May 26, 2016 ADDENDUM 1 TO: Vendors FROM: Vianka Colin, Purchasing Director RE: REQUEST FOR INFORMATION RFI/FNW-15/16-97 TECHNOLOGY SOLUTION FOR DIVISION OF FOOD, NUTRITION AND WELLNESS This addendum is to provide all potential bidders with answers to questions submitted in reference to Request for Information number RFI/FNW-15/16-97. Deletions are struck through, and additions are highlighted. NOTE: June 7, 2016 June 14, 2016 @ 12:00 p.m. Responses to the RFI must be received by

FDACS by this date and time. Responses will be opened at FDACS's Purchasing Office, SB-8, Mayo Building, 407 South Calhoun Street, Tallahassee, Florida, 32399-0800.

Questions / Answers 1. Please provide an example regarding the types of food products to be included (e.g. DoD fresh

commodities, USDA commodities, processor end products, other).

Food products to be included on a calendar style menu template can come from a variety of sources, including but not limited to Department of Defense (DoD) fresh commodity product, USDA commodity product (direct delivery or processed), commercial product or any other approved product used in school food service programs. Please refer to ATTACHMENT I of the RFI for additional examples.

2. Is it expected that this system will share any information/interact with the USDA’s WBSCM

system? If so, in what way?

Ideally, this system or solution is expected to interact with USDA’s Web Based Supply Chain Management System (WBSCM) so that information from WBSCM can be uploaded manually or automatically for school(s) to compare multiple food products and prices. This project will not replace WBSCM or other order systems used by school food service programs; rather, it will be used to provide better visibility to the school’s food service personnel (i.e. food service directors or cafeteria managers) during order placement and inventory management processes.

3. Please clarify “ordering of individual food products”. Does it refer to ordering raw

commodities for processing diversion or processor end products?

No, the “ordering of individual food products” refers to school food service personnel (i.e. food service directors or cafeteria managers) ordering commercial food products (i.e. pasta) from a food service vendor (i.e. produce or commercial food distributor) in order to meet the minimum menu requirements set by the USDA, the school district or the recipient agency (RA).

ADDENDUM 1 May 26, 2016 Page 2 4. Does tracking of entitlement funding refer to USDA planned assistance level (e.g. entitlement

based on meal counts for purchasing USDA commodities)?

No; tracking of entitlement funding only refers to the tracking of funds available either in the DoD Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program or the Florida Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Pilot program.

5. Is it expected that, within this system, access will be given to recipient agencies (e.g. food

service directors)?

The system or solution will need to be accessible by FDACS personnel, Florida school food service personnel (i.e. food service directors or cafeteria managers) and food service vendors (i.e. produce or commercial food distributors). Please refer to page 3 of the RFI and page 6 of ATTACHMENT I for additional information on system access.

6. Does the data base of individual food products currently exist? If not, what would be the

source of the data? Yes; the food products database would be a catalog of available items from a vendor. A vendor (i.e.

commercial food distributor, produce distributor, etc.) would need the ability to manage their own catalog of available products. Responses to this RFI should address potential solutions for developing a database or other similar mechanism for storing and displaying food product information.

7. Please provide more information about the external systems and multiple sources referenced

in Item d, regarding data elements. Please see the attached document (ATTACHMENT I) for more information about the external systems and

multiple sources referenced in the RFI. 8. Please provide more information about how and where vendor information, including prices, is

collected? Where is the source data coming from? Each school food authority (i.e. school district, charter school, etc.) would have different vendors that

would need access to the system. Each vendor (i.e. commercial food distributor, produce distributor, etc.) should have the ability to manage their own catalog of available food products including price, quantity and product specifications in the system.

9. Are the vendors referred to State-approved in some way?

No, vendors are approved and contracted at the school food authority (SFA) level. 10. What mechanism is used to upload information from the various systems referred to in the

RFI? In what formats is the data?

Responses to this RFI should address potential solutions for uploading information to a data repository. While not limited to these file types, the data can be in Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access format.

11. In order to allow bidders to review and process the answers to questions, would the state

consider an extension to the due date?

This is a request for information (RFI) only; therefore, no bidding is involved. FDACS is granting an extension such that no responses to this RFI will be accepted after 12:00 p.m. on June 14, 2016.

If you have any questions regarding this addendum, please feel free to contact this office at (850) 617-7181.

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K12 Foodservice

This is one of two web-based food inventory reporting systems. The scope of this

model does not include the transaction tracking portion of the software, but is focused

on the inventory (pounds) reports that are available in the system. K12 is an inventory

tracking service paid by the food manufacturers (processors). School districts provide

starting inventory data to initiate the annual tracking reports.

