phase 2).

7. Demonstration of the toolset’s interoperability with Canada’s SDI, including Federal Geospatial Platform (FGP), Surveyor General of Canada data and with the Arctic SDI (Phase 2).

8. To demonstrate the toolset’s extendibility to its potential application in land domain and for the potential development of Canadian-specific legal geospatial objects with application to the marine cadastre and fisheries zones (Phase 2).

9. Document in an Engineering Report (ER) how an end to end operation scenario is enabled by the toolset, and how such a toolset is interoperable with CGDI and Arctic SDI. This report should be written and presented in such a way as to be accessible to maritime limits and boundaries domain experts and general public alike. The toolset extendibility should also be documented. This report must be available in an English and a French version (Phase 2).

DELIVERABLES:

As part of Phase 0 of the project, the following deliverables will be provided to the Government of Canada at set dates as part of a selection process and at the latest on March 28th,2019:

1. Request for proposal for participation to this OGC pilot project released by the contractor and published through the contractor’s portal and communications channels.
2. Completion of the selection process with production of a final selection list of participants delivered by the contractor via email to Government of Canada Project Authority.
3. Completion of the participation agreement process with a summary of the process and its end results delivered to Government of Canada Project Authority via email.
4.  A Microsoft Word document or PDF detailing the project communication plan for phase 1 delivered to Government of Canada Project Authority via email and through a link to the document in the contractor’s portal.

As part of Phase 1 of the project, the following deliverables will be provided to the Government of Canada on set dates with final delivery of this phase’s deliverables on September 26th, 2019:

1. A Microsoft Word document or PDF detailing the end-to-end operation scenario for phase 1.
2. The toolset specified above along with its validation tools and tests results from Phase 1 tasks enumerated above.
3. A project communication activity report and communication materials in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel document or PDF as specified above.
4. An interim report summary for Phase 1 accomplishments

As part of the optional phase 2 of the project, the following deliverables will be provided to the Government of Canada on set dates with final delivery of this phase’s deliverables on March 31st ,2020:

1. A Microsoft Word document or PDF detailing the end-to-end operation scenario relevant to phase 2 of the project.
2. A Microsoft Word document or PDF detailing the project communication plan relevant to phase 2.
3. The toolset relevant to Phase 2 as specified above as well as results from phase 2 tasks enumerated above.
4. A demonstration of the toolset’s interoperability with Government of Canada’s geospatial platforms and extendibility leading to a validation as described in the tasks above.
5. A project communication activity report and communication materials for phase 2 in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel document or PDF as specified above.
6. An Engineering report of the whole project in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel document or PDF

The proposed contract is from date of contract award to September 26, 2019 with an option to extend the contract for a phase 2 ending no later than March 31, 2020.

LEVEL OF EFFORT AND CONTRACT DURATION

For the provision of all professional services including all associated costs necessary to carry out the required work from date of contract award to September 26, 2019.

Please take note that the initial contract period is starting on date of contract award to September 26, 2019. The initial contract period deliverables in phase 0 must be completed by March 28, 2019. The initial contract period deliverables related to phase 1 must be completed by September 26, 2019.

This level of effort is only estimation made in good faith and is not to be considered in any way as a commitment from Canada.

DFO reserve the right to exercise one (1) additional six (6) months contract option period.

TRAVEL: There is no travel for this requirement.

VALUE:

The total firm lot price for the initial contract period (phase 0) is $30 000.00 CDN, for phase 1, it is $170,000.00 CDN and for the optional period (if exercised) $200,000.00 CDN for a total value of $400,000.00 CDN (GST extra).

SECURITY:

There is no security requirement for this contract, escort required at Government of Canada site(s) 

LOCATION OF WORK:

Work will be conducted at the contractor’s and its participating members own work sites.

Response:

Suppliers who consider themselves fully qualified and available to provide the services described herein, may submit a Statement of Capabilities in writing to the Contracting Officer identified in this Notice (See below) on or before the closing date. The Statement of Capabilities must clearly demonstrate how the supplier meets the requirement described herein.

The closing date and time for accepting written statements of capabilities challenging this requirement, is

February 13^th , 2019 at 2p.m. (EST). As it is intended to proceed in a timely manner, responses received after the closing date will not be considered.

Inquiries and statements of capabilities are to be directed to:

Stephane Julien

Contracting Officer

Procurement Hub – Ottawa Office
Telephone: (343)-548-5181
E-mail: Stephane.Julien2@dfo-mpo.gc.ca

Statement of Capabilities received on or before the closing date will be considered solely for the purpose of deciding whether or not to conduct a competitive procurement. Information provided will be used by DFO for technical evaluation purposes only, and will not to be construed as a proposal. Your written Statement of Capabilities must provide sufficient evidence that demonstrates it is capable of fulfilling the Fisheries and Oceans-North Coast, Resource Management(Sector)’s requirement. Suppliers who submit a Statement of Capabilities prior to the closing date and time will be notified in writing as to the Department’s decision whether it will continue with the aforementioned procurement, or proceed to a full bid solicitation process.

Should you have any questions concerning this requirement, please contact the identified Contracting Officer. The DFO file number, the Contracting Officer’s name and the closing date of the ACAN must appear on the outside of the envelope in block letters or, in the case of a facsimile transmission, on the covering page. Documents may be submitted in either official language of Canada.

APPLICABLE STATUTORY AND REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS

Applicability of the following policy requirements applicable to this ACAN process is the following applicable sections:

Policy INFORMATION

Applicable Exceptions to Soliciting Bids under the Government Contracts Regulations (GCRs) (Section 6):

Government Contracts Regulations (GCRs), 6d) only one person or firm is capable of performing the work

10.2.5 Exception (d) sets competitive bidding aside when only one person or firm can do the job. This exception is quite definitive and should be invoked only where patent or copyright requirements, or technical compatibility factors and technological expertise suggest that only one contractor exists. This exception should not be invoked simply because a proposed contractor is the only one known to management.

TRADE AGREEMENTS:

Applicable Limited Tendering Provision Under Subject to the following trade agreement:

• North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Article 1016: Limited Tendering Procedures: article (b).

• Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), Article 19.12: Limited Tendering: article b.

• Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA), Article 513: article a
• World Trade Organization Agreement on Government Procurement (WTO-AGP), Article XIII: Limited Tendering, article b
• Canada-Chile Free Trade Agreement, Article Kbis-09: Tendering Procedures, article b
• Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, Article 1409: Limited Tendering, article b
• Canada Panama Free Trade Agreement, Article 16.10: Limited Tendering, article b
• Canada-Peru Free Trade Agreement, Article 1409: Limited Tendering, article b
• Canada-Honduras Free Trade Agreement, Article 17.11: Limited Tendering, article (b)
• Canada–Ukraine Free trade agreement, Article10.13: Limited Tendering, article (b)

LANGUAGE OF WORK:

The language for conducting the work and communications will be English.

French translation of delivery material and reports is required from the contractor.

[1] International Standard ISO 19152:2012 Geographic information -- Land Administration Domain Model (LADM), Clause 1 <https://www.iso.org/obp/ui/#iso:std:51206:en&gt;