For manufacturers or processors utilizing K12, USDA food items are processed into

finished end-products (i.e. bulk chicken into chicken nuggets) and are tracked and

reported for use by the school food authority (SFA) which has directed USDA food to

that manufacturer. The consumption of the USDA food is based on the Summary End

Product Data Schedule (SEPDS) which provides detailed information involving those

food items or raw material. SFA use of K12 and the reports available through that

service is voluntary.

http://www.k12foodservice.com/

There are a standard set of reports that may be used to extract data from the K12

system. By far, the most useful report is The Kitchen Sink. It includes inventory and

usage data for each period of the current school year, as well as the dollars associated

with this food. Reports from K12, such as The Kitchen Sink, can be ran and exported

into Microsoft Excel.

Key fields in The Kitchen Sink report for this project:

For this report, a data record is a quantity of a specific USDA commodity linked to a

specific SFA that is present at a specific manufacturer.

Manufacturer: The full, formal name of the manufacturer that is holding the raw

material inventory in real or virtual form.

RA Number: This is the standard recipient agency (RA), or SFA identification number

used in all USDA food documentation. It is in the standard five digit format with a

leading zero. For data purposes, this should be converted to a text format. The Florida

State account is designated as FL in this field. Reference – PL; RA Nbr, WBSCM; RA

ID

Recipeint Agency: The standard name of the recipient associated with the RA

Number indicated. Spelling error acknowledged; please see notes section below.

Status: Acceptable entries are Active or Inactive. All districts are shown as Active.

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Account Type: This indicates the manner of processing and invoicing for this SFA.

Entries will be either Fee for Service (FFS) or Net Off Invoicing (NOI). This field is

retained for reference purposes only and is not used in any of the inventory

computations.

COOP: This field indicates the buying cooperative of which the SFA may be member.

Acceptable entries include the Coop name, but may also be None.

School Year: The school year which is currently in session. This field is relevant if

combining multiple years of data. The usage fields in the report use generic month

names without reference to a year. This minimizes K12’s maintenance of the report

formats. However, if YOY consumption comparisons are to be done, field names will

have to be altered.

Commodity: This field contains the USDA standard six digit unique identification of the

food item for the data record. For data analysis purposes, this should be converted to a

text field. Reference – PL; Material Nbr, WBSCM; Material

Carry-Over LBS: This field contains the quantity of food – in pounds – that was

brought forth from the previous school year. It is the base data element in all the

inventory computations. Negative entries are allowed if the SFA was overdrawn on

that specific commodity at that specific manufacturer.

SY Allocated LBS: This is the quantity of food – in pounds – that is slated to come into

this manufacturer under this SFA’s account for the school year. It is not designated as

to when this material will be arriving, only that it is during the current school year. This

leads to the unacceptable practice of fronting inventory that does not yet exist at the

manufacturer. Negative values are allowed here as sweeps or other transfers may

create a negative figure, representing a reduction of available inventory.

Total SY Allocated LBS: This field is the sum of the Carry-Over LBS and the SY

Allocated LBS fields.

YTD Usage LBS: This is the total of the monthly usage fields in pounds for that school

year. This will be shown as a negative number.

Balance LBS: This is the Total SY Allocated LBS minus the YTD Usage LBS.

Negative amounts are allowed in this field.

Additional notes:

With any data extraction and consolidation process, utilization of the data fields in “as-

is” condition is critical to minimizing downstream modifications and minimizes data

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translation errors. Therefore, all field names are used exactly as downloaded from the

K12 system. As an example of how inconsistent naming conventions can cause

confusion - in the Carry Over Worksheet, “RA Name” is the field name used to

represent the same data as in the “Recipient Agency” field in The Kitchen Sink report.

Other examples are referenced within the data dictionary.

The relationships mentioned above are critical to management of the data. The

combination of the RA Number, the USDA item number (Commodity) and the

Manufacturer creates a unique record for analysis purposes.

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Processor Link

This is one of two web-based food inventory reporting systems. The scope of this

model does not include the transaction tracking portion of the software, but is focused

on the inventory (pounds) reports that are available in the system. Processor Link (PL)

is an inventory tracking service paid by the food manufacturers (processors). School

districts provide starting inventory data to initiate the annual tracking reports.

For manufacturers or processors utilizing PL, USDA food items are processed into

finished end-product (i.e. bulk chicken into chicken nuggets) are tracked and reported

for use by the SFA which has directed USDA food to that manufacturer. The

consumption of the USDA food is based on the Summary End Product Data Schedule

(SEPDS) which provides detailed information involving those food items or raw material.

SFA use of PL and their reports available through that service is voluntary.

The primary report to be utilized for inventory purposes is the Donated Food Account

Report. As with K12, the report choices are driven by manufacturer and are not

conducive to analyzing commodities across manufacturers. This requires an

independent model to allow different types of analyses to be performed.

The data from this report must be extracted by processor/manufacturer if run via the

Reports section. All manufacturers can be extracted at one time if the Export Current

Account Balances for All Customers Selection is made from the home screen. The

fields are basically the same as those used for K12 inventory analysis.

Processor: The full, formal name of the manufacturer that is holding the raw material

inventory in real or virtual form.

Manufacturer Abbreviation: This is a three character field that is used by PL to

represent the processor. It may be that that this is used internally to their system for

building reports, but it will not be used in this data structure in order to avoid naming

confusion.

RA Nbr: This is the standard recipient agency (RA) identification number used in all

USDA food documentation. The standard five digit format with a leading zero is

preceded by a “FL-“. The prefix causes this field to be in a text format. The Florida

State account is designated as FL-0000 in this field. Reference – K12; RA Number,

WBSCM; RA ID

School District: The standard name of the recipient associated with the RA Nbr

indicated.

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Material Nbr: This field contains the USDA standard six digit unique identification of

the food item for the data record. For data analysis purposes, this should be converted

to a text field. K12; Commodity, WBSCM; Material.

Carryover: This field contains the quantity of food – in pounds – that was brought forth

from the previous school year. It is the base data element in all the inventory

computations. Negative entries are allowed if the SFA was overdrawn on that specific

commodity at that specific manufacturer.

Allocation, Pending Allocation: These fields represent the quantity of food – in

pounds – that is slated to come into this manufacturer under this SFA’s account for the

school year. It is not designated as to when this material will be arriving, only that it is

during the current school year. This leads to the unacceptable practice of fronting

inventory that does not yet exist at the manufacturer. Negative values are allowed here

as sweeps or other transfers may create a negative figure, representing a reduction of

available inventory.

Transferred: This field shows the quantity, in pounds, of food transferred into or out of

the SFA. Negative figures are allowed in order to properly represent a net decrease in

the pounds that are available for use by the SFA at this processor.

Available: Processor Link definition: Available value is the sum of the Carryover, all Allocations and Transfer values. It must be further clarified that this is not the poundage

that is currently available for use. It should be considered as the beginning inventory for

the current school year.

Shipped Manufacturer: The quantity, in pounds, of food that has been shipped to

another manufacturer.

Shipped Distributor: The quantity, in pounds, of food that has been shipped to a

distributor in the form of a finished product. This represents the consumption of USDA

food products based on the SEPDS amounts and the quantity of cases of product that

has been shipped. This can be audited/monitored in the shipping and transaction

reports. NOTE: Although negative figures may be seen in the Shipped fields, the

representation of consumption is shown as a positive amount.

Ending Balance: Processor Link definition: The Balance value is Available value less the two Shipped values. To clarify, this is the amount of USDA pounds that are currently able

to be utilized for future orders. Note that the screen name of the field is Balance, but

the downloaded name is Ending Balance.

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SEPDS or Bill of Material information format:

Using the Product Catalog Report, a listing can be obtained of all manufacturers and the

districts to which they ship finished product. By clicking on any of the records, the

products configured for that SFA will be displayed.

By clicking on the manufacturer item number or product code, the full SEPDS

information can be obtained – Donated pounds per case, net case weight, nutrition

information, USDA material number, effective date, etc. However, there is not always a

servings per case value or the unit of measure is not in ounces. Additionally, the full

data set required to perform all the computations and forecasting related to servings is

not in a downloadable format.

To create a full data set of the consumption portion of the model, the serving size will

have to be 1) calculated for all products and 2) converted to ounces. This will align all

data with the SEPDS sheets and the SFA consumption analyses that need to be

designed.

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WBSCM

The Web Based Supply Chain Management (WBSCM) system is an integrated,

internet-based commodity acquisition, distribution, and tracking system built on

Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing (SAP) commercial software and

an Oracle platform. WBSCM supports domestic and international food and nutrition

programs, administered by four United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Agencies, such as the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). USDA allows the State

Distributing Agency (i.e. FDACS) user access, and the SDA rolls down this access to

the school food authority (SFA).

The goal is to create a forward looking model of on-order that can be used by both

FDACS and SFAs to evaluate the effective of orders placed for USDA foods.

From the standard USDA food Open Order report, ran in WBSCM, the following fields

can be extracted:

Req/Redist. Status: This field indicates if the line item represents a valid order. For

purposes of an on-order assessment - Applied, Approved by SDA or Ready for

Approval are the acceptable entries that represent orders to be assessed.

Sold-To Party: This is a seven digit series of numbers used as a unique identifier for a

recipient agency. It is a different number from the RA ID number and is used for

different purposes. Ref – Manufacturer table; Sold-To NUM

Sold-To Name: The standard name of the recipient associated with the RA Number

indicated.

RA ID: This is the standard recipient agency (RA) identification number used in all

USDA food documentation. It is in the standard five digit format with a leading zero. For

data purposes, this should be converted to a text format. The Florida State account is

blank in this field. Reference – K12; RA Number, PL; RA Nbr.

Ship-To Party: This is a seven character unique identification number for a designated

recipient location.

Ship-To Name: This field contains the text description associated with the numeric

identification in the Ship-To Party field.

Material: This field contains the USDA standard six digit unique identification of the

food item for the data record. For data analysis purposes, this should be converted to a

text field. PL; Material Nbr, K12; Commodity.

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Material Desc.: This is the standard USDA descriptive text associated with the six digit

material number. It is in a normal hierarchy format and includes the form of packaging

of the item.

Prod. Hierarchy: The product classification description per USDA. The verbiage is in

increasing order of specificity and it should be noted that “/” is used as a delimiter

multiple times within the field. There are normally three to four levels of descriptive text

which may include packaging type and/or storage requirement.

Requested Del. Date: This may be the date that the SFA requested the material to be

delivered or it may have been changed by FDACS or a manufacturer.

Program: For purposes of the report being utilized, this field will be populated with

NSLP.

Entitlment/Bonus Ind: This field indicates if the material is being provided via the

standard entitlement process or if it was offered to the SFAs as bonus food. If the

designation is “ENTITLE-SY##”, the cost of the food will be charged against the SFAs

available entitlement funds. If the entry in the field is “BONUS-SY##”, then the SFA will

not be charged. Spelling noted.

Requested Qty.: This is the amount of this specific USDA food item that has been

ordered. This field must be linked with the Sales Unit field (next) in order for this

number to be relevant. This number may be negative to represent order lines that have

a Req/Redist. Status of Applied or Cancelled.

Sales Unit: This field contains the unit of measure related to the Requested Qty. field.

USDA food will be order in either CS (case) or LB (pound) units. Case is a variable

weight based on the specific product and package size. Pound is that standard unit of

weight and is used for products ordered in bulk form.

Net Dollar Value: Although it will not be used for the inventory portion of this exercise,

this field represents the value of the food being ordered in this data record.

Sales Order Status: This indicates the current phase of the line item. Over 99% of the

entries are covered by: Approved by SDA, Approved by SpAgency, Cancelled, On

Invitation, Order Received or Purchased. If the order has been received, the pounds

may be added to the carry over quantity to indicate a true amount of USDA food that

could be considered the maximum for the school year. If there has been no drawdown,

this may indicate the current available amount of that USDA food item belonging to that

district at that destination (which may be Brown Box storage).

Date Received: This field should be populated only if the PO line item has been

received at the end destination. Standard date format.

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Field to be created –

RQ MONTH: This is to be manually created by extracting the month from the

Requested Del. Date field. This naming convention follows the existing RQ WEEK

format. The Week will not be used for this process, but the month is important in order

to sync up with the current ordering and menuing activities occurring at the SFAs.

Use of the date fields from this report is critical to the time-phasing concepts we want to

introduce to the SFAs. This will come in later segments of the program. Spreading the

inventory out over the school year – receipts and consumption – will help the SFAs

visualize the food and money flows over the year. RQ QTR has also been suggested

as a possible time aggregation field. This can be easily added to any established

date/time table being created.

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Independent Data Sources

There are several processors that do not utilize K12 or PL to report inventory or to

represent the SEPDS sheets in their respective formats. This data is communicated as

needed (monthly at a minimum) to the districts that have USDA food at their location.

This is transmitted via email and may be in a text, spreadsheet or pdf format.

Minimal data elements, formal formats/definitions necessary for an integrated solution:

USDA food item number

Current inventory on hand

Inventory date

SY starting inventory

Finished product inventory attributable to a specific SFA (product code, case qty)

Inventory consumed in current period

Inventory consumed SYTD

Finished products being produced for SFA

Location of inventory

Receipt information (qty, date)

Transfer information (qty, date, sender/receiver)